Weekly Tao Te Ching Post - Week 31

As you can tell by the fact that I am only on week 31, I have not been posting regularly. I am okay with that but I hope to continue more consistenly from here on out through 2018 at least until I finish the book. Over the next week or two I may be posting a tad bit more than normal(which really isn't that hard, lol).

If you have followed this blog at all over time you will have noticed that around the end of the year into the first part of the new year I look back on what I have accomplished and make plans on what I want accomplish.

It's that time of the year again.

I don't plan to go into it today as I have some more pressing things to get done. I have already planned and semi-started somethings, will continue others, and there as somethings I want to do that require coordination. But that's for another day. Today I just wanted to get the engine started a little bit. I will be teaching at 3 Sisters Yoga tonight at 7:30 pm. I'll be taking my teacher Marni Task's class at noon at Cleveland Yoga in Beachwood.

Welcome to this week's Tao Te Ching verse. See here for what this is all about. 

Verse 31

Weapons are tools of violence;

all decent men detest them.

Weapons are the tools of fear;

a decent man will avoid them

except in direst necessity

and, if compelled, will use them

only with the utmost restraint.

Peace is his highest value.

If the peace has been shattered,

how can he become content?

His enemies are not demons,

but human beings like himself.

He doesn't wish them personal harm.

nor does he rejoice in victory.

How could he rejoice in victory

and delight in the slaughter of men?

He enters a battle gravely,

with sorrow and a great compassion,

as if he were attending a funeral.