..续本文上一页eny dogmatically all moral and spiritual values.

　　In performing evil actions one lags behind, falls short of the basic human postulates; and deteriorating, one will finally sink and be submerged by the samsaric floods. In struggling for the performance of worldly good actions, with all their inherent limitations and attachments, illusions and frustrations, one will be carried away endlessly into the ever-receding horizon of the unattainable. In yearning after the past, one strays too far from the present and even struggles to bring back the past, as for instance, when one tries to "appear young," or, in a more serious way, to impose one”s romantic notions of the past upon the present. By doing so, one is carried far away from a realistic grasp of the present. In hoping for the future, for a heavenly beyond, a golden or messianic age to come, or even merely for "better luck tomorrow," one neglects present effort, lags behind in meeting the demands of present situations, and sinks into a multitude of fears, hopes and vain worries.

　　Given to lassitude, one will lag behind, fall short in one”s achievements, and be submerged in sloth and torpor. In the excitement and restlessness of struggling, one will be inclined to go too far and be carried away to extremes.[19] But he who, avoiding all these extremes, walks the middle path and harmonizes the five spiritual faculties, (the balancing of faith with wisdom, and energy with calm, while mindfulness watches over this process of harmonizing) — he is one "who neither goes too far nor lags behind."

　　After these specific illustrations, a few general observations may be made on what may be called the structural or functional nature of these pairs of opposites.

　　"Going too far" is the extreme development of one single aspect of many-sided actuality. But the desire for dominance and ever-continued expansion on the part of that one single aspect has also an activating effect on its counterpart. In the neglected or suppressed function, it will rouse the will to self-preservation and assertion. But apart from such opposition, any unrestrained one-sided expansion will finally weaken that "extremist" factor itself. When "going too far abroad," the distance from its original source of strength will grow, and there will be a loss of concentrated energy. The initial recklessly self-assertive factor that set out on a journey of conquest in order to impose itself on the world, will gradually be thinned out and diluted in the process. Through those thousand things which it absorbs in its conquering career, it will imperceptibly become alienated from its original nature; and those thousand influences, wrongly believed to have been mastered in the "struggle," will carry their former master still further away into unrecognized and perilous self-alienation. This is a case of "the eater being devoured by what he eats." All these characteristics of "going too far" hold good for external activities (political, social, etc.) as well as for the interplay of the inner forces of the mind.

　　In "lagging behind," there is a preponderance of heaviness or inertia, a lack of self-impelling force, of powerful, springy tension, and even an aversion against it. As far as there is movement in that tarrying tendency, it is of a recoiling, centripetal nature. It is the cramped or contracted mind (sankhitta-citta) spoken of in the Satipatthana Sutta. This centripetal and recoiling tendency is characteristic of an extremely introverted type of mind. Though an introvert type sometimes "goes too far" in certain psychological and ideological attitudes, generally it is shy and timid, or resentful and contemptuous. Recoil from too close a social contact places him on the side of "lagging behind." An extreme introvert type tries to resi…

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