'The best charioteers do not rush ahead; the best fighters do not make displays of wrath. The greatest conqueror wins without joining issue; the best user of men acts as though he were their inferior. This is called the power of not contending, is the capacity to use men, the secret of being mated to heaven, to what was of old.' (Tao Te Ching 68)
"I do not understand Master. Why 'not contending' when Nature is all strife, struggle, contending?"
"We, we are the exceptions! We have ideational (verbal) means of control. Certainly you would not want us in this convent to fight for every morsel of food? When you asked Wei a favor the other day, what happened?"
"He snubbed me."
"That was because even asking is a weak form of contending.
You should have made circumstances such, that he offered it to
you, more or less automatically. Control is not always force, but
often conscious influence, and ... sub(tle)conscious (suggestion)."
[21],
[22]