What is Taoism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism
The Tao is everything and nothing, is it all that is and is not, and it cannot be described with words (at least not very well).
A Taoist would strive to follow the Tao, to observe it and mimic it’s actions, and to take note of how to live in harmony with it. It can be seen as ‘nature’, the way that life operates, untainted by thoughts and opinions.
Nature is unforcing and unyielding. It can be soft or hard, like water. But it does not have a say about whether it is good or bad. Such judgements come from our assumptions and expectations.
Juggling has many characteristics that illustrate Taoism. Balance is found as the foundation for both, as going too extreme one side or the other will cause the pattern to fall apart. Juggling is playing with gravity, and gravity is a foundational part of the observable universe, making life possible as we know it.
The Art of Throwing and Catching
Jugglers and Taoists learn to slow down their senses, to observe the physical universe, and how to manage more by focusing less. The practice of juggling has immediate feedback, allowing you to quickly calculate adjustments for your next attempt. One cannot give too much attention, but they cannot give too little. This is part of how juggling benefits from the middle way, by not going too extreme in either direction.
The action of juggling three objects is quite simple, but just because something is simple doesn’t mean it is easy. The biggest hurtles to beginner juggling is trusting both hands, as we tend to have a dominate hand that we use all the time with no training opportunities for our less preferred hand.
