http://www.buddhapadipa.org/pages/buddhism_buddhismforbeginners.html
Unit 1 - Middle way
Before the Buddhist period, there were two widely held beliefs; one
was that all things were permanent, this described the transferring
of the soul to a new body, after death and was called eternalism.
The other was nihilism, which believed in the extinction of the
being after death. In fact, they believed that everything was
annihilated on death, as everyone was born of four elements and
when the four elements dissolved, the being was also
annihilated.
The Buddha did not preach either eternalism or nihilism. Instead,
he taught the truth or the reality of conditioned existence. This
was expressed in three characteristics:
1) Anicca The characteristic of impermanence; i.e. that all
conditioned things are impermanent, and of the nature to arise and
pass away. No conditioned thing has any permanent nature.
2) Dukkha The characteristic of unsatisfactoriness; i.e. that all
conditioned things are unsatisfactory. This is because they are
impermanent and do not last, put simply, conditioned things are
imperfect.
3) Anatta The characteristic of non-self; i.e. that all conditioned
things are without any permanent, independently existing self or
entity.
As well as eternalism and nihilism, there were another two extreme
beliefs; self-indulgence and self-mortification. Those who believed
in self indulgence would utterly indulge the body in sense
pleasures, paying no attention to the mind. They just served their
bodies by eating, drinking, having sex etc. whenever they felt like
it. The other group, the self-mortification practitioners did not
agree with indulgence and so aspired to the opposite practice of
completely mortifying themselves, through various austerities. They
believed that if they sacrificed their happiness completely, and
tortured themselves, they would achieve great benefit in the next
life. These were two very extreme belief systems.
The Buddha himself was born a prince, and so had been showered with
luxury since childhood, however, he soon realised that true
happiness was not to be found in luxury and so went to practise or
experiment with the practices of self-mortification, as a forest
dwelling ascetic. However, during his six years as an ascetic, he
found those practices, too, to be empty of true happiness. While he
practised these, he knew that both of these approaches were too
extreme. He realised that self-indulgence was utter materialism and
self-mortification was utter spiritualism, so then he balanced
these two extremes into the middle way, giving importance to both
mind and matter, because when they work together, interdependently
it is very powerful. He called this path of balance between the two
extremes, the Middle Way. All things depend on the truth of cause
and effect as is explained in the Buddhas second noble truth;
everything arises because of a cause. Since there is a cause, there
is an effect which is related to its cause. According to
Paticasamuppada (the law of cause and effect), the Buddha taught
that all phenomena arise interdependently as the causes always give
rise to effects. All things are inter-related, they cannot arise
independently. This is called the Middle way in the Buddhist
sense.
In another sense, the middle way is a balance which means that the
practitioner has to learn and practise the teachings in balance,
step by step. The Buddha taught the dhamma or teachings of five
faculties; 1) confidence, 2) effort, 3) mindfulness, 4)
concentration, and 5) wisdom which must be kept in balance.
Confidence must be balanced by wisdom, if there is too much
confidence, it gives rise to blind faith, in which people believe
anything that has been taught to them, if on the other hand, there
is not enough confidence, people end up doubting everything they
hear and refusing to believe everything, without any consideration.
Effort must also be balanced by concentration, if there is more
effort than concentration, it will give rise to a nervous
personality. On the contrary, if there is less concentration, it
gives rise to sloth and torpor. There is only one quality for which
we can say, the more the better, and that is mindfulness. One can
never have too much mindfulness.
The middle way also has the meaning of practising or living with
moderation. This can be things such as moderation in eating, which
does not give rise to any disadvantage for the body. This is the
middle way in practice. In general, the Buddhist practice is the
middle way, not too loose or too tight. So the first characteristic
of Buddhism is that it follows the Middle way.
