Middle Way facts for kids

The Middle Way (also called Majjhimāpaṭipadā in Pali) is a key idea in Buddhism. It describes two important parts of the Buddha's teachings, known as the Dharma.

First, the Middle Way means a balanced way of life. It avoids two extremes:

• Being too focused on pleasure and luxury (sensual indulgence).
• Being too strict and harming oneself (extreme asceticism).

This balanced path is the Noble Eightfold Path, which helps people find awakening.

Second, the Middle Way helps us understand how things exist and how we are as people. It avoids two extreme views:

• Eternalism: The idea that something, like a soul, lasts forever and never changes.
• Annihilationism: The idea that everything completely ends when we die, and nothing continues.

The Buddha's teaching shows a middle path between these ideas.

Early Buddhist Teachings

In the first Buddhist texts, the Buddha taught the Middle Way in two main ways. One way was about how to live and practice. The other was about how to understand the world and ourselves.

A Balanced Path for Life

The term "Middle Path" (Majjhimāpaṭipadā) is found in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. This is believed to be the very first teaching the Buddha gave after he became enlightened. In this teaching, the Buddha explained the Noble Eightfold Path as the Middle Way. It avoids both:

• Giving in to all desires and pleasures.
• Practicing extreme self-punishment.

Before his enlightenment, the Buddha himself tried very strict practices. He would meditate without breathing or fast until he was very thin. He even tried standing all the time and refusing to lie down. But he found these extreme practices did not help him reach awakening. They were not effective. When he gave the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, he was speaking to five monks who had practiced these strict ways with him.

The Middle Path is not just a compromise. It means staying completely away from both extremes. It's a path that doesn't lean too much one way or the other.

Another ancient text, the Anguttara Nikaya, also talks about the Middle Path. It describes two other "paths" that are extremes:

• The addicted path: This is when someone thinks there's nothing wrong with sensual pleasures and just gives in to them.
• The scorching path: This includes many ways of hurting the body, like going naked, eating very little, or sleeping on thorns.

The Middle Path, however, is described by listing the thirty-seven things that help lead to awakening.

Understanding the World in a Balanced Way

Other early texts, like the Kaccānagotta-sutta, say that the Buddha teaches "by the middle way" (majjhena tathāgato dhammaṃ deseti). This often refers to the idea of dependent origination. This teaching helps us avoid extreme views about how things exist.

The Buddha's "teaching by the middle" avoids two main extreme views about reality:

• Eternalism (sassatavāda): This is the idea that there is something inside us, like a soul, that lasts forever and never changes. It can also mean believing the world is controlled by a permanent being, like God. The problem with this view is that it makes us cling to things that are actually always changing.
• Annihilationism (ucchedavāda): This is the idea that when a person dies, they are completely gone, and nothing at all continues. The problem with this view is that it can lead to thinking that nothing matters, especially in terms of right and wrong.

By avoiding these two extremes, dependent origination teaches that life is like a flow of things that happen because of other things. There is no unchanging "self" inside us. Yet, this flow continues from one life to the next as long as the causes for it are there.

The Kaccānagotta-sutta explains this middle view clearly. It says that people often think things either "exist" or "don't exist." But when you truly understand how things come to be and how they end, you won't hold these extreme ideas. The Buddha teaches: "‘All exists’: this is one extreme. ‘All doesn’t exist’: this is the second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One teaches by the middle way: ‘Ignorance is a condition for choices. Choices are a condition for consciousness. …’" (This refers to the 12 steps of dependent origination.)

Dependent Origination and Who We Are

"Dependent origination" means that everything exists because of other things. If one cause changes, the thing it creates also changes. This means nothing has a permanent, unchanging "self" or essence. Things are always changing and depend on other things. This avoids the idea of something lasting forever.

However, it also doesn't mean that nothing exists at all. Things do exist, but they are connected and always changing. This avoids the idea of everything being nothing.

This teaching helps explain who we are. We are not an unchanging soul, but a collection of things that are always connected and changing. Thinking there's something unchanging in us is eternalism. Thinking there's no real connection between us at different times is annihilationism. The Middle Way says there is only this connection, this dependent arising.

This idea also helps explain rebirth. It's a "Middle Way" that avoids the idea of an eternal self surviving death, and also avoids the idea of a person being completely destroyed at death.

Theravāda Buddhism

In Theravāda Buddhism, which is common in countries like Thailand and Sri Lanka, the "Middle Way" is also discussed. Old Pali writings explain it further.

One commentary says: "The Buddha teaches the Dharma by the middle, without going to either extreme—eternalism or annihilationism. He teaches while being established in the middle way. What is that Dharma? It shows that things happen because of causes, and they stop when the causes stop. But it doesn't describe a permanent doer or experiencer."

Another text, the Visuddhimagga, says: "Dependent origination represents the middle way, which rejects the ideas, 'He who acts is he who reaps' (eternalism) and 'One acts while another reaps' (annihilationism)."

Modern Theravāda teachers also explain the Middle Way. Bhikkhu Bodhi says that when a wise person looks at themselves, they see "just a collection of things that arise and pass away through the process of dependent origination."

Some teachers, like Thanissaro Bhikkhu, suggest that the Kaccānagotta-sutta is not just a philosophy. It also describes a way to practice meditation. It's about calmly watching how all experiences arise and pass away. This helps people see that everything is temporary, not truly satisfying, and not a permanent "self."

Mahāyāna Buddhism

In Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Middle Way often refers to understanding śūnyatā ("emptiness"). This means seeing that things are empty of a fixed, unchanging nature. This idea goes beyond the extremes of things truly existing or not existing at all.

Madhyamaka

The Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism is even named "Middle Way." It teaches a middle path between believing things exist in a final, unchanging way and believing they don't exist at all.

Nagarjuna, a very important teacher, wrote about this. He said that ideas of things having their own fixed nature (svabhāva) don't make sense with how things actually come to be through dependent origination.

He wrote: "‘It exists’ is an eternalist view; ‘It does not exist’ is an annihilationist idea. Therefore the wise one should not have recourse to either existence or nonexistence."

For Nagarjuna, the two extremes are:

• The idea that things exist with their own fixed nature, which would mean they are eternal.
• The idea that if things don't have a fixed nature, then they don't exist at all.

The Middle Way avoids both of these.

Yogācāra

The Yogācāra school also explores emptiness. It says that our minds create many of our ideas about existence. This school believes that consciousness itself exists, but in a dependent and "empty" way. It's not a fixed, unchanging thing.

Yogācāra sees emptiness as the absence of dualities, meaning that ultimate reality is beyond ideas like "self" and "other," or "physical" and "non-physical." All these ideas are just ways our minds create things.

Tibetan Buddhism

In Tibetan Buddhism, there are different ways to understand the Madhyamaka philosophy, but all aim to explain the Buddha's Middle Way.

• Some teachers, like Dölpopa, taught "emptiness of other." This means that ultimate reality is empty of things that are temporary, but it's not empty of its own true, perfect nature, like the qualities of a Buddha.
• Other teachers, like Je Tsongkhapa, taught that emptiness means everything, even Buddhahood itself, is empty of a fixed, unchanging nature. This doesn't mean things don't exist, but that they don't have an independent, unchanging essence.
• Another view, from Gorampa, says that all things lack the four extremes: existence, nonexistence, both, and neither. This means that even our everyday reality is seen as not truly existing in a fixed way, but as something our minds create.

East Asian Ideas

Tendai

In the Tendai school in Japan, the Middle Way combines two ideas: that all things are "empty" (without a fixed nature) and that all things still appear to exist in the world.

Chan Buddhism

In Chan Buddhism (also known as Zen), the Middle Way means being free from one-sided thinking. It's about not seeing things as only one extreme or the other. For example, if someone asks about "darkness," you can explain it in relation to "light." This shows how things are connected and depend on each other, leading to the meaning of the Middle Way.

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