December 27th, 2006 Posted in Mind and body

The Middle Way

Something that crops up a lot in Buddhism is the “middle way”. I have been pondering this with regards to emotions. One extreme is to be at the mercy of one’s emotions, and as a consequence, act very irrationally. Another extreme is to “control” your emotions, blocking them out and not feeling them at all, repressing them. The middle way for this is to experience the emotions, whatever they are, and let them dissipate without acting on them. Repressing emotions is a Very Bad Idea, and they will come back and get you, usually in a really weird, inappropriate way :blink:

This concept is not new by any means, but is very useful in everyday life, with emotions and with many other things. There is a reaction, which is largely unhelpful. There is repression, which causes problems, and there is acceptance. Mindfulness. Acceptance is not passivity in this sense, as action could and should be taken in many situations. It’s acceptance to begin with, followed by choice of actions rather than pure reactions.