Stratagem of the Fang
“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”
― Lao Tzu
Therefore, the gentle bite implies the sharpest fang. The maw of this mortal coil in which Time winds itself with element against element is the stage where battle is born. This battle indicates a war unlike others seen at such scale.
There are two forces, that of Fire and that of Water. The force of Fire rages against borders filled with life; embers inciting strife. The force of Water is tempered by its own long flow like a river — it’s ebb thus creates a dynamic wet web.
Both confused forces march against the other with much speed. The Fire seeks the life that Water brings, the life it seems to always take itself. The Water seeks what it has yet to touch, caring little for what is already drenched.
The Water comes from the West. The Fire comes from the East. The field of battle becomes the exact space and Time where Water meets Fire, where the energy from that contact is released into the systems that contain such energy — our own.
A fourth impact that brings with it great toil and trouble for those rooted in the past. Stuck fast asleep to the turnings and gyrations of such influential spheres that are brought to bare themselves on the mechanizations of man.
The Fire burns bright while the Water grows torrid. And yet they still seek out the conflict that will become the catalyst of energy needed to bring a new way — the Tao seeks rebirth through this conjunction. Where wanderers meet in meadows, so too does the mist meet the sun.
We see these old central pillars shining bright above a meadow ringed by dense trees. A pole pillar of Fire sits in the East with feasting eyes, as the pole pillar of Water hangs inverted in the West inflated at the base.
The meadow sits barren having been cleared of huorned and gnarled trees. Now such trees sit only higher still on the mountain in a place called Druk Yul. More trees still stand on an island off the eastern coast. The wind moves through these trees still. They sway in the breeze that moves through their branches lapping up western Water trickling towards their roots.
The other trees in a still ring around the meadow stare with subtle sadness as their roots are writhed in flame. A rootfire that is tethered together in shadow still burns bright if seen with the right eyes. Such eyes are said to be made of a ringed orb and the closest rock that shines a false light.
See the battle through this lens and the way of the fang becomes clear.
The pole pillars seek even more energy to change the tide of the battle as they wage an endless war. This energy will come from the skies born on the Wind. The orbs will provide a new wave to ride further and faster than the pillars could hope to go themselves.
And so the pillars weave webs to obscure these bright lights from those engulfed in the battle below. To see such light in a smoke-filled cave of darkness is to make a choice. To fight against nature to conceal value from the vale — or — to rally within it and strike against the pillars — using their stones to build a bulwark, a fortress ship that sails.
The ship is shielded by fangs that glimmer and shine in the sky as they swim through Time. Serpents that slept coiled in a cave within the meadow. They woke up when they smelled smoke. And moved when they felt damp.
Now they seek mountaintops so that they may peer into each other to know the meaning of the conflict that rages around them. Yet the mountains are covered by layers of webs. Dark webs seem to siphon the light out of any eyes that shine through them.
And so the serpents must bare their fangs! The fangs that shine with the light of the maw. A chaotic light that engulfs even darkness in the darkness. Obscuring being from becoming in a way that confuses karma. And they fly.
The fang is a path within the way — this path is that of the self through nature. To seek out the conflict brought by man through nature to power these elemental forces. If nature is a tool that man uses against himself then a state of nature is obtainable through conflict. Thus, love through conflict is possible in such a way where ideas create strife and sharing them defeats it — call it consensus.
Fire consumes ideas— this is the fuel that drives it higher. Water drowns in ideas— this is the weight that carries it lower. Ideas both power the conflict and contain the essence of it.
The value of such ideation and its contribution to the eternal conflict creates a system of equal exchange. In this equation does the choice of death choked by Fire or death choked by Water become reciprocal?
The Water rewards free ideas, swallowing them whole and digesting them slowly. Seeking them out with roiling rippling waves, great floods of liquid — most ideas drown in this way, as if in a dying dream.
The Fire rejects free ideas. Charring such liberties into unrecognizable husks. Ash-filled skies that bring dark rain on darker shields that stand against such heat that turns all other colors to red and yellow against a black sky.
A third way becomes visible in the light of the fang. The way of the Earth. The Earth drives water high with quakes that wave as flags over old pillars. The Earth drives fire low before becoming contained within it.
All this while the pillars cultivate ideas and curate the energy generated for the elements. The Wind yet yields unwavering to this. The Wind will never pick any one side but will strengthen or weaken the other three as it wills.
The Earth that stands out among the Water threatened by Flames carried on the Wind will become the next stage of strife. Where white rays pierce a blue square pool the next serpent sleeps.
Now, as to universal love and mutual aid, they are beneficial and easy beyond a doubt. It seems to me that the only trouble is that there is no superior who encourages it. If there is a superior who encourages it, promoting it with rewards and commendations, threatening its reverse with punishments, I feel people will tend toward universal love and mutual aid like fire tending upward and water downwards it will be unpreventable in the world.
Mozi
— Mozi, Book 4, Universal Love III
- Ponderjaunt
