Chapter 73 – Let’s Start With Bravery
He who is brave in daring will be killed.
He who is brave in not daring will live.
Of these two, one is advantageous and one is harmful.
Who knows why Heaven dislikes what it dislikes?
Even the sage considers it a difficult question.
The Way of Heaven does not compete, and yet is skillfully achieves victory.
It does not speak, and yet it skillfully responds to things.
It comes to you without your invitation.
It is not anxious about things and yet it plans well.
Heaven’s net is indeed vast.
Though its meshes are wide, it misses nothing.
Translated by Wing-Tsit Chan (1963)
Taoist Immortals
There are a lot of directions in which I think I should go with my “Tao Te Ching Tuesday” comment on this chapter, many of which, I’m afraid, qualify as abject digressions. I also would like to keep a reasonable length to what I write. Therefore, I am going to try to avoid at least some of the digressions and be succinct in dealing with some of the subjects. Let’s start with bravery.
It is certainly not surprising that humans recognize different kinds of brave actions. Sometimes we are awed by the brave man or woman who rushes into danger without regard for personal safety. Other times it is the person who is calm before a hazardous situation who is seen as brave.
Here, the sage tells us that “one is advantageous and one is harmful”; but he does not say which is which.
In a different context, I have written about the influence of the Vietnam War on the actions and beliefs of an entire generation of Americans. That generation includes tens of thousands of brave men and women who risked or gave their lives in that war. It also includes tens of thousands more who declared themselves conscientious objectors or who emigrated to Canada to avoid the draft or who protested against the war. Without questioning the belief or sincerity of any of those groups or individuals, we still must consider which of the brave actions were advantageous and which harmful.
Recently, my friends Rudy and Tracy Spano introduced me to wonderful little book (about 100 pages), published in 1900, called Bushido, The Soul of Japan, by Inazo Nitobe. The following is found at Page 15 of that book:
“ . . . ‘Courage is doing what is right’ To run all kinds of hazards, to jeopardize one’s self, to rush into the jaws of death—these are too often identified with Valor, and in the profession of arms such rashness of conduct—what Shakespeare calls, ‘valor misbegot,’ is unjustly applauded; but not so in the Precepts of Knighthood. Death for a cause unworthy of dying for, was called a ‘dog’s death.’ ‘To rush into the thick of battle and be slain in it,’ says a Prince of Mito, ‘is easy enough, and the merest churl is equal to the task; but,’ he continues, ‘it is true courage to live when it is right to live, and to die only when it is right to die’ . . .”