The Middle Path (Blog)

[Savage]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

The Middle Path

[Sam988]

I think this is mostly a semantics dillema. What do you (or Buddha) mean exactly with extremism and middle path?

The examples you gave on your article don't look like extremism to me, but you posed them as "extremism" (whatever it means to you/buddha, that's why this gets confusing).



My way of interpreting the word "extremism" is one where the person takes only one point of view/way of living and doesn't even consider and doesn't give credit thinking about anything, because the person supposes that she already is on the only and right path of life, therefore closing her mind to any other paradigm.

[Spiritual]

Doesn't seem so hard of a dilemma personally.... I personally always have the gray area in my opinions. Often I chose to go to one side of the other for easy communication, but deep within I always know there are two sides of the coin.

I'm not sure how this is with others, but I think that if we are honest with ourselves, we also recognize our inner gray area. I don't think people who are honest with themselves and their feelings really are on an extreme side (opinion wise).

Then there is the "middle path" in living. I want to generalize and say, EVERYTHING in life should have a balance. Drugs and alcohol are not bad, but do it with balance. When you are feeling sick and depressed, you're on the extreme side.
When you feel down, that's perfectly fine, but make sure you are also feeling equally happy.

And the middle path in a country is not hard to find either. Try to keep things as peaceful as possible, but be firm and to the point when the situation requires it.

Just use your "inner compass".

[Fullcrum]

The Buddha would follow his essence...his core...his nature.

He would probably not think about it when it came to his decisions, but more trust his core. It's hard to describe, but I know that feeling and it's different from a conscious deliberation of the correct course. Buddha is above that level.

I liked this post, short but to the point, some great things about the world we live in and social conditioning. When framed THIS WAY, the right way seems obvious.

It's funny because everyone around me tries to dissuade me from waking up at 5:00 AM everyday, because I don't need to (I don't "need" to). I framed it to myself in this manner, something like "Hey you, you're supposed to wake up at 7:00 for school like the rest of your friends and throw your stuff together like the rest of your friends. C'mon, I know you're so tired, that's why the snooze button is so huge. Press it, c'mon brother PRESS IT!"

[heizusan]

This blog post seems to take an interperetation of 'middle path' as 'conformism/non-extremism' vs. 'savage/counter-culture', when really, it should be a matter of living a 'balanced' life. Middle Path = Balance. Middle Path != Conforming

If the extremist view leads to the most balanced lifestyle, then by all means, be an extremist. If the most balanced lifestyle involves a conformist view - then be a conformist. In reality, it'll be a combination of extremist views, conformist views, and somewhere in between. It's a matter of realizing the benefits & drawbacks to your options, and choosing the optimal one to maximize benefits & minimize drawbacks. Balance.

Societal views shouldn't have any say in how a person lives their life, except in how they interact with society. What you eat, how & where you live... these things are personal, so 'extremist' has no place in describing it.

[Savage]

A balanced life for you may appear to be a rather unbalanced and extreme life when viewed through the lens of social conditioning.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

A balanced life for you may appear to be a rather unbalanced and extreme life when viewed through the lens of social conditioning.

That's true. But who cares about social conditioning?

[tekomino]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

A balanced life for you may appear to be a rather unbalanced and extreme life when viewed through the lens of social conditioning.

Well social conditioning in lot of cases is necessary. Is it extreme to kill a Man or do we just view it as extreme due to our social conditioning?

Are you extreme to be vegetarian?

The middle path is path in between two extremes, but only when you have degrees of choice between these extremes. To kill or not to kill are extremes, but there is no middle path. You can't kill just "little bit"...

So extremes are good as well as middle path. There is no middle path to live your life by.

[alpineboarder]

This post made me fall out of my chair. I just finished book 3 of the Immortal Series by J J Dewey literally seconds ago (A MUST read btw). And the whole book is based on the understanding what the Middle Path truly is. Spoiler - If you don't want to get the straight answer, dont read further! (In it's simplicity people will often overlook it without proper guidance to get there)

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"The Middle Path" is using judgement followed by decision upon which actions harmonize within us for our current situation. It is a moving target always changing and becoming something else -- The best analogy is thinking of it almost like the tuning of a guitar. There is no quite thing as perfect pitch, it's all done by ear.

Jesus encouraged his disciples to perform miracles while Buddha encouraged against it. Two similiar men with entirely different choices. Neither of these men were wrong - They both used good judgement in both of their situations and time periods. Buddha's time period needed an emphasis on common sense for human growth, and Jesus' time period an emphasis on faith.
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Wow. If that wasn't synchronicity I don't know what is!

[Mr.Mustache]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

A balanced life for you may appear to be a rather unbalanced and extreme life when viewed through the lens of social conditioning.

Yeah, I know what your saying and its true. Especially the part about being consistently happy.

Although, what Buddha meant is that to become enlightened one must choose the middle path between self-mutilation and hedonism.

In Buddha's days people would fast for long periods and even hurt themselves to achieve enlightenment. Others try to end suffering by mindlessly seeking pleasure. I think most people today alternate to each extreme. They beat themselves up about financial and relationship issues and then drink the night away. Buddha's middle path was to become more conscious.

[balexmills]

Eating an artificial diet - This is my diet

Being addiction free - Might as Well Face It, You're Addicted to Love

Supporting a Non-Violent Leader - Is the real life of Ghandi better than the movie ?

Not having a job - Join the Army

Reading Books - Levar Burton

Thinking for myself - Ouija Board

Being consistently happy - As long as I have Burger King, coffee, the army, reading rainbow on dvd, and my ouija, I will be on the middle path.

[evelynlim]

I think the middle path, while it makes great sense, can be pretty challenging. This of course does not mean that we do not even do our best to lead balanced lives.

To me, the middle path also means not seeing things in black or white. There is a grey and all the things that come in between.

[Asmoday]

The "middle way", which is often translated as "middle path" that the Buddha referred to actually has a specific meaning. There are some misnomers in Buddhism that are often caused by a rapid explosion of knowledge in the West about the Dharma, without the training and history that are so rooted in the East.

For example, let me clarify with a discussion of the Buddha's famous, simple reply of "Anatman". Which, for its time was a radical departure. An is an ancient derivative, meaning "non" or "no" (no in terms of existence, not the more general sense of negation which we use it for, and this distinction is important).

Atman is translated as "self" by scholars, which is correct depending on context. Thus, this is translated as "There is no self", quite literally, by those who first introduced the Dharma to the west, from an outsider perspective. But, to understand what is really being said here, we have to dig a little deeper. In Hinduism, the reigning doctrine of the time was that each person had an Atman. A literal, physical kernel that sat in the center of their heart. It was this Atman that moved and remanifested through lives, bearing the seed of the person's consciousness, and more importantly, their karma.

Thus, when the Buddha said "Anatman", he is actually saying two things:

1) The Atman as a physical part of your body, quite simply, does not exist.
2) The Hindu concept of Karma is non-existant. In that, being a good shopkeeper doesn't mean you will move into incarnation as a warrior, and so forth. In short, he is refuting that the caste system exists as a law of the universe. Kinda like Galileo announcing the world is round, but being fully confident because he has the protection of the Medicis.

Thus, we have a misnomer in that is is proclaimed by early western scholars that the Buddha indicated that, "There is no self", which is just not true. In fact, the Buddha would avoid questions of that nature (for example, do I really exist?). When asked why he would avoid them, it was because he did not want people to become depressed. However, he did preach on compoent parts of the self being empty. Thus, the true response of Buddhism is that identity is transient, you do exist (after all, you're sitting there breathing, I mean hell...), but the self as you *believe* it to be does not exist. Because the Buddha knew the unenlightened mind could not *experientially* percieve this subtle distinction, he avoided direct negation of the self's concept of self.
He knew we would simply become demotivated, and dig ourselves deeper into ignorance.

But now over to the middle way. Again, we need to understand the Buddha's time. This time is *very* similar to the United States right now. India was the richest, most advanced civilization of that time. And, it had just experienced a pluralism explosion -- for the first time, people were wandering around questioning the "church". It is fascinating, because every philosophical idea (including nihilism and atheism) which we call modern and our own, was already being explored during this time. Now, of all these camps, there were two big groups -- and they were unified by the fact that they were trying to find "truth" through the body. On the one hand were the hedonists, who embraced sensory pleasure in an effort to find Enlightenment. The Buddha had followed this way as a young prince, sheltered from discomfort and spoiled to the max. When he left to find liberation, he encountered the opposite, the Shravakas -- these were itinerant wanderers who engaged in *very* extreme forms of asceticism to find liberation. I mean, whacky stuff, like standing with your arm over your head until it turned purple. The Buddha joined them, and at one point, it is said he fasted until he could push in on his sternum and feel his spine. Yeesh.

Enter the middle way. Very specifically, the Buddha is rejecting both forms of these extremes -- Asceticism and Hedonism. He is saying that pushing your body to break the mind free, or likewise, putting the body awash in delight, neither will lead to liberation. Instead, he says the true path is the middle way, a relaxed, comfortable dicipline.

The problem is (and that scene in Little Buddha with the guy and the mandolin or whatever that is, with the strings...is not helping because its not precisely accurate) people tend to translate this too generally. Watching 8 hours of TV or 1 a day doesn't have anything to do with the middle way per se, in that monks are already required to avoid anything that is causing a substantial attachment. Likewise, diet is really about causing as little suffering as possible. Again, the context is important. The middle way is meant as a philosophical refutation of extreme bodily approaches, self-mutilation, etc -- specifically the Shravakas. After all, there are times in a persuit of liberation that your mind will drench you in sensory pleasures, and you let these go. Sometimes, you do things to make your meditation more comfortable. On the opposite end, you resist many cravings until they pass, as they always will, or you force yourself to do things which are unconfortable.

I just wanted to illustrate the context of some of the Buddha's statements, to maybe put this into perspective.

[romee]

Thanks again for the post Steve.

Im VERY new in Personal Developement, I never knew what that was before i visit this site. Or I knew that but i never focused on that.

I just have read all your article in the Article section. Now Im thinking whats to do next, read your blogs? everything in your blog is intresting. I think i will die before i achive to read all that lol.

I just download all your podcasts and listen to them, when im at bus on the work. Have a nice day!

[Toine]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

A balanced life for you may appear to be a rather unbalanced and extreme life when viewed through the lens of social conditioning.

So what's your point? You are obviously talking about your own life. Do you feel you live a balanced life Steve? Is that what you are trying to tell us?

[Anuradha]

Steve, when you made these choices which you list, did you see these polarizations or did you just do as your conscience called?
If conscience is what reconciles these various lens' then isn't that the process of centering...into the middle path?
And can conscience - which is the (e)ssence of my being a particle of the Whole- be reasonably made into a computable function?

[Alex]

I think that whenever we associate ourselves with any single path (or side), or even a variety of paths, we are limiting our view of the world. At what point do we accept that the choices we see and think we know are the only ones that are possible?

I know. It's the point in which the world shrinks to us and we limit our possibilities. In order to constantly expand our view of what we know, and take away from what we don't know we don't know we are to keep our eyes (awareness) open and not conform to any 'lens'.

On the other hand, I think it wise to consider which paths are going to create the most value at the least expense to the planet, humanity, and ourselves and to walk them. The walk could be thought of as temporary, until our search leads us to a better path.

My point is to stay open minded and to not settle into one narrow paradigm.

[Andreas]

Society works pretty darn well… aside from a small glitch with the planet not being a team player.

Haha!

That one is my favorite, illustrating what the problem is.

Change is inevitable.

[Dbarker]

Not only is the Middle Way about not falling into extremism, but of following the Noble Eightfold Path: 1. Right view; 2. Right intention; 3. Right speech; 4. Right action; 5. Right livelihood; 6. Right effort; 7. Right mindfulness; 8. Right concentration.

[Truefire]

When the Buddha said to avoid extremism, I think he meant it in a spiritual context. He also said to find your own way, think for yourself, and see what works for you. Strictly conforming to buddhism without thinking for yourself would be a form of extremism.

What would Buddha do? Would he follow the path of the conformist… or the savage? What would today’s middle path look like?

Savage? nah.

Conformist? even worse!

Middle path: Self directed loving thoughtful being. find your own way, make your own choices.

Be wary of the golden mean fallacy. Anything can seem sane if you propose two crazy alternatives. I'm sure that the middle ground in that sense was not the ideal path proposed by the buddha.

[martin]

I think by 'the middle path' buddha meant not to go to a personal extreme where you drive yourself crazy. Not become obsessive. That doesn't mean conform to what society considers normal.