The Middle Way of Consciousness

September 30th, 2007 Fred McVittie Posted in Buddhism, Consciousness, Flow |

It is interesting that Buddhism refers to the ‘middle way’ as a route to the non-duality of undivided consciousness or non-being. This image seems to be drawn from the metaphor of lived experience as a kind of journey, perhaps along a road or down a river. On this cruise downstream we are constantly confronted with divergent paths; tributaries in the stream. At these moments of choice, which we may not consciously be aware of, we may feel the play of those cognitive operations which allow us the dubious luxury of such choices. The flow of our existence is momentarily arrested at such times (which are most of the time) as our brain loops around the possibilities, entering and re-entering the suspended moment in and endless series of yes and no. This yes/no interlude may be one of the defining characteristics of individual consciousness and its close association with the feeling of ‘free will’ (or ‘free won’t’ as Benjamin Libet rephrased it). In a quest for non-duality however, this suspension of the flow in which we are held behind the dam of our own free will is counter productive, and the desired state is one in which the mind is not divided up into personal consciousness through the apparent necessity of endless decision-making. The cultivation of an approach to the journey downstream which conceives of a third option: a way which is neither left or right, but which is simply straight ahead, may help to avoid the dams.

This is the middle way of Buddhism in which one (One) is carried downstream in the effortless action of the stream itself. More, one realises that one is the stream and that the stream is One.