Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Middle Way

I just watched a movie chronicling the life of Buddha, or more accurately, Prince Siddharta on his way to Buddhahood. There was a scene where the prince sat under a tree meditating with others ascetics--he was scraggly at best, with mats in his hair and ash covering his emaciated body.

From the river below him, he heard a teacher instructing their pupil on the proper way to tune a stringed instrument...

"...if you pull the strings too tight, they will snap, if you leave too much slack, they will not play..."

In the moment of hearing this, the prince had realized the middle way--the space in between opposites or extremes. At one end you have starvation, at the other, overindulgence--the middle way being nourishment.

Jai Buddha!

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