Tao Upanishad #10

All that Lao Tzu says seems upside-down. It appears inverted to us. The reason is not that Lao Tzu is upside-down; the reason is that we are all standing upside-down.

A disciple of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, was near death. In his final moments his friends asked, Do you have any last wish? He said, I have only one wish: on this earth I stood on my feet; in the other world I want to stand on my head. The disciples were troubled. They said, We do not understand. Do you want to stand upside-down in the next world? Chuang Tzu said, What you call standing upright I found so upside-down that in the next life I want to experiment with standing on my head. Perhaps that will be the true upright.

Lao Tzu says: those who know, the awakened ones, in their governance fill people’s bellies, they satisfy hunger, but they make their minds empty. They see that the bodily needs are fully met, that the body is cared for; but they work so that the mind does not become ambitious.

Ordinarily, we will let the body be cut, even sacrificed, so that the mind’s cravings can be fulfilled. We are ever ready to place the body on the altar of the mind’s desires. Our whole life is the murder of the body to serve the mind’s lusts. This we call wisdom. But Lao Tzu says: the bellies of people should be full, but the mind empty.

What does it mean for the mind to be empty? And what does it mean for the belly to be full? It means: let people be healthy in the body, well-nourished and strong, but let their minds be blank, empty, a void. The peak of health is this: a full body and an empty mind.

But we all overfill the mind. Our whole life is an effort to stuff the mind. We cram it with thoughts, desires, ambitions. Slowly the body becomes very small and the mind very big. The body is dragged along behind the mind.

Lao Tzu says: let the mind be empty. He gives examples everywhere. He asks: what is a vessel? Do you call the clay walls a pot, or do you call the empty space inside the pot the pot?

We ordinarily call the walls the pot. Lao Tzu says, the wall by itself is useless; the emptiness within is what is useful. No one will buy a pot that is full.

Is a house the walls, or the empty space within the walls? We generally call the walls the house; when we think of making a house, we think of building walls. Lao Tzu says, your understanding is inverted. The house is the empty space within the walls, because no one lives in the walls; one lives in the emptiness. If that emptiness is filled up, the house is useless.

So the body is only the wall. It should be strong. Within, the mind is the palace; it should be empty. And within that palace the human consciousness, the Atman, is the resident. Only if the mind is empty can the resident live well; only then is there space. If the mind is too crammed, the situation is like having a house so cluttered that you sleep outside, because inside there is no room.

Imagine a man with a great mansion, but so much stuff that there is no way inside; he lives out in the veranda. That is how we all are. The mind is so full there is no space for the Atman to dwell; it must wander outside. Whenever you go within you will not find the master; you will find the mind. Some thought, some tendency, some desire. Everything is so crammed. You enter the house and find the furniture, not the owner.

Lao Tzu says: the wise say, let the body be full, nourished; let the mind be empty. Let the mind be as if it is not. Lao Tzu says, an empty mind means no-mind, as if there is no mind at all, no talk of mind within. Only in that empty mind does the supreme art of life appear, and life’s ultimate vision begins to unfold.

They strengthen their bones, but they weaken their will.

They make the bones strong, but they make the will, the resolve, feeble, thin. We strengthen will. We say to people, Have you no will-power? If you have no will, you are spineless, not a man at all! But Lao Tzu says: the wise diminish will. Strange indeed. We teach every child to develop will. The very intelligent minds of this century insist that man should intensify will.

Nietzsche wrote an extraordinary book: Will to Power. He thinks the single goal of human life is the resolve for power: how to attain power. The more willful the man, the greater he is. Carlyle, Emerson, all these Western thinkers emphasize will: make your will strong, an unshakable stone wall; let the world tremble, do not you. Break, perish, but do not bend.

Lao Tzu says: let the bones be strong; let the will be completely attenuated, as if it is not. Why? Because a human being stands before two choices: either will or surrender. Will strengthens the ego; surrender melts and dissolves it. He who walks the path of will arrives at himself. He who walks the path of surrender arrives at Paramatma. To reach Paramatma you will have to let yourself go. If you want to fortify the I, you must grasp and hold.

So our arrangement is: the body may perish, the bones may break, but the will must not break. This we call the straight way. We ask, How weak are you? Can you not fight, not struggle? Have you no strength? Lao Tzu says: this strength should not be there. Not that you will break but never bend; he says: be such that you do not even know when you have bent. Let the wind not even notice that you resisted, that you offered the slightest opposition. As the wind comes, you have already bowed, like blades of grass. Stiff trees stand rigid, clash with the storm; the tender plants bend. And the lovely thing is that the tender plants defeat the storm, while the big trees die in it.

Lao Tzu says: if you fight, you will lose. Because you do not know with whom you are fighting. Every individual who fights is fighting the infinite. That which dwells all around you, that is what you fight. Do not fight. Do not even raise the question of fighting. Do not hold yourself so separate that you feel you must fight. Fall. Flow with the storm. Cooperate with it. The storm will not even know how it passed you by. When it is gone you will find it did not touch you. Not an inch of your strength is lost, because you did not fight. And there is no question of defeat, because the storm that came is of the same whole to which you belong.

You thought it came to fight. It did not come to fight. Because of your will you interpreted it as an enemy. You were eager to fight; thus you interpreted. Otherwise no interpretation was needed.

Understand this a little. Is there really any enemy? Or do we interpret that someone is an enemy? And why do we interpret? We interpret because we want to fight. If I do not want to fight at all, one thing is certain: I will not interpret that there is an enemy. If I want to fight, I will manufacture the enemy. All enmity is manufactured by will. All conflict is manufactured by will.

Lao Tzu says: become such as if you are not. As a sword passes through air. The air is never cut, because it does not resist. Pass a sword through water, and the water is not cut; before the blade can cut, the water has already joined. Because water does not resist. Become like air and water. Let the cutting force pass through. If you do not fight, you will find that the moment it has passed, you are whole again. You did not break, you were not fragmented. If you fight, you will break.

We give honor to will. Lao Tzu speaks in the precise opposite way. We honor will because our entire structure of life is built on ego and ambition. We must run, reach somewhere, gain something: money, fame, status, respectability. We must snatch from some; we must prevent others from snatching from us. Our life is a struggle. Our way of seeing is the way of conflict; never bend. If we bend, we feel guilty.

Lao Tzu says: this way of thinking about life leads into disease, into illness. Become as if you are not.

In that being like non-being, there is no will. In Japan, the whole art of judo and jujutsu is built on this very formula of Lao Tzu. To understand that will help you understand Lao Tzu.

If I punch you, your natural reaction seems to be to resist my punch. Resistance takes two forms: if you get the chance you block my fist, or you raise your own fist in answer. If no chance, still as the blow hits your body, resistance rises in your nerves. Your muscles, your tendons stiffen to prevent the punch from entering deep. Your bones harden. Your body tightens and strains, making a wall so the blow cannot get inside.

Judo’s art is exactly the opposite. And no art of war surpasses it. A little knower of judo can floor your greatest wrestler in a moment. And he will floor him by not fighting. Judo says: when a punch comes, drink it. Cooperate with it. Do not fight it. When a blow is coming at you, become like a pillow. Let it land and be swallowed.

Understand the difference between resisting a blow and drinking it. The blow is launched at you, you cooperate and drink it. Do not fight at any level.

And judo says: the hand of the puncher will break. Because he is punching with great force and great will; if you simply give way, his condition becomes like the man who is pulling a rope with all his might while I am pulling too, and then I let go; I do not pull, I do not resist; I say, If you wish to pull, take it. You will fall.

Judo says: do not strike. When someone strikes, become his ally, do not take him as an enemy. Take him as if he were part of your own body. Soon the striker will tire and be troubled. His energy will thin. Every blow throws energy outward. Your energy is not thinned. Rather, judo says, the energy that leaves him with each blow, you drink too; it becomes yours. Within five minutes a proper knower of judo defeats any kind of opponent. Defeat is not even needed; he is defeated by himself.

There is a famous judo tale. A great swordsman, unmatched in Japan, returned home at two in the night. As he lay down on his bed a big rat emerged from the wall. Anger flared. From the bed he tried to scare it, but the rat sat unmoved. Strange indeed! Great men run when he threatens them, and this rat! In such rage he grabbed his wooden practice sword lying nearby and struck at the rat. He struck with such fury that the rat shifted an inch and the sword hit the floor and shattered into pieces. The rat sat where it was. Now he was shaken: this is no ordinary rat. That his stroke could miss it! He could not imagine it.

He brought his real sword. But when one brings the real sword to kill a rat, his defeat is already certain. To fetch a real sword for a rat! He was afraid. The rat was extraordinary. His hand trembled. He felt that if the real sword broke, nothing could wipe away this disgrace. He struck with great care. Those who know say: the more carefully you aim, the more you miss. Care means fear within, anxiety, trembling. When there is no fear within, no anxiety, one does not act carefully; one simply acts, and it happens. He struck. In life he had raised and swung his sword many times and had never missed. For a moment his hand trembled; when the sword came down it broke into pieces. The rat had moved just a little.

This was beyond the swordsman’s understanding. He lost his wits. The story says: he sent word through the village, If anyone has a powerful cat, bring it. Next day the richest man sent his cat. She had killed many rats. But the swordsman was afraid, and the rich man was afraid too: when a master’s sword has broken, how far can a cat succeed? The cat had also received the news. The swordsman was great; the rat was no ordinary rat. The cat had killed many rats, yet she was terrorized by this rat. She could not sleep the whole night. In the morning she set out with full preparation. On the way she made twenty-five plans. Sometimes she thought, What am I doing? Rats run away at my mere sight, and here I am making plans! Yet planning seemed prudent; the rat appeared extraordinary.

At the door the cat paused and peered within. Seeing the rat, she trembled. The rat sat there. Fragments of the sword lay nearby. Before the cat could advance, the rat stepped forward. This cat had seen many rats. But a rat that advances upon a cat! She fled at once.

The swordsman’s courage collapsed. News went to the emperor: send the palace cat; there is no other way. The emperor’s cat, surely the finest in the land, went. But what was to happen, happened. As she set out she told the emperor, You should be ashamed to send me for such a petty rat. I am no ordinary cat! She said this to shield herself. The reports had reached her: the rat advanced, the cat retreated; the sword broke; the warrior was defeated; the rat’s terror spread across the village; the rat was extraordinary. To protect herself she told the king, For such an ordinary rat you send me! The emperor said, The rat is not ordinary. I too fear that you will return.

And so it was. She lunged hard, missed, struck the wall, bloodied her mouth, and came back. The rat remained where it was.

In that village a fakir had a cat. The emperor’s cat said, There is no other way; the fakir’s cat is our guru; from her we learned our art; perhaps she knows. She was the master cat. She was summoned. All the village’s cats gathered. Five hundred cats crowded around, for it was a miracle. If the fakir’s cat failed, cats would be defeated by rats forever.

The rat sat in its place. As the fakir’s cat was about to enter, all the cats advised her: Do this, do that, try this. The fakir’s cat said, Fools, if you make a plan to catch a rat you will never catch one. Planning means the rat has already frightened you. It is only a rat! We will catch it. No art is needed to catch it; being a cat is our art. I will not plan.

The warrior begged, Think a little; this is the last chance. If you fail I will have to leave my house. I can no longer enter that room; it is not even right to look upon that rat now. It sits there in its place. The cat said, What kind of talk is this? Be quiet.

The cat went in and came out with the rat. The cats swarmed around. How did you catch it? What was the trick? The master cat said, My being a cat is enough. I am a cat and that is a rat. Rats have always cooperated, and cats have always caught them. It is our nature: I am a cat, it is a rat; it will be caught and I will catch it. You tried to be cats; that is your mistake. You brought mind in; that is your trouble.

Zen masters have told this story for hundreds of years. The master cat was the poor fakir’s cat. She did not have the physique of the emperor’s cat; no strength, no sword. She was an ordinary cat. But she said, My nature, its nature; nothing unusual has happened.

Teachers of jujutsu and judo say: there is a law of nature. When a fist is thrown at you, if you resist, two forces clash and both are depleted. If you do not resist, the force flows from one side only; on the other side a hollow is formed; the force is assimilated. The other person becomes troubled. He attacks with a plan, while you, unplanned, silently drink the attack. If such emptiness is formed within that there is no resistance to any attack, because there is no will left to resist, then in that emptiness the greatest power of existence manifests.

Lao Tzu says: let will be weakened. Which means: let will be zero. Become void within; do not try to become anything. That cat said: you are all trying to be cats! Does one have to try to be a cat? You are cats. Your trying is what puts you in trouble. You are busy planning attacks.

The judo teacher teaches: do not attack; only wait for the attack. When it comes, watch only one thing: absorb it.

If someone abuses you and you absorb the abuse, the abuser grows weak. Try and see. He who drinks the abuse silently — drinks it, not suppresses it — not repression but absorption; as if someone gave a gift of love, you drink it, assimilate it; you become a hollow. The energy a man expends in abusing becomes yours.

When the abuser finds no abuse rising in response he is thrown into such turmoil you cannot measure. If you return abuse, he is not upset. He expected abuse in return. When you do not return it, he is disturbed. He seeks an insult with twice the weight, attacks harder. But if you know the art of drinking, you go on absorbing his blows and weakening him. He falls by his own weakness.

Judo says: the enemy falls by his own weakness; there is no need to bring him down.

From Lao Tzu’s aphorisms judo developed. And from the meeting of these aphorisms with Buddha’s insight, Zen was born. Buddha had said — in many senses and on many planes — I fought my inner enemies and could not win; when I stopped fighting them and dropped even the idea of victory, I found that I was already victorious. When these aphorisms of Lao Tzu came into harmony with Buddha’s insights, a wholly new science came into being: the science of winning without fighting. No struggle, yet victory. No will, yet success.

We cannot even think this way. We think: where there is will, there is success; where there is struggle, there is victory; where there is war, garlands of triumph are offered. Lao Tzu seems inverted. He says: let the bones be strong, but the will be zero.

Why distinguish between bones and will?

If I attack you, your bones should be strong enough to drink the attack. Bones means: the structure in you that absorbs should be strong enough to absorb. But within there should be no resisting ego that rises to fight.

Remember: to fight does not require as strong a body as to drink a fight requires. Even a weak body can fight. Often it happens that the body is weak and the mind is mad, and one fights a lot. Bodily weakness is no obstacle to fighting. In fact, the weak body is very eager to fight.

I have heard: when an American first landed in Hong Kong, he saw two Chinese men fighting at the harbor. He watched for ten minutes as they brought their faces nose to nose, raised their fists to each other’s noses, hurled abuses, shouted loudly — but no blow landed. He was puzzled: what kind of fighting is this? He asked his guide, What is happening? He could not understand: this is fighting? What kind of fighting? Fists come so close, and then return. Is this some game? The guide said, This is the Chinese way of fighting.

He said, But the fight is not happening at all. For ten minutes I have watched: when enemies are so near and the fist so close, why does it return?

The guide said: for two and a half thousand years there has been an idea in this land that he who strikes first is weak — he is defeated. So both wait. The crowd waits too: who will lose? The sign of defeat is the first blow. They provoke each other to strike. Now let us see who loses. And the strange rule is: he who strikes first has lost.

This is Lao Tzu’s notion: the weak strikes first.

Yesterday I mentioned Machiavelli. There are many parallel statements between Machiavelli and Lao Tzu. Machiavelli says: the best way to defend is to attack first. If you want security, attack first.

He is not wrong. He is right in the sense: do not delay; attack first. If the weak attacks first, according to Machiavelli, he may gain a chance to win; he has gotten ahead. Machiavelli’s message is for the weak. Security is the weak man’s concern.

Lao Tzu says: when the attack comes, drink it. There is no question of attacking — not first, not even later. Internalize it.

Let it be so that the body is healthy, the mind void, the bones strong, the walls of the house sturdy — and within the master is as if not there. Then Lao Tzu says, the perfect man is born.

This seems inverted to us all. It will appear inverted because our measures are opposite to Lao Tzu. We will say: it is weakness, cowardice, that someone attacks and you do not answer; that life calls to battle and you stand still; that storms challenge and you lie down; that the river starts to carry you and you go with it instead of swimming against it.

Nasruddin’s neighbors ran and told him: Run quickly! Your wife has fallen in the river! The flood is strong, the rains are on, the current fierce. She will soon reach the sea. Run! Nasruddin ran. A big crowd gathered. He dived into the river and began to swim upstream — against the current. The river is racing toward the sea, and he swims toward the source. The current is strong; he cannot move. People shouted, Mad Nasruddin! No one who falls into the river flows upstream. Your wife must have gone downstream! He said, Pardon me, I know my wife better than you. She has always done the opposite. She can never flow downstream. I know her well. We have been together thirty years. If you say that everyone who falls in the river flows downstream, my wife will have gone upstream.

Between Lao Tzu and us there is just such an inverted relationship. That is why Lao Tzu is hard to understand. Our logic and his logic are opposite. We say cowardice; Lao Tzu says strength. He says: the greater the power, the less the eagerness to fight. If power is complete, there is no fight at all.

Consider: we stand at God’s door and abuse Him. No answer comes. The atheist has been refuting for thousands of years. Not once has it happened that God spoke even once: I am. Such a long debate! He could at least once have thought: this will seem cowardly, let me say once: I am. No. He is silent.

Lao Tzu says: He is silent because He is supreme power. There is no resistance there. If the atheist says, You are not, even from God the echo comes, Not. He cooperates with that too. No opposition even there. The greater the energy, the less the resistance.

I have heard: in a school a priest was teaching children the Bible. He said, Yesterday I taught you all about forgiveness. If someone hits you, will you forgive him? He stood a little boy up and asked, What do you think? If a boy punches you, will you forgive him? The boy said, I will, if he is bigger than me. For a smaller one it will be a little difficult.

In truth this is our mind. We crush those we can crush. We hurt those we can hurt. Those we cannot, we bring in big principles.

Lao Tzu says: let that inner point vanish which considers who is small, who big; this person, that person; What shall I do in this situation, what in that? Let that point vanish. Let will not remain within you.

If a small child slaps Lao Tzu, he will not answer. If an emperor attacks, he will not answer.

Taken rightly, this is a great key of sadhana. Try a small experiment for seven days: non-resistance. Whatever happens, drink it. For a week, experimentally, whatever happens, drink it. Wherever yesterday you resisted, do not resist. Whatever you suppressed yesterday, do not suppress; absorb. In seven days you will find you have gathered so much power it is hard to calculate. So much energy collects in you that you cannot measure it. Then afterwards it becomes difficult to dissipate that energy in vain.

We are all dissipating, throwing energy away. Walking down the road, a small child standing at the roadside laughs, and resistance starts in you. Resistance starts.

Someone once attacked Lao Tzu in a village. Lao Tzu did not even look back to see who it was. He kept walking. The man became very restless. He had not even looked back to see who had hit him from behind. The man ran up and stopped him: At least turn and look! Otherwise my blow is wasted. Say something! Lao Tzu said, Sometimes by mistake your own nail scratches your hand — what do you do? Sometimes walking along you trip by your own fault and your knee gets skinned — what do you do?

Lao Tzu said, Once it happened that I was sitting in a boat and an empty boat came and struck mine. What did I do? But had there been a boatman in it? Then, a quarrel. Because it was an empty boat, nothing happened. From that day I understood: when to an empty boat I did nothing, what difference does it make if a boatman is sitting there? You have done your work; now go. Let me do mine.

The man came again the next day. He said, I could not sleep all night. What kind of man are you? Do something, say something, so that I can be at ease.

Naturally his mind must have struggled much. We all move with expectations. If I abuse, I expect abuse in return. If it comes, all proceeds by rule. If it does not, I am restless — just as when I love, I expect love in return; if it does not return, there is the same restlessness. Our coins of exchange are fixed.

Lao Tzu says: change the coins. Become a void within; remove will; and let what happens, happen.

We will say: then death will come, disease will come, someone will loot me. All will be ruined. We will find a thousand arguments. But our arguments have little value, for those things we argue to save we do not save; everything slips away. Neither death stops, nor disease, nothing stops; all is destroyed. And in trying to save them we never attain that which, if attained, never perishes.

Try once, a small experiment of seven days.

For me, this is the meaning of sannyas, what Lao Tzu is saying. Sannyas is: a person who has dropped will, who has accepted surrender, who has stopped struggling with the world and become cooperative; who says, I have no enmity; wherever the winds take me, I go. Who says, I have no personal insistence that it must be so; whatever happens is my acceptance. There is no destination where I must reach; wherever I reach, I will say, This is my destination. Such a person is a sannyasin. In such a mood of sannyas the door of life’s supreme treasure opens.

Lao Tzu says: Saints, the knowers, in their governance...

This word too needs pondering, for saints have no government. What governance could a saint have? Sages in their government! No government of saints is seen. But it is an ancient expression. There was a time when the rule was of the sage. No formal government, no administrative structure — yet the governance was his.

In the Jain tradition even now one says, The governance of Mahavira. He who gives governance is called Shasta; thus Mahavira or Buddha are called Shasta — the giver of the rule. What the Shasta has said, where it is collected, is called shastra. Governance means such guidelines by which a man may live and arrive.

So Lao Tzu says: in their governance, in the injunctions by which they lead, the sages try to empty man’s mind and fill his body. They break will and strengthen bones.

All the processes of Hatha Yoga are processes to strengthen the bones, the structure; within, to remove will and bring surrender. If this enters your understanding, your personality assumes another form; you are not as you were. A different way of seeing, a different gestalt.

And as we begin to see differently, different things begin to be seen. If you decide to be alert at every moment, to answer attack with attack, and to be prepared beforehand if there is no attack, you will find enemies daily. The world is vast and satisfies every need. If you go out to seek enemies, you will find them every moment.

This search is like when you injure your foot; all day it seems that the same spot keeps getting struck. You wonder: what is this? Such a big body, nowhere else is hit, only where there is a wound! In fact, it was always getting knocked there, only you did not notice. Today there is a hurt, so you notice. That part is sensitive. What we are sensitive to, that alone we notice. If we are sensitive to aggression, if we feel life is a struggle and war, then we will daily, every hour, find those people who are enemies, those situations that lead to conflict.

Lao Tzu gives another gestalt, another way of seeing, another sensitivity. He says: seek cooperation. One who seeks from that mood begins to meet friends. His sensitivity changes. He begins to seek the friend. And what we seek, we find — or say: whatever we find is our own seeking. In this world we do not get what we have not sought. So whenever you get something, understand: it is your own search.

But we never accept this. If an enemy comes, we think, What did I seek? He is an enemy, so he came. No. You are sensitive to enmity; you are ready. You are searching.

This arrangement of cooperation and conflict. Kropotkin wrote a book. In our century — a century of conflict, where from Marx to Mao the entire thought is of struggle and strife — there was one man, in Russia itself, Kropotkin: cooperation, not conflict. He proposed a very precious insight, though this century did not listen, for it is not sensitive to it.

Darwin tried to prove that life is a struggle for survival. Each is fighting to save himself. He said further: the fittest survive — meaning those most skilled in war. From Darwin onward, in these three hundred years, the idea of struggle has matured. And the strange thing is, this matured idea has made us even more inclined to struggle. When we accept the theory that life is a struggle, then the father fights the son, the son the father, the husband the wife — all fight. Not that only servant fights master; struggle goes on all the time. Life becomes nothing but struggle. From Darwin to Mao the whole idea is of conflict and class war. As conflict grows it penetrates every level. Then each man is alone, at war with the whole world.

Kropotkin said: struggle is not the foundation; cooperation is the foundation. And the delightful thing he said is this: even if you want to struggle, you need cooperation. For fighting you need the other’s cooperation. If he becomes noncooperative and says, We will not fight, then there is no way to fight. For conflict, cooperation is necessary; for cooperation, conflict is not necessary. This means cooperation is more fundamental. Without cooperation there is not even conflict.

If I want to fight you, I need your cooperation in some form. If you do not cooperate at all, the fight cannot continue. A fight is a great cooperation. When two people fight, in many, many ways they cooperate with each other. But for cooperation, no conflict is needed. This means: cooperation lies deeper.

Kropotkin said: Darwin went to the jungle and saw a lion eating an animal, that animal eating another. But if once in twenty-four hours a lion attacks, in the remaining twenty-three hours he is cooperating with thousands of creatures. Darwin did not see that. The animals of the jungle are not fighting all day long. The truth is: no animal fights as much as man.

A Sufi, Jalaluddin, sat in meditation. A disciple came and said, Get up, trouble is here! A sword has fallen into the hands of a monkey; something bad will happen. Jalaluddin said, Do not be too worried. It has not fallen into the hands of a man, has it? Then there is no concern. If it has fallen into the hands of a man, then we must get up, for some mischief will surely occur.

There is not so much conflict in the jungle as we imagine. The jungle man has built, named civilization and society, is sheer conflict. It is invisible, but all the time a net of mutual enmity spreads everywhere.

Kropotkin is saying what Lao Tzu said on a deeper plane: cooperate. Only those can cooperate whose will is thinned. Only those can quarrel whose will is strong. The stronger the will, the greater the quarrel. Will is the formula of conflict. When will is weakened, becomes zero, conflict departs. The element that could fight is no more.

Try a little experiment. All Lao Tzu’s sutras are to be experimented with. If you only listen to me, the matter will not become clear. You may feel you have understood; still you will not have understood. It will be like a flash of lightning in the dark. For a moment everything appears, then darkness returns. Your own logic is long — of many births. Across this long journey of logic that favors conflict, if there is a small lightning flash from someone speaking of cooperation, how long will it last? Not long, unless you also experiment with cooperation, unless alongside your long experience of conflict a new experience of cooperation stands up within you.

Try it a little. A seven-day rule. To understand any sutra, take at least a seven-day rule: from tomorrow morning, for seven days, I will cooperate, whatever happens. Wherever conflict arises, I will cooperate. And the secret of this sutra will open.

The secrets of these sutras open not through explanation, but through direct insight. Explanation is enough only to suggest that this is worth trying. Cooperate with the one you would have fought. In the situation where you would have stood stiff, lie down, flow. And see: in seven days did you perish or were you made? In seven days did you become weak or powerful? In seven days did you lose yourself or remain? In seven days are you sick, or healthy?

A wholly new quality of health may begin to be experienced.

For today, only this much. Tomorrow we will continue.