A Lesson of Balance

Once upon a time, I started to keep a journal (for you youngsters, that's kind of like a blog, but on paper). The first entry was November 10, 1984, and I wrote in it off and on for the next four years, with one last entry – more of a note to myself – in March 1994.

One entry in particular I've always remembered was from August 16, 1985. I gave it a title: "A Lesson of Balance". I had been interested in paradox for a long time, and as I was thinking about it one day, it occurred to me that it was in essence like balance. I wrote it up as a dialog between a Master and a student. Here it is, unedited, exactly as I wrote it. Parts of it are a little cheesey, but hey, I was only 23.

---

"Master, why are you called the Silent One?"

"...To learn, one must observe. I am an observer. If you influence what you are observing you cease to be an observer. To speak is to influence. I observe and I learn. Everyone has something to teach. This man teaches of frea, hatred, self-centeredness, and egotism. This man teaches of love, devotion to others, and self-abasement, self-obliteration. I teach moderation, balance. Balance is the nature of the universe. Balance is wisdom.?

"You are a man of great wisdom, Master."

(Light smile) "So it has been said. And so, if I have balance, then I am also a man of great foolishness."

"But you seem to me as one filled with wisdom. Where, then, is there foolishness in you?"

"I do not know. Perhaps in that very statement. Perhaps I cannot see my own foolishness, and therein lies the foiolishness I woulds see. For, if I call myself an observer, and cannot observe, then I am a fool! And worse - a pretentious fool. Yet, having said this, I have seen my own foolishness, and am no longer the fool I had thought, and the foolishness must lie elsewhere!"

"And where is that?"

(Laughs) "I do not know!"

"You speak in riddle, Master."

"No, not in riddle. I speak of paradox, and that is surely the most perfect balance of all. That which is and is not. That which cannot be, yet is."

---