Deuteronomy 20:19 · World English Bible
When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down, for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you?
The long siege of a city is the drawn-out inner effort to master a state of consciousness, and the tree that must be spared is the spine, the trunk of the body up which life and energy rise. However hard the struggle against a fixed mental habit, the central channel that feeds the whole person is never to be cut, because it is the very source that nourishes the one waging the war.
From the Esoteric reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
ESOTERIC
The long siege of a city is the drawn-out inner effort to master a state of consciousness, and the tree that must be spared is the spine, the trunk of the body up which life and energy rise. However hard the struggle against a fixed mental habit, the central channel that feeds the whole person is never to be cut, because it is the very source that nourishes the one waging the war. The verse names this plainly: the tree of the field is a person's life, the living column in the mind's own terrain.
A person may work relentlessly to overcome an inner condition, yet must never damage the living spinal core through which that same energy flows, since destroying it would starve the very self doing the work.
City: a state of consciousness a person lays siege to and seeks to master. Tree: the spine, the trunk of the body through which life rises. Field: the mind, the terrain in which the inner struggle is waged. Axe: the destructive force that would sever the living channel if turned against it.
Esoteric lens
What am I cutting down in myself to win a fight I need my strength for?
The hard and brittle break, the living and supple endure. Force turned against your own living core defeats the one using it.
The Buddha gave up starving himself because a wrecked body cannot carry the work. Push hard at the habit, never at the life that lets you push.
This practice is not for the one who punishes the body or skips sleep and food. The steady middle keeps the channel open through which everything rises.
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Esoteric