The Significance of Balance
The Most Important Quality Above All
Balance is the most important of all qualities. In martial arts, one of the first and the most important things you will learn is to be balanced. If you’re not balanced, anybody can knock you over. If you’re balanced, you can defend yourself. Balance is a central principle in architecture and design. If a thing isn’t balanced, it falls apart.
On our spiritual journey, we don’t want a little bit of rapid growth and then to stagnate. We want continual growth, continual development, which implies balance, always.
After all, spiritual balance is the principle that allows the mind to be still. You can’t expect the world to settle down, everything to work out, in order for you to practice meditation and to be happy. If you are waiting for the perfect person, the perfect meditation, the perfect day, there’s no such thing. You’re the perfect person. This is the perfect day and this is the perfect meditation. Life is what you make it.
The Lack of Spiritual Balance
You wanted to have a great run today. But there were so many things you had to do first, and running is your favorite thing – it’s when you feel best, your body’s alive, your mind is awake, everything’s great. You had to make the bed, you had to meditate, you had to work, you had to clean. And by the time that your moment for running came, you were so tired that you didn’t run.
That’s the lack of spiritual balance. The lack of spiritual balance is to get so hassled by the details of life and trying to get everything so straight to climb up the spiritual mountain that you never really do.
All quotes reprinted or included here with permission from The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism