The Seven Fundamental Principles for Standing in the Face of the Truth
An Introduction
When we don't have harmony in
our lives and our world, we are suffering from some kind of imbalance. As we
strive to improve our relationship to the world and within ourselves, we reach
out to family and friendship, exercise and nutrition, and religion and
meditation for solace. 'Balance and Harmony' is an often-used phrase that
sounds good on paper but isn't always so easy to achieve.
Interestingly, quietly
residing between those two seven letter words lays a simple three letter word -
'and.' As we shall see, it's all in the 'and,' because hiding in that modest conjunction
are five secrets to improved balance and harmony.
Years ago my teacher (Sensei)
related he had been thinking a great deal about the term balance and harmony,
noting that the phrase is tossed about quite a bit. He had been observing how
people often have a hard time finding balance in their lives, and that they
have an equally hard time transitioning to harmony. He emphasized that while
the two words are often used as synonyms they are actually two completely
different principles.
Pondering what was preventing
people from finding balance and then making the transition to harmony, his
questions became a serious study. He found himself wondering what it was that
resided between balance and harmony. In a succinct moment of realization, he
began to focus on the three letter word ‘and’.
In time he came to understand
that a seemingly insignificant word actually represented five principles, and
that the word ‘and’ was a transitional word in a much larger sense then had
ever been imagined. For within that word resided five naturally flowing
universal principles that reliably transition us from balance to harmony. If we are not in harmony, it
is because we are stuck on one or more of the other principles.
With an understanding of how
the principles work, including their interrelationships, there now existed,
perhaps for the first time, a roadmap to achieving better harmony in our lives.
Eventually, these principles became known as The Seven Fundamental Principles
for Standing in the Face of the Truth. [1]
Brilliantly ordered and
crafted, together these principles teach us how to stand in the face of the
Truth, including how to face our inner demons and outer critics. Each principle
successively reveals that we can not only be successful navigating the unknown,
but that we have a universal, principle-based 'GPS guidance system' to take along
anytime we go there.
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