Where the hell you been woman? I was starting to get that feeling that I was completely on a different planet from everyone else "again" and had no clue about the meaning of anything. Thanks for the clarification.
Since you are new here I will give you a little tip on JW.com survival. When you start a thread and you begin to receive responses, come back as soon as you can to respond to the first few posts. That will help to keep misconceptions on the topic from heading off into different direction from that which the person who started the thread intended. It usually doesn't work but it is a nice theory.
If you haven't been scared away and you continue to post you will soon understand those little non face to face communication quirks that pop up. Everyone's head is in a different place when they post and it is easy to get the wrong interpretation of someone else's thoughts because of the limitations of this communication format. It is no ones fault things get misunderstood at times, it is just the nature of this kind of board.
Your a sharp lady, you'll figure all this out quickly.
Thanks for that post, although I think the concept of "balance" may be misleading for some. One can easily think of it as where something lies in relation to two poles on a linear continuum, (like your basic number line in math) whereas the taiji symbol from Taoism illustrates it in a circular model, with a seed of the opposite contained in each.
It is also dynamic, in that one thing changes into the other all the time. Rather than this image of balance on either side of a scale that is used to illustrate the idea of justice, it is not a static idea where the opposites are always opposites. This is where the idea of "energy" comes into it. Most people seem to think of it as some kind of "stuff" that flows around, whereas the basic idea is that there's change and movement, that's all. There are some repetitive (and sometimes very basic) patterns which you can observe, though that's where people get caught up. This is where I find the Buddhist idea of impermanence useful, because despite grand proclamations by some who fancy themselves as logical and scientific, there is inevitably a tendancy to cling to existing "knowledge" despite some new data. (which only has to be new to you) Well I don't want to go off on something which should be another thread, but it does appear that it's all about some kind of certainty, some knowledge you can count on for security. Instead of going with the changes in life, most people want to hang on to something static, and frankly that is just something without life as far as I'm concerned.
You are right about interpretations of balance. When I speak of it I do tend to give that impression. I understand the concept you speak of. It is very similar to that of the native American philosophy of full circle. As opposed to two equally weighted counter measure to balance on a straight line the concept of balance is express using a circle. Everything having a beginning and end at the meeting of the two. Most old philosophy that sprung from the intersection of west and east took place in the middle east near Persia where they were shared by the traveling merchants and traders and then brought back to their home lands. Most basic religious philosophy as well as myths and parables were also exchanged there. Those philosophies first sprung from Hinduism and then filtered to Buddhism and Christianity. I have found it very interesting to see the native Americans practice more of the eastern philosophy of balance and full circle then they did of the more popular western concept. How they developed that very similar thought is still a bit of a mystery. Out of all these concepts I like both Zen and Native American interpretations the best.
Joseph Campbell talks a lot about this connection and the philosophy shared by both Buddhist and native Americans in some of his books. The Native American explanation is described very well in his book "The Power of Myth."
I will be more specific if this subject comes up again as well as in my explanation of balance.
