Teachings 01

There are two main parts to the course I am taking. To use the explanation of our 'Khenpo' (Khenpo is a word meaning something similar to 'professor-teacher'): There are two aspects, just like a bird has two wings. If one wing is much stronger than the other, the bird can't fly. For us, the two wings are: practice and teachings. If we read and learn a lot of the Buddhist philosophy and religious teachings, this is good, but if our practice (meditation) is too weak, the teachings won't help us 'fly'. On the other hand, if we just meditate but don't learn anything about the effects, then this isn't good either.

Our teachings in this course are based on a text called the Madhyamakavatara – Entering the Middle Way. Now and again I will write a blog entry to tell you about the things we are learning – I will title these entries "Teachings".

What is the Middle Way? It is the path between two extremes. To understand it, you need to understand the extreme views first. Let's take a look at them:
1) Things exist.
2) Things don't exist.
Easy, isn't it ? No ? Perhaps we should take a closer look.
1) This means that the objects which you see and touch have a definite existence, independent of you, and unique to itself. A table exists as "table", a jacket as "jacket".
2) Things have no independent existence. Let's take the example of a jacket. Think of your favourite jacket. Maybe it's made of leather, has a zip and a collar, a fur lining etc. Picture it: you see "jacket". But I see a few pieces of leather and some bits of metal, together with some fur, all held together by thread or glue. Where is a "jacket"? Does "jacket" still exist if I cut off the arms and put them 50 cm away from the rest of the leather? Does "jacket" still exist if I cut off the collar and rip out the fur? If I tear off the zip? Hopefully you can see that the idea of "jacket" does not really have an existence of itself, independent of other things or someone who sees it.

The Middle Way as described by Buddha is to take both of these statements and accept them as true. And since they both can't be true at the same time, then we accept that neither is true.

European philosophy usually wants something to be true or false. But Indian philosophy has always accepted that something can also be "true and false", or "neither true nor false". And the Buddhist Middle Way goes one step further by pointing out that actually, all four options can be correct at the same time, or incorrect :-)

Confused? So am I. So I am looking forward to the Teachings on Chapter 6 of the book. Then I can tell you more!