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Attraction, Repulsion, and Balance
How to do this is the eternal question isn't it? Every solution we come up with always comes with a 'how to implement it' side...and perhaps a 'how to implement the how to implement...'. It fascinates me how every solution always comes with an attendant problem, just as every problem suggest a possible solution. Round and round we go. :roll:[cite] mr.minor:[/cite]... if we take our emotions and thoughts with a grain of salt, we will be able to deepen the connection.
My solution to the problem of solutions is to slow down, stop, wait, and as mr.minor says, listen. I would also add watch. Listening and watching are only possible when we slow down enough to 'take it all in' and just breathe.
This Tao Te Ching passage speaks to this: [chref=16]I do my utmost to attain emptiness; I hold firmly to stillness... [/chref]
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Why do we do the things we do? Why do events happen the way they do? Why does the earth spin around the sun? Why do babies crawl? Why are we attracted to people? Why do we reject people? It all comes back to attraction and repulsion, electrons and protons.
It’s not something I can prove. Just a hypothesis. Something I will eventually lose interest in as I move from being interested in the subject towards being fulfilled and then onto repulsion. And maybe again later attracted to the subject again. It all depends on desire (needs), spurning (rejection), and fulfillment (being completed). Those are our three states of being with regards to small and big things. Just like the ocean waves flowing out and then flowing in. It’s Life, movement and change. And sometimes along the path we are fulfilled and still and complete. And then movement begins again.
I believe in God (otherwise know as the One) above and in everything -- so it’s within this dynamic that I further ponder.
The three states
The three states are attraction, repulsion and balance. Attraction is wanting or needing something when there is a lack. Repulsion is rejecting or spurning something when there is too much of it. Balance is when one is satisfied and there is no hunger and there is no over abundance. Just like a scale.
Tip up the one side where it is too light and there is a need in order to get it to balance. Tip down the one side where it is too heavy and there is too much.
Balance it in the middle and one is fulfilled.
Attraction: desire, deficiency, lacking, longing for, pining, hunger, yearn, shortage.
Repulsion: detesting, dislike, overfilled, hate, loathe, not want, reject, spurn, over fulfilled.
Balance: fulfilled, complete, still.
Everything and everyone
Everything and everyone is in one of these three states at any moment.
You are either hungry, have eaten too much, or are fulfilled.
You are either attracted to someone, repulsed by someone, or satisfied with whatever position you are in (single, married, etc…).
A tree is either thirsty, over-watered, or satisfied. When a tree is thirsty, it’s roots will search out a source of water to try and fill the need. Occasionally, these roots in searching for and growing for water find the sewer pipe leading from my house and I grudgingly have to pay a plumber to have those roots from inside the pipe.
Our cells either have too little sugar, too much sugar, or are in balance.
Our bodies can be too thin (underfed), too fat (overfed), or healthy (in balance). We can exercise too much (so muscular that one can’t lift one’s arms), we can exercise too little (muscles are weak and useless), or we can be in balance and fit.
The Tao is about balance. To enjoy good health is to be in balance. To be calm is to be in balance. To not need to be in control of everything and everyone is to be in balance. To take all into consideration is to be in balance. To be content with what one has, is to be in balance. To know oneself is to be balanced. To flow with nature and seasons is to be balanced. To not interfere is to be balanced.
The small and big
The small and big follow this law, irrelevant of their size. It’s amazing how nature repeats patterns at the microscopic level and the universe level. Relationships follow the same pattern no matter what size and no matter if person, thing, idea, or event. They all follow attraction, repulsion and balance in their movements.
Take for example an atom. Everything in the universe is made up of atoms (people, plants, stars, air, water). Atoms are so small that a million of them would fit on the head of a pin. The center of an atom is called the nucleus. It is made up of protons and neutrons. It’s the bubbly stuff in the center of the picture below. Oops. The picture isn't pasting. Well anyway, electrons spin around the nucleus at a great distance from the nucleus. Atoms are mostly empty space.
The electrons are constantly spinning and moving to stay as far away from each other as possible. Electrons are held in their shells by an electrical force.
The protons and electrons of an atom are attracted to each other. Protons have a positive charge and electrons have a negative charge. Opposite charges attract one another. The lacking one is attracted to the one that is over fulfilled, and vice versa. When an atom is in balance, it has an equal number of protons and electrons. The neutrons carry no charge.
Applying force can make one electron move from atom to another. These electrons are electricity. When you get a shock when you touched an object after walking across carpet, this is called static electricity. The electrons moved.
Just like the atom, the solar system follows the same pattern. If I could have posted my pictures you would have seen the similar pattern. The Sun is like the nucleus in the atom. The planets are like the electrons. The center of our solar system is called the Sun. Planets spin around the Sun at a great distance from the Sun. The Solar system is mostly empty space.
Just like an atom, the planets are constantly spinning and moving to stay as far away from each other as possible. Planets are held together by an electrical force. It all comes back to attraction, rejection, balance. Electricity, magnetism, and gravity are all related.
Joy and happiness
If one is to be completely in balance, there can be no needs and no wants. But if there are no needs and no wants, can there then be happiness and joy or would there just be contentment? Needs and wants (and for that matter fear and repulsion) drive movement and change.
Is thinking the same as looking for something because of being unfulfilled in some way? Would balance then be the state of not thinking about anything?
I may be getting too esoteric. If so, my thoughts will continue to change, looking for balance.
Why may be the 'answer'.
This may neutralize that 'why'
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...or perhaps all states, but we only see the one for which we are looking.
balance is an ironic thing. [chref=45]Great perfection[/chref] in balance must be that condition which is counterbalanced by imbalance.
It helps to ponder this vis-a-vis how biology works: Need drive us to obtain its object. When obtained we feel content. This feeling is fleeting, because the neural connections which produce that sensation 'relax'. As they do, awareness of contentment blends into the background, like any sensation to which we become habituated. And thus we 'take things for granted'. 'Taking things for granted' makes room for another need to arise and off we go once again. This is a natural process which drives hunter gatherers to keep looking for food, for instance. This natural process, in the circumstances of civilization, becomes unbalanced (i.e., out of kilter from how it evolved to work). Religion then touts the aspect short changed in this deal. e.g., contentment, peace, joy, harmony, simplicity. In other words, our clever innovations tend to favor our needs and the result is an unbalanced situation.
I find balance comes easier as I put less trust in the verity of [chref=23]words[/chref], names, and the thoughts produced. It is not the thinking that is really our problem, it is believing with full force of emotion that we [chref=71]think that we know[/chref]. Being more [chref=15]tentative, hesitant, murky [/chref], etc., in our judgements works wonders.