There is the maxim of military strategists;

I dare not be the first to invade, but rather be the invaded.

Dare not press forward an inch, but rather retreat a foot.

That is, to march without formations,

To roll not up the sleeves,…

There is no greater catastrophe than to underestimate the enemy

(Laotse, #69)

 The word military does not fit with Laotse’s overall intent to talk about dispute resolution. Clearly he sites territorial and proprietary issues, so maybe this is a “maxim of ownership strategists,” which would include defensive and offensive strategies to maintain and re-establish natural balance.

Not being the first to invade goes back to a wu wei principle of mutually cooperative subsidiarity as an ecological systemic norm. Think and act like an eco-cell within a healthy organism; not a cancerous ego-center. To invade is to challenge existing ego/eco value balance. To be the invaded might more fully translate as “become empathetically focused on the challenger’s perspective, values, positions—try to find them within yourself until they have resonance.” Maybe try some reverse role play, like preparing for a debate team.

 “Dare not press forward an inch” means do not even appear to react with ego-resistance. Ask for nothing that might lead to ecological imbalance, “but rather retreat” might look like inviting your challenger to agree with you to an equitable Win-Win resolution, defined as no one allows the other to walk away while feeling they have just lost a positive opportunity to incarnate wisdom.

 “March without formations” may have some reference to Laotse’s primary attraction to natural flow functions. Solid forms lack the flexible flow functionality for evolutionary economic change that one might find in a river, or even a tornado, if you have something more revolutionary in mind.

The title of this poem, Camouflage, is what a Buddhist might think of as Basic Attendance, which has a mutual gratitude understory, or gestalt, understanding each moment as having positive opportunity potential. Basic Attendance, in oppositional and other forms of dissonant, wild, crazy environments, begins with exposing our vulnerability, our fluidity, our confluent intention, a disciplined humility of balanced ego/ecological consciousness.

 “To roll not up the sleeves” reminds us to never show our fist even to our own internal need for self-passion. Laotse mentors non-violent multisystemic communication praxis; most certainly not aggression. He explores the paradoxical orthopraxis of breathing in comprehensive natural-systemic information and breathing out toward our mutually cooperative future.

“Enemy” is just wrong here. Enemies are created through lack of wise response. The word here should be challenger. In Permaculture Design we confront many challenges to optimizing Continuous Quality Improvement, ecologically balanced polycultures that show promise for sustaining regenerative life cycles. The only strong candidate for enemy status might be time, but the seasons and scales of development and design approach permacultural standards with humane ecocentric humility and reverence for the progenitive sacredness of time’s nutritionally absorbent dimensions.