What is the Middle Way?

[Nikolai1]

Hi everyone,

 

You hear Buddha's Middle Way defined in so many ways.  Most commonly it gets explained as a compromise between asceticism and self-indulgence.  Is it really such a narrow idea as this?

 

I'd appreciate it if some of you could some up how you understand the Middle Way and then perhaps help me with understanding it better.

 

Thanks!

[Apech]

It's unfortunate I suppose that the term Middle Way often sounds like the mediocre way - neither one thing or the other.  Possibly because it is often defined by negatives of saying what it is not - i.e. its not asceticism nor is it hedonism, rather than what it is.

 

To me it means a path of cultivation which does include rules for conduct (precepts) and so may appear to have aspects of asceticism (especially if you are a monk).  However this is really in support of the cultivation of inner realisation through meditation and the cultivation of understanding by study of the view.  Because the inner realisations are profound and induce complete change in your being - if you attempt this without addressing conduct and also 'mind training' to refine the subtle aspects of your mind - you can get really unstuck and just swing between extremes, or just get lost, rather than making sound progress.  Obviously also just reading about the view without some process to embed the ramifications of the view in your life becomes just an intellectual exercise.  By following this way your attitude to others for instance rather than becoming more severe (like an ascetic) you become more relaxed, tolerant, forgiving and kind.  In this way an aspect of free flowingness becomes a naturally emerging part of your personality.  This might get misunderstood as being just carelessness but of course it is not.  It is simply the effect of the growing realisation of emptiness and non-attachment.

 

There is also of course the madhyamaka 'middle way' of Nagarjuna which is something slightly different, being the middle way between eternalism and nihilism.

 

Just my thoughts of course

[Nikolai1]

Hi Apech - do you draw a distinction between Buddha's Middle Way and Nagarjuna's?

[RigdzinTrinley]

Please never stop asking yourself that question: "what is the buddhas middle way"

 

Its an incredible question!

[Apech]

Hi Apech - do you draw a distinction between Buddha's Middle Way and Nagarjuna's?

 

 

Yes about six or seven hundred years

 

It's true of course that Nagarjuna would have considered himself to be explicating the Buddha's teachings for which the term Middle Way was used.  But the centrality of sunyata in the madhyamaka makes this Mahayana school distinctive.  It's really about what is the 'view' in right-view I think.  Is it the view of the nature and cause of suffering? or is it the view of dependent origination as contained in the sutras or is it the view of emptiness as taught in the mahayana.  You could argue of course that the latter is merely a development of the former - in the sense that all Buddhist thinking is a kind of abhidharma project developed over the years.

[Nikolai1]

If we take Nagarjuna's Middle Way, which is about avoiding extreme views, how specifically does that bring about the peace and tranquility of awakening? What is the process? How is the relationship between intellectual state and affective state made? Is there a sutra which talks specifically about this?

 

Thanks

[Apech]

If we take Nagarjuna's Middle Way, which is about avoiding extreme views, how specifically does that bring about the peace and tranquility of awakening? What is the process? How is the relationship between intellectual state and affective state made? Is there a sutra which talks specifically about this?

 

Thanks

 

 

I think Nagarjuna's Middle Way is quite difficult to understand and that it is not really about avoiding extreme views it is more about not taking any view at all.  Usually when I say this people remark that this sounds like fence sitting.  But that is not correct - it is actually a very radical and profound thing to do.  While I would agree that Nirvana is perfect peace - the way to Nirvana is not tranquil - I think it is quite a struggle - or rather quite a challenge is perhaps a better way of putting it.

 

The process is a dual one, as I understand it (which may be not very well ).  The saving grace is that the goal is just simply either seeing things as they actually are, or to put it another way one's Buddha nature.  So the achievement of this could be seen as a letting go falsity - that is of attachment to incorrect views, attachment to things you desire and so on.  This is usually approached by shamatha style meditation where you just allow thoughts, feelings and so to come and go while focussing gently on breath or other object.  Its like a return to to your fundamental state.  the other side to the coin is to examine precisely and carefully your mind and it's contents - looking for the substantially real.  That is by asking does this idea, thought, feeling or thing exist in and of itself independently and enduringly.  After some practice both these two can be done at once without break.  The emerging result is the disclosure of Buddha-nature or dharamakaya.

 

The intellectual position jumps (if you like) to this final realisation which is seen as that which the Buddhas perceive in calm equipoise.  And what is said about that is that it is not possible to take an intellectual view which is its equivalent.  So whatever is proposed to the seeker to be fundamentally true - actually is not.  And this is why Nagarjuna refuses to take any position.  This is usually expressed in negative terms such as not eternalist and not nihilistic.  But this leads to the mistaken view that Nagarjuna is being negative.  He's not, he's just saying that the ultimately real is beyond conceptualisation.   So whatever you tend to say about it degrades it to that position.  This is intellectually quite scary because the human mind wants the security of knowing.

 

It's a tough position - tougher than say the Yogacara position.

 

Nagarjuna builds on the Perfection of Wisdom sutra http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/heart_s2.pdf

 

and as far a Tibetan Buddhism goes the best book I have read on this is http://www.amazon.com/The-Center-Sunlit-Sky-Madhyamaka/dp/1559392185 .... but it's pretty heavy going.

 

... as ever the usual advice is that you need a teacher skilled in the View if you really want to understand.

 

Hope this is helpful and by caveat this is my own meagre understanding and nothing more.

[Jeff]

Hi everyone,

 

You hear Buddha's Middle Way defined in so many ways.  Most commonly it gets explained as a compromise between asceticism and self-indulgence.  Is it really such a narrow idea as this?

 

I'd appreciate it if some of you could some up how you understand the Middle Way and then perhaps help me with understanding it better.

 

Thanks!

 

Hi Nikolai,

 

If you wish to have a good basis in the teachings of Buddha, I would suggest that you read The Dhammapada.  It is a very succinct and useful description of the Theravada Pali Canon of scriptures known as the Khuddaka Nikaya ("Minor Collection") of the Sutta Pitaka. It is said that shortly after the passing away of the Buddha his disciples met in council at Rajagaha for the purpose of recalling to mind the truths they had received from their beloved Teacher during the forty-five years of his ministry.  Reading this text, you will easily get a feel for the "middle way" from it.

 

Best,

Jeff

[wilfred]

i feel like the most relevant thing for us is how does the 'middle way' of the Buddha's time translate to modern day life/culture? i am certain that your average person's idea of moderation, especially living in the midst of what's going on these days, involves FAR greater amounts of enegetic incoherence than it would have in the past. this is hugely significant for anyone aspiring to get far along the path.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

For me a key aspect of the middle way is how it runs between views of self and the nihilistic extreme 'I don't exist' by revealing experience as process, just mental and physical stuff working with no central subject, owner or controller apart from them. Cf the Bahiya Sutta - 'in the seen just the seen', etc. Really it's so tremendously simple that it's easy to miss, but it does away with so much baggage to see things as process like that.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Seeker of Wisdom

[Tibetan_Ice]

Is there something wrong with the wiki?

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way

[RigdzinTrinley]

Nagarjuna is one of the greatest minds ever to appear on this earth and if you are interested in Mahayana dharma or any dharma or any philosophy he is worth your time - he is constantly challenging me and my ideas about what is Buddhism - what is philosophy, phenomenology, psychology etc. (West or east, nagarjuna is beyond such silly constructs - hence after studying nagarjuna for some time - then Heidegger and Wittgenstein make sense suddenly, I can read those guys without western philosophical training and still comprehend them and see similarities and difference in their view and nagarjunas "view")

 

So studying madhyamika is very worthwhile for all kinds of studies you do also in other fields (east or west)

 

But first read some abidharma otherwise madhyamika might be too out there (too many new words with their own definitions etc.)

 

Learn about the skandhas, ayathanas and dhatus then learn about the 12 links of dependent origination

 

Those are all teachings on how we create samsara

 

Madhyamika is working somewhat on the basis of that understanding (it will be easier if you have grounding in those basic abidharma topics: that's Buddhist phenomenology/psychology and in itself mind expanding ad brilliant, madhyamika is like the icing on that cake brother)

 

I second the recommendations of the center of the sunlit sky by brunnhoelzel as an introduction to the material but again I think reading abidharma first might be a good idea

[RigdzinTrinley]

At seeker of wisdom in the final analysis we are not even a process

 

A process is an imputation like: continuum, collection or shape (all based on a collections of parts or a collection of point instants of consciousness)

 

Collection, process, continuum, shape etc. Are non associated conditioned factors

 

Hence dependently designated mere labels based on respective parts etc.

 

Your ordinary mind imputes a process or a collection or an aggregation etc. based on parts (and parts are also divisible till the infitisimal particle - those have directional segments: up down etc. Those segments have more directional segments and are finally seen as unborn, unfindable)

 

A collection is just a label a conventionality not its own thing

 

Same with "process" where is this process other then in the point instants of cognition?

 

And where are those point instants in final analysis? Not to be found

Edited November 3, 2015 by RigdzinTrinley

[Nikolai1]

Thank you everyone for your contributions.  In Ancient Greece the philosopher Pyrrho talked about the mental imperturbabiity (ataraxia) which comes when we see that both sides of any given argument are equivalent.  The technique is to try and make both sides of the argument as strong as possible until we see that to fall on either side is impossible and the only possibility is epoche - total suspension of judgement.

 

Can this be likened to the Middle Way, perhaps Nagarjuna's slant on it.  Do the sutras talk about a state of peace and repose that comes when we are no longer fixated on a certain viewpoint?

[Nikolai1]

For me a key aspect of the middle way is how it runs between views of self and the nihilistic extreme 'I don't exist' by revealing experience as process, just mental and physical stuff working with no central subject, owner or controller apart from them. Cf the Bahiya Sutta - 'in the seen just the seen', etc. 

This is how I've always understood the Middle Way as it applies to the question of individual selfhood and it clearly ties in to the insights of the Three Marks of Existence.  But is there any suggestion in those sutras dealing with the Middle Way that seeing things from both persepectves is itself healing? For example, that suffering can only happen if we have become attached to a specific viewpoint, and that release from suffering shall come when we learn to remain sceptical on that viewpoint?

[Apech]

@Nikolai - your questions are very interesting, thank you for them I am pondering hoping one wiser than I can answer

[Michael Sternbach]

 

Hi Nikolai,

 

Let me see if I can come back with something yet more profound...

[Michael Sternbach]

Actually, I would say that by what we think of as the Middle Way, so comfortable and sound,

 

 

Buddha meant the Narrow Path.

 

Edited November 3, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Nikolai1]

"The challenge on the Middle way is that extremists on both sides only see their enemy behind you."

 

I think this is a very revealing quote.  The person walking the middle path is against taking views.  But those who don't walk the Middle Way operate in a world of dichotomy.  "If you do not agree with me then you must logically subscribe to the opposite view...the view I have just refuted."

 

The Middle Way is literally unthinkable.  It is what we are following when thoughts cease to guide our action.

 

But why does this bring us peace? 

[Michael Sternbach]

"The challenge on the Middle way is that extremists on both sides only see their enemy behind you."

 

I think this is a very revealing quote.  The person walking the middle path is against taking views.  But those who don't walk the Middle Way operate in a world of dichotomy.  "If you do not agree with me then you must logically subscribe to the opposite view...the view I have just refuted."

 

The Middle Way is literally unthinkable.  It is what we are following when thoughts cease to guide our action.

 

But why does this bring us peace? 

 

Because as long as we manage to stay on the Middle Way, we avoid being pulled to and fro. But... That path is a narrow one.

[Nikolai1]

Because as long as we manage to stay on the Middle Way, we avoid being pulled to and fro. But... That path is a narrow one.

So something inside of us senses that we have been pulled off-track..  We see that we have formed a fixed opinion about events.  And then we centre ourselves by being sceptical about our own opinion.

 

So having an opinion IS a disturbance of the peace?

[Seeker of Wisdom]

This is how I've always understood the Middle Way as it applies to the question of individual selfhood and it clearly ties in to the insights of the Three Marks of Existence.  But is there any suggestion in those sutras dealing with the Middle Way that seeing things from both persepectves is itself healing? For example, that suffering can only happen if we have become attached to a specific viewpoint, and that release from suffering shall come when we learn to remain sceptical on that viewpoint?

The views of self, nihilism and dependent origination (as a concept) all perpetuate dukkha to some extent. It's intrinsic to views of self to be based in craving for becoming and to views of nihilism to be based in craving for non-becoming. Both these cravings intrinsically result in dukkha. So long as D.O is still being held as a view it's in the same trap - but true gnosis of it, however, releases the craving, dissolving dukkha.

 

So the crucial difference here is that someone can see D.O. directly, beyond the merely conceptual view, because it really is just the way things are, and this is the way beyond the net of views. From this perspective the view of D.O. at least reflects the truth beyond the view, while other views just point towards dukkha.

 

In the suttas you can find unawakened people saying they have conviction, contrasted with the awakened saying that they instead have knowledge (in the sense of gnosis). There is a lot there about the nature of views and how awakening goes beyond them, to direct truth. If you want sutta references there's a lot on accesstoinsight.org under 'views' and 'dependent origination' to keep you busy.

 

All this is of course reflected up a level in Madhyamika, but I'll leave that subject to our more well-informed Rigdzin.

[Michael Sternbach]

So something inside of us senses that we have been pulled off-track..  We see that we have formed a fixed opinion about events.  And then we centre ourselves by being sceptical about our own opinion.

 

So having an opinion IS a disturbance of the peace?

 

Not as long as you keep in mind that for every truth, there is a complementary truth - for no truth is absolute. There is a difference between having an opinion and being opinionated.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Nikolai1]

Not necessarily. There is a difference between having an opinion and being opinionated.

What is the difference?

[Michael Sternbach]

What is the difference?

 

You quoted me quicker than I could revise my post. See my extended version 2.0 above.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Michael Sternbach