Middle way

Middle Path (Sanskrit Madhyama pratipad, Pali Majjhima patipadā ) in Buddhism is a synonym for the Noble Eightfold Path. In a broader sense it is understood in Buddhism as a principle to avoid extremes.

At the time of the historical Buddha, the religious schools of extremes were marked; also Siddhartha Gautama himself was originally a member of any of these schools, who distinguished themselves by extreme forms of asceticism and detachment from the world awareness. Some of these practices went to the limit of self-destruction, of which the Buddha also passed testimony of confusion. It was only when he turned away from these practices, he found the knowledge almost as if by accident.

In the sermon of Benares, his first sermon after enlightenment Buddha explained the middle way his former ascetic companions:

" Two extremes are, monks, not to care of house lots. Which two? In the sense of things to indulge in the adhesion to the well- meaning, the low, the common, ordinary, base, hopeless; and indulge in self- torment, the painful, base, hopeless. These two extremes avoiding the Tathagata has awakened to the middle approach, which makes seeing and knowing, which leads to calm, to overview, to awakening, to nirvana. "

Thus translation reads, which is reflected in the Middle Path that the knowledge is to be found neither in excessive unworldliness, nor in a material things of life arrested.

The Middle Way is described among other things with the parable of a string of a musical instrument. If it is too little tense, there is no more beautiful sound. If it is too tight, it may break. Only when a string has the proper voltage ( between the extremes ), they can produce a beautiful sound.

Above all, the Middle Way is however become by Nagarjuna to main teachings of Buddhism. It says that four extreme positions are to be avoided, according to which things have a substance or should only exist subjectively or both, or neither of both. Instead, they should be dependent. With Nagarjuna's own words from a hymn to the Buddha, " dialectician argue that the suffering is in and of himself, by something else, or by both, but emerged without a cause ".