What does the Buddhist Middle Way refer to?
It’s a long time since I was into Buddhism so I don’t remember exactly.
I imagine that it, on one level, refers to avoiding excess in one direction or another. Don’t indulge too much and don’t deny yourself too much either. Explore your nature regularly although leave space for the rest of your life as well. And so on.
When I look at it, I find something else. The ideas of excess and the middle way both have to do with polarities. We imagine polarities. We imagine what’s mapped onto on those polarities from one end to the other. And so on. These mental representations are maps and they help us orient and function in the world. They are immensely important in that practical and pragmatic sense.
At the same time, they are mental representations. When we see that, and get it more viscerally, that’s another kind of middle way. It’s a middle way that appears when we recognize those mental representations as mental representations, as mental images and words. They are questions about the world. They have practical value only, and cannot hold any full, final, or absolute truth.
Another side of this is that I can find each end of the polarity in myself and in my life. I can find genuine and specific examples of how they are here in me. I can take the perspective of each end of the polarity, and the polarity itself, and explore from there. This too helps me find more fluidity with it, which is another middle way.
Yet another side of this is implied above. The ideas of polarities happen within my mental field. It happens within and as the consciousness I am. What I am forms itself into the appearance of all of it. It’s a middle way since it’s all content of experience, happening within and as what I am.