Thread by @ThyConsigliori

John Minford, #SunTzu 6: 32 "Make his form visible, discover his grounds of death and life."

We discover yet again, extraordinary layers of guidance within such short commands. This verse is so dense that we have to unpack it phrase by phrase even more so than usual. Make his form visible, the first command in today's verse. Okay then!

You can never go wrong inverting anything Master Sun commands. If given the command that your enemy's form must be made visible, then it is absolutely worthy of meditation to note that it starts out...invisible. Push at it. What can we learn from just this much?

Good forms have to be invisible, and in fact, that's essentially the mandatory component for a form to be good. If it's obviously visible, strengths and weaknesses available for anyone to see, then it is absolutely NOT a good form. Good forms are, and must remain, invisible.

What is a form, again? The easiest form to visualize is a rectangle with front, rear, sides, and center, all of which, when properly led, moves and operates as a whole. We recently learned to NEVER allow our forms to grow hardened. It's worth reviewing (just a few verses back).

As we did above, with the command to make a necessarily invisible form visible, we're best served to meditate again on the opposite of a form, which is formlessness. Hardened forms are defeated by fluid formlessness. Hard to process, but formlessness is good, very good.

Can you see US special operators rising up out of a wheat field? Before there was just wind in the wheat. Now, the most dangerous men on earth are ready to project force. You do not want to be their enemy. They are formless. They take the shape of the wheat field.

The truth is that military forms are always 3-dimensional, even though we picture them in just 2. The rise and fall of the ground is every bit as important to a form as are the places we stand or our relationship to other soldiers in formation. And battle always flows.

Here's a silly example to make the point. Imagine you and your opposing team captain are flipping a coin prior to a tug of war contest, to see who gets to pull down hill and who has to pull uphill. If chance gives you the coin, heaven smiled, but earth always wins this one.

In fact, ropes are a really good idea for your visualization. When you're making your enemy's form visible, you can picture his van and flanks and rear holding ropes to see the line. Seeing the line, now you want to see the earth and its lay that informs that line, those lines.

Make his form visible. Let's do this with a boxer. Let's use another rectangle. Left jab forward. Left jab right side step. Right hook and step backward. Left jab left side step, back to point of origin. Can you see the form? If so, you're making his invisible form visible.

Feeling a bit cool, knowledgeable and like you're starting to get this stuff? Wonderful. Master Sun is about to smack us all down, and silly, so we probably should enjoy the moment. That's enough. Grounds. Oh, such a seemingly innocuous little word, eh?

Discover his grounds of death and life. We won't even mention all the impenetrable depths of the Yin/Yang over death and life. Not a word on that. That's not even the hard thing here. Grounds are. Yep. We've already referenced back to chapter 1 with heaven and earth.

Here's my own brain-broken confession. I knew the moment I read today's verse that it referenced chapter 11, yet to come, the largest and most difficult chapter in the book. I had forgotten, though, about the evil chapter 10 coming up. Silly me, I thought I'd read chapter 11.

Here's just a little flavor. Its name is The Nine Kinds of Ground, which are:

1) Scattering
2) Light
3) Strategic
4) Open
5) Crossroad
6) Heavy
7) Intractable
8) Enclosed
9) Death

See the tie-in there, to today's verse?

So, I'm overconfidently thinking I can take in the chapter, but innocently check a footnote and of course, up pops the evil chapter 10. What's its name? Forms of Terrain. Now what's the difference between Terrain and Grounds? Answer really is, no one knows, not quite.

You might as well join my misery, here are the six (and why not nine?) forms of Terrain:

1) Accessible
2) Entangling
3) Deadlock
4) Enclosed
5) Precipitous
6) Distant

And why am I thinking 10's Enclosed will be different from 11's? Smack my forehead.

So quick, I know, I better give you some hope before you despair. All of this reduces right back down to Earth, and Forms. Forms are just men upon the Earth. Hidden, they're invisible. Visible, they're weak and defeatable. Long as you're Formless, you'll win.

We don't have to be complicated about death and life grounds, either. If you're to die, you'll fall. Where you fall is death ground. If you're to live, you stand. Life ground. What kind of ground are you on? Think it through. The Way? Check Heaven's will? Check. Command? Check.

Discipline? Check. You'll be fine. Well, check enemy for all 4...not better than yours? Then he's on death ground and you're on life ground. Just don't let him know that. When a man's on death ground, okay, a little Yin/Yang thrown in here, he'll fight for his life.

That's all for today. For all you #SunTzuForMAGA supporters, I promise tomorrow's lesson will pick up here, apply to our #WarForAmerica2020, and incorporate Master Sun's next clue in the vast puzzle of his 422 verses.

142 verses completed, 280 to go.

To return to previous sections in our #WarForAmerica2020 and #SunTzuForMAGA series, don't forget to head over to @WarForAmerica21. You'll find the digital table of contents for this series, there. Please retweet each entry you enjoy.