Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 68 — Not Striving
The virtue of not contending
A good soldier is not warlike; a good fighter does not lose his temper; a good conqueror does not engage; a good employer of men makes himself low. This is the virtue of not contending, the power of employing others, joining with heaven — the highest peak of the ancients.
Source context
- Theme
- non-contention, non-coercion, and the strength that does not compete — virtue of the skilled warrior who does not fight
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Daoist virtue ethics (wu-wei)Chapter 68 exemplifies wu-wei as sovereign efficacy: the highest skill operates without force, and victory is achieved by non-opposition, not domination.
- Bhagavad Gita / Kshatriya idealCross-tradition congruence appears in the Gita's teaching that the highest warrior acts without ego-driven aggression, subordinating personal contest to cosmic order (dharma-yuddha).
- Sermon on the Mount / Christian ethicsCross-tradition congruence appears in the injunction that the meek inherit the earth, structurally paralleling the Taoist claim that non-contending strength prevails over aggressive force.
- Aristotelian magnanimity (megalopsychia)Aristotle's magnanimous person exercises restraint of power not from weakness but from a higher calibration of virtue, offering structural congruence with the non-contending excellence of Chapter 68.
Chapter 68
He who in (Tao's) wars has skill Assumes no martial port; He who fights with most good will To rage makes no resort. He who vanquishes yet still Keeps from his foes apart; He whose hests men most fulfil Yet humbly plies his art.
Thus we say, 'He ne'er contends, And therein is his might.' Thus we say, 'Men's wills he bends, That they with him unite.' Thus we say, 'Like Heaven's his ends, No sage of old more bright.'