Chapter 31 · Arms as Instruments of Evil Omen

Tao Te Ching (Legge, 1891) · chapter title added by Learn the Dao

Learn the Dao: a quiet practice for learning the thing that can’t be known.

The chapter’s first line

Now arms, however beautiful, are instruments of evil omen,

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This chapter in plain modern English — David Kooi’s rendering ↓

Now arms, however beautiful, are instruments of evil omen, hateful, it may be said, to all creatures. Therefore they who have the Tao do not like to employ them. The superior man ordinarily considers the left hand the most honourable place, but in time of war the right hand. Those sharp weapons are instruments of evil omen, and not the instruments of the superior man;--he uses them only on the compulsion of necessity. Calm and repose are what he prizes; victory (by force of arms) is to him undesirable. To consider this desirable would be to delight in the slaughter of men; and he who delights in the slaughter of men cannot get his will in the kingdom. On occasions of festivity to be on the left hand is the prized position; on occasions of mourning, the right hand. The second in command of the army has his place on the left; the general commanding in chief has his on the right;--his place, that is, is assigned to him as in the rites of mourning. He who has killed multitudes of men should weep for them with the bitterest grief; and the victor in battle has his place (rightly) according to those rites.

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Chapter 31, in a second rendering

Bad-Luck Tools

Dao De Kooi — an original rendering by David Kooi

Weapons are bad-luck tools. Most everything finds them ugly, so a person on the Dao keeps their distance. When there's no choice, use them coolly, calmly, and don't enjoy it. Enjoy the killing and you've lost the thread of what people actually want. A victory isn't a party. Treat it like the funeral it is. When a lot of people have died, you show up grieving - and you handle a win the way you'd handle a burial.

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