Balance

Stories with the Balance theme:

• The Goods and the Ills Jul 28, 2025

  

  Long ago, when the world was still young and many things had yet to be decided, there lived the Goods and the Ills. Unlike today, where joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain are thoroughly mixed in human experience, in those distant times, the Goods and the Ills lived entirely separate lives.

  The Goods dwelled in a beautiful valley where the sun always shone with gentle warmth. Crystal-clear streams flowed between fields of swaying grain and meadows full of fragrant flowers. In this blessed place lived all that brings happiness to human hearts: Health, Joy, Peace, Love, Honesty, Kindness, Prosperity, Wisdom, and many other wonderful beings.

• The Tale of the Phoenix and the Dragon Jul 3, 2025

  

  In the beginning of time, when the world was young and the boundaries between heaven and earth were not yet firmly established, there lived two of the most magnificent beings ever created—Phung Hoang, the Phoenix of the Southern Skies, and Long Vuong, the Dragon of the Eastern Seas.

  Phung Hoang was a creature of incomparable beauty, with feathers that shimmered like liquid fire and a voice that could make flowers bloom out of season. She ruled over all the birds of heaven, commanded the warm winds that brought spring, and carried the power of the sun itself in her blazing plumage. When she flew across the sky, her passage brought renewal and rebirth to everything below.