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Excerpt from "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu

The Art of War by Sun Tzu is one of the great Chinese classical texts, compiled more than 2,000 years ago.  Enjoy this excerpt titled "Strategic Assessments" -- which includes both the original text and astute commentary from Chinese military thinkers -- from our Shambhala Collection.

 

Master Sun: Military action is important to the nation. It is the grand of death and life, the path of survival and destruction. So it is imperative to examine it. 

Commentary: Military action is inauspicious. It is only considered important because it is a matter of life and death. And there is the possibility that it may be taken up lightly. 

 

Master Sun: Therefore measure in terms of five things. Use these assessments to make comparisons and thus find out what the conditions are. The five things are - the way, the weather, the terrain, the leadership, and discipline. 

Commentary: Five things are to be assessed - the way, the weather, the lay of the land, the leadership, and discipline. These are to be assessed at headquarters. First assess yourself and your opponent in terms of these five things deciding who is superior. Then you can determine who is likely to prevail. Having determined this, only then should you mobilize your forces.

 

Master Sun:  The way means inducing the people to have the same aim as the leadership so that they will share death and share life without fear of danger.

Commentary:  If the people are treated with benevolence, faithfulness, and justice, then they will be of one mind and will be glad to serve. The I-ching says, joyful in difficulty, the people forget about their deaths. 

 

Master Sun:  The weather means the seasons.

Commentary:  In ancient times many soldiers lost their fingers to frostbite on campaigns against the Hun’s and many soldiers died of plague on campaigns against the southern tribes. This was because of carrying out operations in winter and summer. This is the meaning of the saying; don’t go into another territory at an unfavorable time.

 

Master Sun:  The terrain is to be assessed in terms of distance, difficulty, or ease of travel, dimension, and safety.

Commentary:  In any military operation, it is important first to know the lay of the land. When you know the distance to be traveled, then you can plan whether to proceed directly or by a securitas route. When you know the difficulty or ease of travel, then you can determine the advantages of infantry or mounted troops. When you know the dimensions of the area, then you can assess how many troops you need, many or few. When you know the relative safety of the terrain, then you can discern whether to do battle or disperse. 

 

Master Sun: Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and sternness.

Commentary:  The way of the ancient kings was to consider humaneness foremost, while the martial art is considered intelligence foremost. This is because intelligence involves the ability to plan and to know when to change effectively. Trustworthiness means to make people sure of punishment or reward. Humaneness means love and compassion for people, begin aware of their toils. Courage means to seize opportunities to make certain of victories without vacillation. Sternness means to establish discipline in the ranks by strict punishments. Reliance on intelligence alone results in rebelliousness. Exercise of humaneness alone results in weakness. Fixation on trust results in folly. Dependence on the strength of courage results in violence. Excessive sternness of command results in cruelty. When one has all five virtues together, each appropriate to its function, then one can be a military leader. 

 

Master Sun: Discipline means organization, chain of command, and logistics.

Commentary:  organization means that troops must be grouped in a regulated manner. Chain of command means that there must be offices to keep the troops together and lead them. Logistics mean overseeing supplies. Everyone has heard of these five things, but only those who deeply understand the principals of adaptation and impasse will win.

Click here to check out the Shambhala Audio Complete Collection.

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Excerpt from "Start Where You Are" by Pema Chodron

Once again we are pleased to offer a transcribed excerpt from a Pema Chodron audio title.  This is a chapter titled "No Escape, No Problem" from the terrific recording of Start Where You Are.

 

We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves – the heavy-duty feeling that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds – never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here.

This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. Looking at ourselves this way is very different from our usual habit. From this perspective we don’t need to change: you can feel as wretched as you like, and you’re still a good candidate for enlightenment. You can feel like the world’s most hopeless basket case, but that feeling is your wealth, not something to be thrown out or improved upon. There’s a richness to all of the smelly stuff that we so dislike and so little desire. The delightful things – what we love so dearly about ourselves, the places in which we feel some sense of pride or inspiration – these also are our wealth. With the practices presented in this book, you can start just where you are.

If you’re feeling angry, poverty-stricken, or depressed, the practices described here were designed for you, because they will encourage you to use all of the unwanted things in your life as the means for awakening compassion for yourself and others. These practices show us how to accept ourselves, how to relate directly with suffering, how to stop running away from the painful aspects of our lives. They show us how to work openheartedly with life just as it is. When we hear about compassion, it naturally brings up working with others, caring for others. The reason we’re often not there for others – whether for our child or our mother or someone who is insulting us or someone who frightens us – is that we’re not there for ourselves.

There are whole parts of ourselves that are so unwanted that whenever they begin to come up we run away. Because we escape, we keep missing being right here, being right on the dot. We keep missing the moment we’re in. Yet, if we can experience the moment we’re in, we discover that it is unique, precious, and completely fresh. It never happens twice. One can appreciate and celebrate each moment – there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more! 

Click here to check out the Shambhala Audio Complete Collection.

Click here to listen to a preview of this recording.

Excerpt from "Work and Career" from the Marianne Williamson Lecture Series

We are delighted to bring you recordings from Marianne Williamson's live lecture series taking place weekly in Los Angeles.  Here's an excerpt from her talk on "Work and Career", recorded in January 2010.

...when I’m needy --  hello! --  I feel I need this job; therefore regardless of how much I control my behavior, all lines are joined. Everybody subconsciously knows everything. People can feel it, right? And that does not attract abundance. It actually repels abundance.

What attracts abundance? Abundance. So if you want to work in the world, if you want to have that be less about the sand moving and the winds and the rains knocking you over, if you want to stand on the rock -- it’s about knowing my job is that I’m here as a loving person to the best of my ability. That is my job. And if I’m in a job interview, that’s my job. If I’m doing anything else as the world defines it, that’s my job.

And then in the absence of that level of hunger, in the absence of that level of neediness, because you’re vibrating at a higher level, what it does is it invites the higher level experiences. Abundance attracts abundance. But you can’t… you know sometimes people take that --  and with this kind of half-baked understanding -- and they go into this kind of mantra, “I am working, I am full. I am working, I am full,” thinking that that will attract work. That’s mental. That’s trying to apply mental power but it’s not spiritual power. 

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LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 100 Lessons in Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn

We are indeed pleased to be able to offer these wonderful excerpts from 100 Lessons in Mindfulness from Jon Kabat-Zinn's new book Letting Everything Become Your Teacher.  The 100 lessons are derived from Kabat-Zinn's international best-seller Full Catastrophe Living. Keep checking our site for new lessons. The first is on "Self-Motivation"

LESSON 1: Self-Motivation  

 

In order for meditation practice to take root in your life and flourish, you will have to know why you are practicing. How else will you be able to sustain non-doing in a world where only doing seems to count? What will get you up early in the morning to sit and follow your breathing when everybody else is snug in bed? What will motivate you to practice when the wheels of the doing world are turning, your obligations and responsibilities are beckoning, and a part of you decides or remembers to take some time for “just being”? What will motivate you to bring moment-to-moment awareness into your daily life? What will prevent your practice from losing energy and becoming stale or from petering out altogether after an initial burst of enthusiasm? 

Reprinted from LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 100 Lessons in Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn © 2009 by Jon Kabat-Zinn.  Reprinted by arrangement with the Random House Publishing Group.

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