Chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching - Balance

I went to visit a friend that I had known for a very long time. When I arrived at her house she was in the back yard working in her garden. We chatted idly for a few moments and I noticed that she was removing certain plants and pruning others. The ones that she removed, she tossed aside without a care.

“Why are you tossing those plants aside?” I asked her. “Do you not want them?”

“They're just weeds,” she said with a smile. “I have to remove them if I want my garden to remain beautiful.”

“I see,” I said. “What makes the plants you are removing weeds?”

She laughed lightly. “They are dandelions and plantain mostly. Everyone knows they are weeds.”

“I have always wondered why,” I said.

“Well, because they're ugly.”

“Are they? Why?”

“Look at them,” she said. “The leaves are large and jagged and they don't flow with the flowers I have planted.”

“Do you feel that all of your other plants are beautiful?”

“Of course I do,” she answered. “That is why I planted them.”

“Then you prefer your garden to be without balance.”

“You always confuse me,” she said. “I've worked very hard to create a garden that is balanced in color, shape and size.”

“But not in beauty,” I said.

She just looked at me. I could tell that she wanted me to explain myself, but she did not know what question to ask.

“Dandelions and plantain are ugly to you,” I said. “While lilies and daisies are pretty. But, beauty is only so, because there is ugliness to compare it to. Beauty and ugly are two halves of the same thing. Without one, you can not have the other. In the same way, evil must exist, or there would be no good. You have some things because you do not have other things. Many things are easy only because other things are difficult. Without long, there is no short. High and low exist upon one another. Voice and sound compliment each other. If you see the front of something, you know that it must have a back.”

“That's all well and good,” my friend said to me. “But what about this dandelion? By itself it's ugly. Where is the good in it?”

“Clean it,” I said, “and toss it into a salad. The plantain as well. You will find that it is wonderful to eat and helps with many stomach ailments.”

While she was contemplating these things. I went on with my explanation of true balance. “The true teacher,” I said, “will teach his students many lessons, but he will tell them nothing. All of his creations will rise and fall without cease, though he never creates anything. He works with no need of recognition. When he is finished he moves on without a thought of his past work. It is because of this, that all remember his works and his works live on forever.”

“What's that got to do with gardening?” my friend asked.

“That is an excellent question,” I said.

She looked at me as if expecting me to say more. She finally shook her head and looked back to the garden.

“So I should leave the dandelions in then?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” I said. “They are ugly.”