Tao Te Ching

Here are two pearls from the Tao Te Ching about flexibility of the mind and triumph gained through non-action:

76

Men are born soft and supple;
Dead, they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant;
dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.
The hard and the stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.


69

The generals have a saying:
"Rather than make the first move
it is better to wait and see.
Rather than advance an inch
it is better to retreat a yard."

This is called
going forward without advancing
Pushing back without using weapons.

There is no greater misfortune
than underestimating your enemy.
Underestimating your enemy
means thinking he is evil.
Thus you destroy your three treasures
and become an enemy yourself.

When two great forces oppose each other,
the victory will go
To the one who knows how to yield.


By "yield" Lao Tzu is alluding to the method of stepping back slightly in order to take stock of the situation, providing your opposition with a false notion that you have either given up or that you are becoming weak. It's something like a boxer might do when he rests back on the ropes to catch his breath or to give himself time to adjust his tactics: By doing it he has not only gained some respite, but his opponent has also expended more of his own precious energy in his attack. Furthermore, he has come to know his opponent more because of the exchange.

The most obvious analogy regarding 'yielding' in order to obtain the upper hand is the 'pincer movement,' successfully used by armies over countless years.

Being supple of mind is about 'yielding' also because if one is able to think more flexibly and not remain blocked by dogmatism and intransigence, one becomes skilled at exchanging ideas across a wide spectrum of belief systems and social groupings. Fostering positive reactions through the establishment of a common ground based on the willingness to listen, reflect and comprehend empowers the 'yielding mind' with further knowledge and understanding on how to influence and exact the most positive results from a situation.

If you mentally 'yield' in an argument and offer your opponent victory on some of the less important issues, you will undermine their offensive by taking the power out of their assault. 'Yielding' does not mean 'giving in,' or having to acquiesce to negative or unreasonable demands. It means acceptance and recognition of opposing forces. If you are seen not to budge an inch, so will your opponents adopt this stance and thus it will be harder to unbalance them in the exchange. Intransigence will undermine your ability to manipulate your opponent into accepting your ideas, by denying you any foothold in their argument.

If you allow yourself to become rigid and unyielding then, one day, the force of constantly pushing back at everything is bound to break you.


Yielding is not weakness but benevolence