Middle Path Vs. Extreme Ends Essay

The Middle Path vs. Extreme Ends After his enlightenment when he was 35 years old, the Buddha had traveled to teach people his ideas of being liberated from suffering. He says that when there is life, there will always be suffering. The fact of suffering is explained by the Four Noble Truths. On the other hand, the Noble Eightfold Path describes the characters that would lead the soul to liberation (one can call it the “guide” to the end of suffering). According to the Buddha, the “middle path” is what describes the character of the Eightfold Path. It teaches that by having control of oneself, practicing discipline, and meditating, one will be able to free him/herself from the suffering caused by desires. When one follows the Noble Eightfold Path, he/she would practice right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. By practicing this, the person is already following the “middle path”. Buddha says that by following the eightfold path, the person is avoiding all extremes in both action and thought. He also says that following the course of the extremes will
not lead to enlightenment. Buddha himself realized this after the 49-days meditation period during which he starved himself almost to the point of death. It was at the time that Sujata, a woman who met Buddha when he was weak and fragile and sitting under the tree, offered milk porridge which Buddha accepts and realizes that ascetics and self-torture are pointless and do not enlighten people. The Middle Path could be applied to many scenarios in daily life. For example, spending too much money on unnecessary goods will bring financial issues to the buyer, and spending too less money will result in a lack of necessities. To fix this, the buyer has to do things in the “middle”, which means he/she has to balance out what is required and what is not required and spend a reasonable amount of money on it. This would rid him/her of financial problems and teach him/her the concept of moderation.
However, following the Middle Path all the time is also not so beneficial. For example, in a scenario where a student is challenged by the difficulty of his academics and choose to follow the Middle Path. This would lead to him to getting a B or a C, but not A. If the student wants to earn good scores that would get them into universities, then he/she has to put a lot of effort into getting high scores and not just the “middle” scores that he/she will get by following the Middle Path. From this scenario, one is able to see that the Middle Path does not apply to every aspect in life, and that one has to be able to distinguish situations where one can use or cannot use this idea.
Now that the Middle Path and its uses have been discussed, it is now time for the extreme ends, or what Buddha calls “self-indulgence” and “self-mortification”.
These ideas are better explained with the following imagery: a bridge over a steep valley has no barriers on both sides, and there’s little room to move on the bridge. If you go too far left, you would risk falling, and same goes for when you go too far right. If you walk in the middle, however, where there is enough room, you wouldn’t risk falling, and this middle is the Middle Path. The two sides are self-explanatory, self-indulgence includes reliance upon intense pleasure in order to find happiness. On the other hand, some philosophical systems say that somehow by torturing one’s own body, his/her soul will be able to soar free and he/she would be
liberated.
Hinduism is an example for the idea of self-indulgence. In Hinduism, the highest caste, the Brahmins, enjoy self-indulgence regularly because of the wealth being donated to them by the lower castes. Jainism, on the other hand, is the perfect example for the idea of self-mortification. Jain diets alone are already enough to cause some people to live unhappily due to the strict religious guidelines in eating. Also, the well-known practice of Sallekhana (i.e. the practice of fasting to death on purpose), makes Jain believe that the only way to destroy rebirth-influencing karma was to detach oneself completely from all mental and physical activities. The person who did Sallekhana and died are respected by the Jain community. So for these two concepts, it is either intense pleasure or death, and nothing in the middle.
Like the Middle Path, there are certain times when one can choose to do one and not to do the other. Following the path of self-indulgence will cause the person to see that wealth and pleasure are most important, and that they may help the person get the greatest happiness, but it would only be temporary. So, one would be able to have “temporary” fun and pleasure in one night at the bar, but wake up the next day only to continue suffering.
Self-mortification can sometimes bring greatness, but it comes at a cost. As previously mentioned in the Middle Path scenarios, if one wanted to enter a prestigious university that other students also wish to attend, then he/she would have to work very hard and put a lot of time into the admission requirements. Doing this will cause suffering to both the mind (stress) and body (lack of rest), but will cause the person to have pleasure afterwards (the relief after being accepted into the university). Like self-indulgence, however, this is only temporary, and suffering will come afterwards.
From the previous paragraphs, one can infer that both extreme ends and the path of moderation have its pros and cons. They also have specific circumstances where one is more suitable than the other. Surely, if one follows the Middle Path, then he/she will receive enlightenment according to the teachings of Buddha. By achieving enlightenment, one is free from the desires and attachment of this world. However, the appropriateness of this teaching may not be as up-to-date in today’s rapidly growing world. In this world, to live a happy life, you would have to compete with others. In my opinion, it is true that there are some things in life that require moderation, but there are also equal amounts of others that require extremes. For example, in solving technical issues with either a business or some kind of machinery, the technician cannot just simply do everything in moderation and let the work turn out to be lower than the expectations of his/her business. What if the problem the company is trying to solve is a very difficult one and a solution is required by the end of the week? If the employee says “I’ve done everything in moderation, so I’ll just provide a solution that is the same as everybody’s”, the business is surely going to fail.
To conclude this essay, I would like to say that I hereby stand in between the path of moderation and the path of extremes. In my life, I will need to have self-control, and I can achieve so by following the Middle Path. Also, in my life, I would have to compete with other people, and in order to turn out better than them, I would have to go with the path of extremities.