The ‘middle path’ is a Buddhist construct. But middle in the Buddhist context does not mean compromise, concession, conflict avoidance or tolerating being average. Middle in the Buddhist tradition means to sit in the core of a problem or situation and to realize it fully, without being affected or infected by it.
The middle path is the ability to walk through the battle field surrounded by noise, confusion and destruction, confronting our reality by remaining emotionally still and intellectually neutral. Neutral is not the same as being neutered and being still does not mean to do nothing, only to remove attachment to the self, the obstruction of needing to justify oneself or seek approval from ourselves or anyone else for that matter.
Taking the middle path means sitting with our current reality in the here and now. Not to be caught in the past that we can never fully know or a future that is yet to be. The middle path is clear when we free of attachment and still long enough to see ourselves in our own drama
The middle path is our ‘true north’. The truth emerges out of our own mind and body, there is a practical wisdom that sits quietly underneath our chattering mind, bound by the chain of memory and cursed by the need to need.
The measure of a leader is his or her ability to act freely and do what is right without being consumed by what is right or wrong. Without having to prove to themselves or others that they were right.
Taking the middle path means sitting with our current reality, exploring a situation, seeing an opportunity or a problem from multiple, even conflicting perspectives without angst. It requires us to see all points of view without being physically, intellectually or emotionally embroiled in what we see.
The painter who paints the effortless stroke, the musician who plucks just the right note or harmony out of the air, the friend who says only what needs to be said, the lovers glance that says it all, the engineer who sees the simplest path in a mass of complexity, the cricketer who catches the ball in the sweet spot of the bat and snaps tit into the perfect corner of the circle. That is the middle path. It is emergent, it is uncontrolled, it is the sum of all our practice, all our learning, all our non-yearning.
The middle path is simple, but it far from easy. The middle path is our inner voice. The middle path is the sacred space where we our breath and the earth that breathes in harmony with us.
"Give me a man that is not passion's slave and
I will wear him in my heart's core"
Hamlet, Act III: Scene 2
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