Is it possible to combine cultural and mythological traditions of the East and the West?
Let us take in consideration Buddhism for example – Carl Jung assumed that European cannot be a Buddhist, however, today, fifty years after his death, there are so many Buddhists that it seems that he was not right. Nevertheless, Jung himself was very much influenced by eastern philosophy when he was declaring his main notions (Anima and Animus the same as the notion Shadow origin from Taoism).
The interest of Europeans of the eastern spiritual tradition has often been explained with the fact that contemporary time is not atheistic and that people need to believe into something but in a new manner. We can certainly ask a question why Buddhism is the most popular spiritual movement, especially in the United States of America, less in Europe. A possible explanation is that Buddhist religion (or philosophy) enables people (since it does not refer to any God) to look deeply inside themselves through it. Frédéric Lenoir writes about that in his book La rencontre du bouddhisme et de l'Occident (Fayard, 1999) that people from the West use Buddhism to speak about themselves and that they only try to solve their own philosophical and theological problems through Buddhism.
It seems that today is possible and even inevitable to accept and practice eastern techniques or philosophy. Obviously, none has the right to say if that is correct or not – we simply live in the time when eastern and western cultures and traditions are coming in touch and influencing each other.
At the Well-balanced studio we use knowledge gained from both sides. For example, we use European astrology because we believe that is much more detailed concerning the psychical and spiritual life of man than the Chinese one. Naturally, in Feng shui we mainly use Chinese sources that we compare with Western mythology and numerology.