Saturday, August 23, 2014

On Being Wronged and Maintaining Balance

The martial artist who practices balance will inevitably alienate most types of people they encounter.  The prudent will find them too permissive while the imprudent will find them too organized.  As such, a proper martial artist finds themselves assailed by vicious contradictory appraisals.  One will know they have achieved the pinnacle of balance by the diversity of their enemies, as evil assumes many forms in opposing a unified good.

You know you are walking the martial path in perfect balance when you are called too peaceful and too aggressive, too organized and too disorderly, too respectful and too flippant, too indulgent and too ascetic, too strong and too flexible, too emotional and too logical, too sexual and too celibate, and too loyal and too independent.  These paradoxical appraisals will begin to haunt an otherwise contented existence until one is tempted to succumb to the criticisms of one side or the other. 

When your gentleness has been met with savagery, your humor with dry antagonism, your love with hate, your care with recklessness, your inclusiveness with bigotry, your patriotism with treachery, and your good work destroyed utterly, you have finally reached the apex of martial development in the western world.  You will be feared and shunned, even as you inflict no harm and reject no one.

Paradoxically, though one could follow the iron rule by smashing unjust violence with righteous self defense, one can also defuse an injustice by applying an injustice in turn: granting the greatest gifts of mercy to the worst transgressors.  Thus the martial way does not split into opposition, but resolves into a unified paradox.  Peace as an end requires peaceful means.  It also requires violent means.  One's balance determines one's path.  It is possible to both lose and win.  Resolution is unnecessary.

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