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Religion, Practice and Science of Non-Violence
Ching around the fourth century BC. This Chinese classic moulded Chinese thought for centuries to come. Here are some selections from this and other Taoist books about non-violence:
Be resolute but not boastful; resolute but not haughty;
resolute but not arrogant; resolute because you cannot avoid it, resolute but not violent.1 The tender and yielding conquer the rigid and strong.
To compel by show of force, is no gain to a nation." The good commander is not imperious.
The good fighter is not wrathful. The greatest conqueror does not wage war.
The best master governs by condescension.3 Surely you would not make a bower into a battlefield
nor a shrine of prayer into a scene of warfare. Have nothing within which is obstructive of virtue.
Seek not to vanquish others in cunning, in plotting in war.. If I slay a whole nation and annex the territory
in order to find nourishment, wherein does the victory lie.5 By the warmth of affection they sought the harmony of joy,
And to blend together all within the four seas, And their wish was to plant this everywhere
As the chief thing to be pursued. They save their age from war, they forbade aggression,
and sought to hush the weapons of strife. In this way they went everywhere,
counselling the high and instructing the low Though the world might not receive them,
they only insisted on their object the more strongly. Mencius: He was an interpreter and follower cf Confucius. He lived between 372-289 BC, two centuries after his master. Mencius believed that “Love overcomes its opposite just as water overcomes fire. Those, however, who nowadays practice love,
1 From Reason and Virtue. 2Tao Teh Ching, 36.2. 3 Ibid, 18.1. 4Kwang Tze, 24.2. 6Ibid, 33.3.
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