THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

The same distinction is made in martial arts, where Eastern
traditions talk about the 'soft eyes' which enable you to see at the
same time your protagonist and the surroundings. Fly-fishing
requires similar 'soft eyes encompassing both the spot where the line
is dropped and the entire river, in contrast with the 'hard eyes' used
for bait-fishing where the focus remains only on the float. People who
are good at bird or whale watching report exactly the same process.
In short, Taoists are fly-fishing, while our very language tends to
keep us stuck with bait-fishing (see sidebar on Lao- Tzu).
For example, how many of you have read correctly the title of this
section: 'AU is about balance'. Have you automatically read 'it is all
about balance', which has a different meaning? Or did you just
decide that it was a typo?
If this text were written in Chinese ideograms, its readers would
immediately understand what is referred to: the whole exists only
because of the balance between the two parts. 'Ah is about balance' is
illustrated by the classical T'ai Chi symbol (see Figure 9.4) where the
black and white create a single whole through their balanced
interaction. Notice that not only does each opposite shape the other,
but that at the heart of each polarity, the opposite is also present (the
little white dot in the black side of the symbol) (Figure 9.3).
On a lighter note, a similar point is made in the pun about a
Buddhist monk requesting a food vendor: 'Make me one with
everything.'
The point here is to illustrate the subliminal power of our language,
which automatically makes us, read what we expect, rather than
what is there. Our very words will automatically make us project and
see polarities where, in fact, harmonious interaction may be present
as well, or even predominantly present.