60
Run the group delicately, as if you were cooking small fish.
As much as possible, allow the group process to emerge naturally. Resist any temptation to instigate issues or elicit emotions which have not appeared on their own.
If you stir things up, you will release forces before their time and under unwarranted pressure. They may be emotions that belong to other people or places. They may be unspecific or chaotic energies, which in response to your pressure, strike out and hit any available target.
These forces are real and exist within the group. But do not push. Allow them to come out when they are ready.
When hidden issues and emotions emerge naturally, they resolve themselves naturally. They are not harmful. In fact, they are no different from any other thoughts or feelings.
All energies naturally arise, take form, grow strong, come to a new resolution, and finally pass away.
61
It is a mistake to believe that a great leader is above others. Paradoxically, greatness comes from knowing how to be lowly and empty and receptive and of service.
Imagine that the life force is like water in the river and in the sea. The sea, greater than the river, lies below, open and receptive. The busy, rushing river enters the sea, is absorbed, and is transformed.
Or imagine that the leader is the feminine, lying below and open, empty, and receptive. The feminine receives the masculine and absorbs the masculine vibration. Soon the feminine has encompassed the masculine; the masculine has spent itself, become soft and resolved.
The wise leader is of service: receptive, yielding, following. The group member's vibrations dominates and leads, while the leader follows. But soon it is the member's consciousness which is transformed, the member's vibration which is resolved
The relationship is reciprocal. It is the job of the leader to be aware of the group member's process; it is the need of the group member to be received and paid attention to.
Both get what they need, if the leader has the wisdom to serve and follow, to be open and below.
62
A person does not have to join a group or be a wise leader to work things out. Life's process unfolds naturally. Conflicts resolve themselves sooner or later, whether or not a person knows how things happen.
It is true that being aware of how things happen makes one's words more potent and one's behaviour more effective.
But even without the light of consciousness, people grow and improve. Being unconscious is not a crime, it is merely a lack of a very helpful ability.
Knowing how things work gives the leader more real power and ability than all the degrees or titles the world can offer.
That is why people in every era and in every culture have honoured those who know how things happen.
63
The wise leader knows how to act effectively.
To act effectively, be aware and unbiased. If you are aware, you will know what is happening; you will not act rashly. If you are unbiased, you can react in a balanced and centered manner.
Have respect for every person and every issue directed at you. Do not dismiss any encounter as insignificant. But neither should you become anxious or afraid of being overwhelmed or embarrassed.
If you are attacked or criticized, react in a way that will shed light on the event. This is a matter of being centered and of knowing that an encounter is a dance and not a threat to your ego or existence. Tell the truth.
If you are conscious of what is happening in a group, you will recognize emerging situations long before they have gotten out of hand. Every situation, no matter how vast or complex it may become, begins both small and simple.
Neither avoid nor seek encounters, but be open and when an encounter arises, respond to it while it is still manageable. There is no virtue in delaying until heroic action is needed to set things right. In this way, potentially difficult situations become simple.
If you have not bragged about your abilities or tried to make people be the way you think they ought to be, very few group members will want to encounter you anyway.
64
Learn to recognize beginnings. At birth, event are relatively easy to manage. Slight interventions shape and guide easily. Potential difficulties can be avoided. The greatest danger lies in disrupting the emerging process by using too much force.
The wise leader sees things almost before they happen. A tree that is stiff and rigid begins as a pliant sapling. A great construction project begins with one shovelful of earth. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Once an event is fully energized and formed, stand back as much as possible. Needless interventions will only confuse or block what is happening. Especially, do not try to make an event conform to any predetermined plan or model.
Many leaders spoil the work just as it nears completion. They get eager. They get interested in certain outcomes. They become anxious and make mistakes. This is a time for care and consciousness. Don't do too much. Don't be too helpful. Don't worry about getting credit for having done something.
Because the wise leader has no expectations, no outcome can be called a failure. Paying attention, allowing a natural unfolding, and standing back most of the time, the leader sees the event arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.
65
The teacher's leaders did not emphasize complex theories. The practiced and taught a way of life based on consciousness and wisdom.
People who see the world in terms of theories often have a very intricate view of what is happening. Clarity is difficult for them. They are very hard to work with.
If you teach a group by making complex explanations, you will confuse people. They will take notes and fill their minds with opinions.
But if you return again and again to an awareness of what is actually happening, you will both clarify and enlighten.
The ability to distinguish between theory and practice will save you much trouble.
Practice a way of life, and demonstrate conscious cooperation with the single principle. If you cooperate with Tao, you will experience the power of universal harmony.
66
Why is the ocean the greatest body of water? Because it lies below all the rivers and streams and is open to them all.
What we call leadership consists mainly of knowing how to follow. The wise leader stays in the background and facilitates other people's process. The greatest things the does go largely unnoticed. Because the leader does not push or shape or manipulate, there is no resentment or resistance.
Group members genuinely appreciate a leader who facilitates their lives rather than promoting some personal agenda. Because the leader is open, any issue can be raised. Because the leader has no position to defend and shows no favouritism, no one feels slighted; no one wishes to quarrel.
67
Here is a paradox: even though the single principle of how everything happens is great, those who follow the principle know that they are ordinary.
Great egocentricity does not make a person great. The common ground of all creation is a greater source of life than any exalted isolation.
These three qualities are invaluable to the leader:
- Compassion for all creatures
- Material simplicity or frugality
- A sense of equality or modesty
A compassionate person acts in behalf off everyone's right to life. Material simplicity gives on an abundance to share. A sense of equality is, paradoxically, one's true greatness.
It is a mistake to consider a person whose only interest is self-interest as being either caring or courageous. It is a mistake to rationalize that excessive consumption contributes to the well-being of others by giving them employment. It is a mistake to imagine that a person who acts immodestly or in a superior way is in fact, a genuinely superior person.
These are all egocentric behaviours. They isolate a person from the common ground of existence. They produce rigidity and death.
Compassion, sharing, and equality, on the one hand, sustain life. This is because we are all one. When I care for you, I enhance the harmonious energy of the whole. And that is life.
68
The greatest martial arts are the gentlest. They allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down.
The greatest generals do not rush into every battle. They offer the enemy many opportunities to make self-defeating errors.
The greatest administrators do not achieve production through constraints and limitations. They provide opportunities.
Good leadership consists of motivating people to their highest levels by offering them opportunities, not obligations.
That is how things happen naturally. Life is an opportunity and not an obligation.
69
If a group member wants to fight with you, consider the strategy of the guerrilla commander: Never seek a fight. If it comes to you, yield; step back. It is far better to step back than to overstep yourself.
Your strength is good intelligence: be aware of what is happening. Your weapon is not a weapon at all. It is the light of consciousness.
Advance only where you encounter no resistance. If you make a point, do not cling to it. If you win, be gracious.
The person who initiates the attack is off center and easily thrown. Even so, have respect for any attacker. Never surrender your compassion or use your skill to harm another needlessly.
In any event, the more conscious force will win.
70
This way of living and leading groups is easy to understand. It is easy to do.
But not many leaders understand this approach. Very few use it in their work.
Frankly, it is too simple and ancient to attract much attention. As a rule, the greatest interest goes to the greatest novelty.
The wise leader, sticking to the single principle of how everything happens, does nothing new or original.
The wise leader appeals to a very few followers, to those who recognize that traditional wisdom is a treasure which often lies hidden beneath an ordinary appearance.
71
Nobody has all the answers. Knowing that you do not know everything is far wiser than thinking that you know a lot when you really don't.
Phony expertise is neurotic. Fortunately, once the symptoms are recognized, the sure is easy: stop it.
Probably every leader has tried this form of pretense at one time or another.
The wise leader has learned how painful it is to fake knowledge. Being wise and not wanting the pain; the leader does no indulge in pretending.
Anyway, it is a relief to be able to say: "I don't know."
72
Group work must include spiritual awareness if it is to touch the existential anxiety of our times. Without awe, the awful remains unspoken; a diffuse malaise remains.
Be willing to speak of traditional religion, no matter how offended some group members may be. Overcome the bias against the word of God. The great force of our spiritual roots lies in tradition, like it or not.
The wise leader models spiritual behaviour and lives in harmony with spiritual values. There is a way of knowing, higher than reason; there is a self, greater than egocentricity.
The leader demonstrates the power of selflessness and the unity of all creation.
73
Imagine that there are two kinds of courage. One is an active courage that gets people killed. The other is an inner courage that keeps people alive. Which of these two is better?
No one can answer that for you. Each has its benefits and its drawbacks. Tao has no preferences.
Keeping in mind that Tao means how: how things happen. But how-things-happen is not the same as what-should-I-do. No one can tell you what to do. That is your freedom. That is your responsibility.
Instead of asking for advice, learn to become more conscious of what is actually happening. Then you will be able to see for yourself how things happen. You can make your own decisions about what to do.
Tao does not preach sermons or dictate behaviour. What people do is their own responsibility. But the pattern of their behaviour follows natural law.
This law is so general, it covers every possible event. It is so specific, it applies to every instance of every event.
But no one can decide for you what to do in a given situation. That is up to you.
74
It is not the leader's role to play judge and jury, to punish people for 'bad' behaviour. In the first place, punishment does not effectively control behaviour.
But even if punishment did work, what leader would dare to use fear as a teaching method?
The wise leader knows that there are natural consequences for every act. The task is to shed light on these natural consequences, not to attack the behaviour itself.
If the leader tries to take the place of nature and act as judge and jury, the best you can expect is a crude imitation of a very subtle process.
At the very least, the leader will discover that the instrument of justice cuts both ways. Punishing others in punishing work.
75
The group will not prosper if the leader grabs the lion's share of the credit for the good work that has been done.
The group will rebel and resist if the leader relies on strict controls in an effort to make things come out a certain way.
The group members will become deadened and unresponsive if the leader is critical and harsh.
The wise leader is not greedy, selfish, defensive, or demanding. That is why the leader can be trusted to allow any event to unfold naturally.
76
At birth, a person is flexible and flowing. At death a person becomes rigid and blocked.
Consider the lives of plants and trees: during their time of greatest growth, they are relatively tender and pliant. But when they are full grown or begin to die, they become tough and brittle.
The tree which has grown up and become rigid is cut into lumber.
The rigid group leader may be able to lead repetitious and structured exercises but can't cope with the lively group process.
Whatever is flexible and flowing will tend to grow. Whatever is rigid and blocked will atrophy and die.
77
Natural events are cyclical, always changing from one extreme toward an opposite.
Imagine a bow and arrow. As the archer draws the bow, the two tips of the bow, which were far apart, come close together; the narrow space between string and wood becomes wide; the bow string, which was at rest, becomes taut.
When the archer releases the arrow, once again the process reverses itself, as the tension relaxes.
That is the way of inner nature: to relax what is tense, to fill what is empty, to reduce what is overflowing.
