Thread by @ThyConsigliori

John Minford, #SunTzu 4:7 "A Skillful Defender hides beneath the Ninefold Earth; a Skillful Attacker moves above the Ninefold Heaven."

The Art of War is, most agree, a composite work, NOT written as is by just one guy. If so, then it's either the most lucky compendium of rightly unified, logically presented and well-integrated wisdom ever compiled by chance, or...

Or, it had one hell of an editor.

When we look at the Holy Bible of Christianity, or the Tanakh of Judaism, we know they had these fellows called "Redactors" who pulled it all together. Make no mistake, the Redactors were geniuses.

Okay, there are other options too. Consider the translators. Ours is, as I keep saying, the greatest. But in addition to Minford there are two others bearing special notice, Giles and Sawyer. The A+ students need both. The work of the translators pulls everything together.

For example, in today's verse we bump in, I believe for the first time, to the number 9. If we glance at our table of contents, we'll discover there are two chapters that have that number in their title, chapters 8 & 11. If you have the luxury of time, go read them both now.

Yet, when focusing on today's verse, we need, yes, once again, verse 1:2. Let's look again at its list, The Five Fundamentals:

1) The Way
2) Heaven
3) Earth
4) Command
5) Discipline

Here's another little theory. If we pull Heaven and Earth out of the list, leaving The Way, Command, and Discipline, we have useful line. In the temple, we focus on 1, 4 & 5. In the field, 2 & 3. Can you see it? Don't show up in the field unless you know 1, 4 & 5.

When in the field, Heaven and Earth are everything. Or we might imagine, strategy is The Way, and it demands tactical clarity over Command and Discipline. Battle is, however, more tactics than strategy, and that requires both Heaven and Earth for timing and power.

By the way, have you noticed how often I happily proffer little theories? You should too! It's how we test our understanding of the text. Certainty is so overrated, and so over-claimed, don't you think? I like today's little theory, but I won't be trapped by it into certainty.

Where war is serious business, study should be playful. I hope you agree.

Now then, what in tarnation are these Ninefold Heavens, and Ninefold Earths? If you do a search, you'll find lots of theories, and most of them so complex you can't follow them, well, I sure can't.

And that brings us back to our man Minford. He too has a theory. The number 9, to him, just means "lots of" as opposed to "more than." He finds these references to numbers to NOT be technically specific. For him, if I read him right, there isn't a list of the 9 Heavens or Earths.

And, even if there was, it wouldn't be meant to be taken literally. If anything, maybe the term Ninefold Heavens just means ALL of Heaven, same with ALL of Earth. But let's try to lay that out with some math and logic, just so we can see it a little.

I don't know why, but I seem to remember that clouds roll up from fog on the ground to fluffy somewhere around 5 miles up. Everyone who's flown knows the number 35,000 feet, which is about 7 miles or so up. When you see a plane high in the sky, it's at least that high.

Certainly, those fast moving military planes must easily be flying about 9 miles up. Let's snag that. That's the Ninth Heaven. Now quick, picture a hawk - probably can't fly quite that high up - but pretend it could. And now, it sees a rabbit on the ground. It plummets.

Our plummeting bird of prey moves, first above the Ninefold Heavens, and then, it descends with lightning speed and divine force, the Wrath of God falling. One more example. A sniper. His bullet travels faster than the speed of sound. You're dead. You never heard a thing.

A sniper moves about the Ninefold Heavens. Got it? It doesn't actually matter if there are precisely nine or not. It means high up. It means where the gods reside, where the Will of Heaven is determined. It's metaphorical, not literal. That's one of the hardest things to get.

Go again, what are the Ninefold Earths? We can devise something like:

1) High Mountains
2) Medium High Mountains
3) Tall Hills
4) Low Hills
5) Rising Lowlands
6) Lowlands
7) Flatland
8) Valleys
9) Deep Valleys

But wait, I didn't get to Canyons or Marshes yet. Damn, 11 Earths?

Let's use a sniper again to solve the riddle. Covered with grass, somehow glued to his helmet and body, he syncs with the wind and the waving motion of the tall grasses. It's like he's not even there. He shoots. You're dead. He slithers away. He was never there.

He wasn't actually not "not there," literally, but metaphorically he never was. He hid beneath the Ninefold Earth while protecting himself until the one moment of attack: one shot, one kill. Then, he retreated back under the Ninefold Earth again and literally escaped unnoticed.

Another time I'll tell you my one educational story of how I hid beneath the Ninefold Earth and moved above the Ninefold Heavens in dealing with a school district in California and 11 other families with autistic children. Our youngest is autistic. It's a great story!

Let's conclude today's lesson with the following simple assertion. Be it Master Sun, his countless editors and commentators, or by whatever means, this cycle of instruction builds upon itself, and is fully integrated forward and backward. And please be clear, it is for you.

If we are going to Make America Great Again, you - yes I'm looking at you in the third row over there - you MUST discover your own mode of hiding beneath the Ninefold Earth and moving above the Ninefold Heaven. What's your mission? You must decide.

You must decide.

To return to previous sections in our #WarForAmerica2020 and #SunTzuForMAGA series, don't forget to head over to @WarForAmerica21.

67 verses completed, 355 to go. And also, be sure to purchase John Minford's translation, here:

amazon.com/Art-War-Pengui…