Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 30 — Against Force of Arms
Where armies camp, briars and thorns grow
He who uses the Tao to assist a ruler does not employ arms to coerce the world. The outcome of force is recoil. Achieve results without boasting, without pride, without violence.
Source context
- Theme
- restraint of force in conquest; the self-defeating nature of military domination and the virtue of non-coercion
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Daoist wu-wei principleChapter 30's injunction against prolonged military campaigns enacts the broader Daoist principle that coercive imposition of will exhausts the Tao's generative power and inverts the natural order.
- Aristotelian ethics of proportionalityAristotle's doctrine that virtuous action lies in the mean between excess and deficiency offers a cross-tradition congruence with Laozi's warning that military victory carried beyond necessity becomes its own form of hubris.
- Vedantic ahimsaThe Vedantic and early Hindu concept of ahimsa (non-harm) as a foundational ethical restraint shows cross-tradition congruence with the chapter's teaching that force used beyond necessity undermines the sovereign's own spiritual vitality.
Chapter 30
He who would assist a lord of men in harmony with the Tao will not assert his mastery in the kingdom by force of arms. Such a course is sure to meet with its proper return.
Wherever a host is stationed, briars and thorns spring up. In the sequence of great armies there are sure to be bad years.
A skilful (commander) strikes a decisive blow, and stops. He does not dare (by continuing his operations) to assert and complete his mastery. He will strike the blow, but will be on his guard against being vain or boastful or arrogant in consequence of it. He strikes it as a matter of necessity; he strikes it, but not from a wish for mastery.
When things have attained their strong maturity they become old. This may be said to be not in accordance with the Tao: and what is not in accordance with it soon comes to an end.