from Verse One Hundred TenBenevolence is something people admire, duty is something people esteem. When those whom people admire and esteem lose their lives and their countries, it is because they did not comprehend the times. So those who know benevolence and duty but do not know strategy appropriate to the time do not attain the Way.~ Wen-tzu: Understanding the Mysteries ~
If someone develops a great idea, but doesn't know a way to promote or market it, then what good is it?Think about it. What if someone discovered a cure for cancer, but didn't share it with anyone else? The end result would be the same as no discovery at all.
We each have a responsibility to try to extend the virtues of the Way beyond our own separate sphere to include that of all humanity. While it certainly must begin at the individual level, a true person of Tao does not allow it stop at the perceived boundaries of the self.
This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.
The master knows he is all of humanity.
ReplyDeleteHe changes nothing.
He does by not-doing.
Yeah... but first, it is not an obligation, we don't have any responsability at all, that's the ego's idea of being needed; if one has the 'idea' that one has the responsability it is not Tao, it is forced, is half of the action, is incomplete. If we do things naturally, is Tao. Action with no-intention, pure wisdom in motion.
ReplyDeleteAnd second, sometimes, in some cases the best strategy is to have not a strategy. And some 'things' must 'burn' by themselves in order to gain the maurity of wisdom, not the maturity of knowledge which could prevent at some point things using 'plans' borrowed from other cases, but cannot change the core of a unknown/different kind of problem.
Anyhow... there's no a standard rule for every case. Not even in nature.
And about the 'way': 'If the path before you is clear you're probably on someone else's' by Joe Campbell.
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(This reminded me of Nikola Tesla, good guy surrounded by scum)