![]() ![]() The rat became accustomed to the presence of the lazy old cat and was soon up to his old tricks even, on occasion, brazenly dancing around the old cat as he slept. The Samurai wanted to give the cat back to the temple but the monk insisted he keep him a while longer assuring him the rat’s days were close to an end. For two weeks the cat did little more than sleep all day and night. The cat was old and fat and he scarcely seemed to notice when he was carried away by the doubtful Samurai. After hearing the Samurai’s story the monk offered him the services of the cat that lived in the temple. Returning home with his money, the Samurai happened upon a monk and sought his advice. The Samurai brought the cat back to the vendor who shook his head in despair saying he had given the Samurai his best cat and there was nothing more he could do. Half the day the rat would hide, but the other half he again had the run of the place. The rat knew enough to stay clear of this tough alley cat, but when the cat slept, the rat ran about. This time the vendor pulled out a large and grizzled cat and guaranteed that no rat could escape this master mouser. But the rat was even quicker than the cat and after a week with no success the Samurai returned the cat. A street vendor sold him a cat that he said would catch the rat and indeed the cat looked trim and fit. This annoyed the Samurai to no end so he went to the village to buy a cat. There once lived a Samurai who was plagued by a large and clever rat who had the run of the house. To lower an enemy’s guard you must act in the open hiding your true intentions under the guise of common every day activities. Moving about in the darkness and shadows, occupying isolated places, or hiding behind screens will only attract suspicious attention. ![]() For example, here is the entry for Strategy One: I have another book with the Strategies that has stories as well, but these are actually different stories from the ones in the book translation I have, since whoever translates these tends to pull their own favourite examples from history and fiction. However, for me, the gem of it is the Thirty-Six Strategies (of war and conflict) each have a story to go along with them to illustrate their point, pulled from Chinese and Japanese history. All of these have the original Chinese provided as well, with clickable Hanzi characters that show translations of their individual meanings. They have the usual documents like The Analects of Confucius, The Yi Ching, and Lao Tzu’s The Way and Its Power (the core book of Daoism), but they also have a great collection of Tang Dynasty Poems (with actual good quality translations), the Art of War, and the (largely unknown in the West) Thirty-Six Strategies. Today, while searching for a collection of the poems of the Chinese master poet Li Bai (aka Li Po) I stumbled across a marvelous website called Wengu Zhixin, which is a site collecting translations of Chinese classic philosophy and thought into English and French.
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