Concept
Middle Way
Overview
The Middle Way or Middle Path (Pali: Majjhimāpaṭipadā; Sanskrit: Madhyamāpratipada) as well as "teaching the Dharma by the middle" (majjhena dhammaṃ deseti) are common Buddhist terms used to refer to two major aspects of the Dharma, that is, the teaching of the Buddha. The first phrasing, the Middle Way, refers to a spiritual practice that steers clear of both extreme asceticism and sensual indulgence. This spiritual path is defined as the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to awakening. The second formulation, "teaching the Dharma by the middle," refers to how the Buddha's Dharma (Teaching) approaches ontological issues of existence and personal identity by avoiding eternalism (or absolutism) and annihilationism (or nihilism).
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
For if you think of man, the same is man and God, being man by nature, God by assumption. But if you think of God, the same is God and man, being God by nature, man by assumption. And in Him nature becomes double and substance double because He is God- man, and One Person since the same is man and God. This is the middle way between two heresies, just as virtues also hold a middle place.[75] For every virtue has a…
Boethius, The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy
States what Middle Way is; names Middle Way.
The difference, which we have represented as two paths, consists in whether that knowledge is called up by suffering which is merely and purely _known_, and is freely appropriated by means of the penetration of the _principium individuationis_, or by suffering which is directly _felt_ by a man himself. True salvation, deliverance from life and suffering, cannot even be imagined without complete denial of the will…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
States what Middle Way is.
All, however, do not agree with this division, thus: 1. Contemplation means a state of repose, as is said in _Wisdom_[381]: _When I go into my house I shall repose myself with Her._ And motion is opposed to repose. Consequently the operations of the contemplative life cannot be designated according to these different species of motion. But whereas external bodily movements are opposed to that repose of contemplation…
Aquinas Thomas, On prayer and the contemplative life
States what Middle Way is.
Philosophers who discussed Middle Way
Related ideas
- Ātman (Hinduism)
- Moral nihilism
- Dignāga
- Je Tsongkhapa
- Two truths doctrine
- Gorampa
- Jainism
- David Kalupahana
- Skandha
- Visuddhimagga
- Majjhima Nikāya
- Gelug
- Śūnyatā
- Sassatavada
- Absolute (philosophy)
- Aṅguttara Nikāya
- Nihilism
- Anti-realism
- Noble Eightfold Path
- Kamalaśīla
- Nagarjuna
- Ontology
- Svatantrika–Prasaṅgika distinction
- Śāntarakṣita
Place in the tradition
Part of Buddhist philosophy.