Tao Te Ching 77 (Teaching 1)

The Tao is like the bending of a bow. The top is bent downward; the bottom is bent up. It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance. It takes from what is too much and given to what isn’t enough.
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Again, we find a message of flexibility. Who among us does not have excess and deficiency? Who among us doesn’t feel out of balance? The Tao Te Ching invites us to find a perfect balance by adjusting our excesses and deficiencies. I note that it doesn’t suggest that we must rid ourselves of our excesses and deficiencies in order to find balance in the middle way. Instead, it speaks to transferring the energy from that which has too much to that which has too little.

I believe that as we strike such a balance, we will bleed off the energy in each extreme and rid ourselves of our excesses and deficiencies on our own, the way a swinging pendulum finally rests at the center point when the energy in its motion is allowed to dissipate.