The man of great strength does not lift his legs because he does not need to. My answer recalled to me some lines from a poem I wrote during my Pete Retreat several years ago (the poem - 'Siegecraft' - is posted here on Zen Throw Down).
For the art of siegecraft
is to be...
and watch the world
wrap around you,
turning
wand to sword to scepter
A strong or wise man draws his power from inside himself, so there is no need to act (to 'lift your legs'). This does not mean you should be a non-entity who sits around and waits or expects all things to move as you wish or imagine. You let this power inside of you - your essence - speak for you, and I think the more right-minded you are the more you amplify this essence to the world around you. There is a sense of strength, conviction, or truth that comes from you. So you do not 'speak with your tongue' but with your very presence or existence...with what you are.
I can look back at certain points in my life where I was definitely in this mindset and, at those times, it felt as though people and events conformed to me the way water flows around a rock. It wasn't that I was controlling anything or dominating people around me, there was a feeling of the 'world wrapping around me' rather than me conforming or adapting to the world.
When I am in that mindset, I'm not fighting things around me, nor am I submitting to them. I just am. Things happen as a result of this steadfastness. Perhaps this is what the concept of non-contention in Taosim is all about?
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