Date: Saturday, October 18
Time: 1:00 pm PT
Led by: Dr. Tom Yarnall
Registration closes: October 17 at 10:00 am
The framing of Buddhist teaching and practice as a middle way is well known among students of Buddhist traditions. In this class we will consider the diverse uses of the phrase middle way in various Buddhist contexts, including the wide, often disparate meanings and connotations that this phrase can have in different ethical, philosophical, and meditative contexts.
In the process of these considerations, we will see that the idea of a middle can sometimes be better framed as a center (across multiple dimensions), or even the lack or transcendence of a middle or center (invoking the important process of decentering), and so on. We will then see how middle way or centrist practices and viewsin the domains of the Buddhist higher trainings of ethics, philosophy, and meditation (or experience in general)might be well framed in terms of practices or views that provisionally and adaptively balance various possible positions, behaviors, views, emotions, etc. in flexible ways that are sensitive and responsive to different contexts, frames, needs, stages of development, and so on.
For this latter framingDharma as Balancewe will be guided initially by some passages from Alan Wallaces book, Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic (a chapter of which will be made available for reading in advance of the class). In that book, Wallace writes:
"Genuine happiness arises from the depths of a mind that is calm, clear, open, and intelligent. Its not simply a feeling but a way of being present in the world without being thrown into emotional disequilibrium by the vicissitudes of life. One can still savor the joys of the sensual world, human relations, and meaningful activities; however, because one does not cling to them as true sources of happiness, an inner sense of well-being remains even when these external supports disappear. The direct route to such well-being is the cultivation of mental balance: conative, attentional, cognitive, and emotional. For each of these four kinds of mental balance, we will identify the middle way of homeostasis as the freedom from three kinds of imbalance: deficit, hyperactivity, and dysfunction." (Wallace 2012, 22728)
This need for cultivating balance in the four areas that Wallace designatesconative, attentional, cognitive, and emotionalwill then form the basis for our further exploration and discussion of the framing of Dharma as Balance.
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