The Law Of Balance


Nature governs the world with her law of balance. She puts things

ever in pairs, and leaves nothing in isolation. Positives

stand in opposition to negatives, actives to passives, males to

females, and so on. Thus we get the ebb in opposition to the flood

tide; the centrifugal force to the centripetal; attraction to

repulsion; growth to decay; toxin to antitoxin; light to shade;

action to reaction; unity to variety;
ay to night; the animate to

the inanimate. Look at our own bodies: the right eye is placed side

by side with the left; the left shoulder with the right; the right

lung with the left; the left hemisphere of the brain with that of the

right; and so forth.





Zenists call them 'pairs of opposites.'





It holds good also in human affairs: advantage is always accompanied

by disadvantage; loss by gain; convenience by inconvenience; good by

evil; rise by fall; prosperity by adversity; virtue by vice; beauty

by deformity; pain by pleasure; youth by old age; life by death. 'A

handsome young lady of quality,' a parable in Mahaparinirvana-sutra

tells us, 'who carries with her an immense treasure is ever

accompanied by her sister, an ugly woman in rags, who destroys

everything within her reach. If we win the former, we must also get

the latter.' As pessimists show intense dislike towards the latter

and forget the former, so optimists admire the former so much that

they are indifferent to the latter.



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