Many years ago, when I was in my late teens, I was introduced to Buddhism. While I never made a deep dive into the study of it, I adopted what is known as “the middle way.” In a rather round-a-bout way, I have since re-visited Buddha philosophy. True to the middle way, I have taken bits and pieces of various religions, beliefs, and ideas and molded them into something that works for me. In other words, I have never strictly adhered to any one ideology, joined a group, or pledged allegiance to anything requiring blind acceptance.
Many people today are awakening from the dream of the life that they are living. They are learning to separate fictitious truths from blind ignorance. They are closing their ears to the rhetoric of those who claim to have all the answers; and they are refusing to accept what they have been told to believe – and to question absolutely everything. In essence, they are learning to trust their own “inner” knowing. More light is finding its way into their consciousness, resulting in greater understanding.
This act of awakening is difficult. It is filled with challenges and suffering – often more than we think we can bear. Layers and layers of old beliefs are shed and over time – even lifetimes – our Buddha nature is revealed. Many of us will experience a “dark night of the soul” or get hit by a cosmic 2 X 4 or my favorite description by Alan Watts: “get the stuffing knocked out of us.” For indeed, from almost the moment of birth, we are stuffed full of information, cultural ideologies, and experiences. It is our choice to accept or to reject all that Life presents to us. We can refuse to be led like a dog on a leash and adopt instead, the middle way. This may sound easier than it actually is because we must learn to let go of control, to cease grasping and clinging. We must embrace the impermanence of life as it continues to move forward.
In the middle way, we learn to trust and to find balance between extremes. As our country struggles with division and discord between Republican and Democrat, we will continue to suffer. In time it too, will find equilibrium in the middle way. We will arrive at the peaceful center somewhere between conflict and passivity, between hatred and fantasy. Somewhere, in the center, there is only love.
