The Middle Way - Jack Kornfield

The Buddhist tradition is neither a path of denial or affirmation.
It shows us the paradox of the universe, within and beyond
the opposites.  It teaches us to be in the world, but not of the
world.  This realization is called the middle way.

The middle way describes the middle ground between
attachment and aversion, between being and non-being, between
form and emptiness, between free will and determinism.  The
more we delve into the middle way the more deeply we come to
rest between the play of opposites. 

Learning to rest in the middle way requires trust in life itself.

Trusting in the middle way, there is an ease and grace, a
cellular knowing that we, too, can float in the ever-changing
ocean of life which has always held us.

We come to rest in the reality of the present, where all the
opposites exist. T.S. Eliot calls this the "still point of the 

turning world, neither from nor towards, neither arrest or
movement, neither flesh or fleshless."

The middle path describes the presence of eternity.  In this
reality, life is clear, vivid, awake, empty and filled with
 possibility.  When we  discover the middle path.....we can
 be with all our experience in its complexity, with our own
 thoughts and feeling and drama as it is.  We learn to embrace
 tension, paradox, change. Instead of seeking resolution, waiting
 for the chord at the end of the song, we let ourselves open and
 relax in the middle. In the middle we discover that
 the world is workable...

Jack Kornfield
From: The Wise Heart

Mystery Dancing Window

Life is the Formless,

dancing in form…

There is always an invitation

to dance with this ‘Mystery’

in whatever form it comes in -

through feelings,

through the body,

through the mind,

through the heart.

Every feeling, event, circumstance,

relationship

is an invitation to Dance

in the mystery of Life.

Everything is an invitation

from the Heart of Awareness,

to see beyond the barriers of beliefs,

beyond the shadows of the “self”,

beyond the veil of “me” ~

to open the window

and Dance…

~*~

“At the still point of the turning world,

neither flesh or fleshless,

neither from nor towards,

at the still point, there the dance is….

…Except for the point, the still point,

there would be no dance.

And there is only the dance…”

T.S. Elliot

~*~