Today's Tao
The weak beats the strong. (Ch.78)
What is true strength?
If you are truly strong, what do you look like?
If you are genuinely strong, you look like a fool.
True strength is the capacity to accept all.
Fighting like a man against injustice is a useless resistance.
Resistance is a form of being lost in Mayoi.
It is a refusal to accept all.
A man who looks like a fool can accept all.
A famous Chinese painter and calligrapher, Tei Hankyou / Zheng Banqiao 鄭板橋 (1693-1765) liked to draw the phrase:
"It is difficult to be a fool 難得糊塗".
But if you follow Tao, nothing is difficult because you are happy to be as weak as a fool without resistance.
«Related Articles»
-Water summary 78-1
-Water's attack 78-2
-No change 78-3
-Be weak 78-4
-Be soft 78-5
-Everyone = You 78-6
-No one acts 78-7
-State filth 78-8
-Bad omens 78-9
-Contradiction 78-10
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 78
Lao Tzu answers your question!
☞«Tao Te Ching» Key word comparison (23) / -A famous proverb "Soften the light. Be like dust. 和光同塵" - Let's see how they translate 挫其鋭 解其紛 和其光 同其塵 in Chapter 4. The identical sentences are repeated in Chapter 56. In Tao by Matsumoto, these are discussed in Chapter 56 / How to be One with Tao. / "It blunts rough edges, untangles the knots, diffuses the glare, at one with the dust of the world." On the left, «Tao Te Ching: A New Translation» translated by Sam Hamill
. / "It blunts sharp edges, Unties all tangles; It sofens the glare And blends with the dust." On the right, «Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching» translated by Keith Seddon
.
. / "Profound and remote and again more so: This is the gate to all mysteries." On the right, «Tao Te Ching: An All-New Translation» translated by 
.
» written by Johanna Siegmann. / "'What have you got?' The old man asked me around his cigar. 'A banjo' I replied." On the right, «
» written by Patrick Costello. / "C'mon. Tao has nothing to do with Tango or Banjo!", you might say. But, wait a minute. Remember? Tao is everywhere, even around the banjo or the legs of your Tango partner.
» translated by Jonathan Star. The text is the same as the one shown yesterday. "A way that can be walked is not The Way" / "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao." On the right, «
» written by Dr Wayne W. Dyer.
» by 
» by 
» is another good example of being an uncarved block. This low-class dancer behaves with no awareness of class difference. She doesn't even mind running naked out of the huge rocky bath of the open-air hot spring to say hello to the boy student. The "uncarved block" attitude will surely lead you to "Kami nagara no michi", which means "the way like gods". Daisetz Suzuki explains this well in his «
».
»? Don't tell me the onsen hot spring resort is just two hours away from Tokyo station. 
is not exactly the same as Komako's Yuzawa Onsen. Besides, Japan's social structure has changed since 1934, when Komako (a geisha "Matsue", probably) might have met Shimamura (the alter ego of the author Yasunari Kawabata). It no longer allows a Japanese man to stay in a hotel for weeks while paying for a geisha's daily charge. The spirit of «Snow Country» is diluted but has prevailed. Nowadays, many everyday girls at 
or at 
behave like Komako without a Shamisen guitar. With democracy, some privileges have disappeared. Have romances disappeared in commercial arrangements? Who knows. You are the one to find out in the land of geisha girls, or of Kitty Cat and Pikachu, depending on the way you look at the country.
呪怨 means "curse - grudge". Do the Japanese hold a grudge against someone and never forget it? In general, no. We forget things easily. Rarely we plan well and revenge ourselves well. Nevertheless, it does not mean that all the happy-go-lucky islanders in Far East are incapable of holding a grudge. Of course, some do. They do it very well. They even commercialize their curse. Having enjoyed commercial success, the film «
» was turned into a video game. It is available on 
.
» accept their destinies. So did its author, Murasaki Shikibu
. When did the Japanese start suffering from the problem of Self? When did they start thinking that they could change their own destines, or that their egos were bigger than the force of nature? Typhoons, Tsunami, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes still teach us who we are. Read 
and 
and ask yourself whether the two words are still different to you.
» in 1983. His «
» was published in 2006. ☞Try 
. The birth place of Kikkoman Corp., the biggest soy sauce maker in Japan, is Noda City. The town is also known for the Dojo of 
, the most respected Ninja Sensei. Visit Noda-shi when you come to Japan. It is just a train ride away from Tokyo. The town still keeps the atmosphere of an old commercial village with soy sauce breweries. Very photogenic.
is Macrobiotics-ojisan, or Uncle Macrobiotics. His contribution to the propagation of a healthier eating habit was rewarded with the Award of Excellence from the United Nations Society of Writers. Ironically, traveling too much around the world to advocate macrobiotics, he often has to stay in a hotel and eat out, and doesn't have enough time at home to practice his own macrobiotics, it seems. ☞Whether it is a folk belief or a scientific fact, the Japanese and others look to 
for the cure of cancer. Eat them while enjoying a nice reading of Michio Kushi's «
».
» and the English one «
» do not correspond to each other. It is imaginable that the publisher of the English translation might have been concerned about a potential misinterpretation of its Japanese title. Look at the movie poster on the right. The discretion of the publisher should not be criticized. Nevertheless, Junichiro Tanizaki's «Manji» has nothing to do with World War 2. The novel was first published in 1928. Its title hints a four-way libidinous affair among two men and two women.