Fortunately, the sages set the standard for us and gave us the means to achieve it. We don't need to be in a hurry, the mean has set up a signpost for this road, telling us what to do, so that we can both adhere to principles and unite and harmonize. This signpost is unique, and its name is "Cheng". "The Mean" says: The one who becomes is self-made; And the Tao is also the Tao. It means that those who have sincerity must do it themselves in a real way, not perfunctory; To learn the way of heaven, there is no need for others to lead us, and it is useless for others to induce, only by grasping ourselves can we truly discover the way. "Sincerity, broad-mindedness" means that true sincerity is maintained for a long time, and will eventually be discovered. It can be seen that Confucianism regards moderation as the highest philosophy of life, which requires everyone to treat others sincerely, only in this way can we not only adhere to principles, but also unite and harmonize.

(2) The Middle Way of Buddhism: synonymous with truth

Buddhism takes the middle way as the fundamental position, and the middle way as the basic attitude to promote Buddhism. The Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, saw that sentient beings are always hovering between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, right and wrong, good and bad, emptiness, suffering and happiness, and coming and going. In order for sentient beings to understand the ultimate truth of things in the world, he had to put forward the idea of the middle way, which was far away from both sides. The idea of the Middle Way spoken of in the time of the Buddha is different from that of other schools of thought. The middle way of many schools probably means impartiality, such as the idea of the mean, mentioned above. And what the Buddha said about the middle way is synonymous with truth.

That is to say, in Buddhism, the middle way is the truth, and in the Dharma it can also be called truth, reality, truth, and so on, and the Buddha's original intention is to say that the middle way in Buddhism could not be explained or described in words, and now the middle way is used to represent the truth; If the world can realize the truth, there is no need to mention the middle way. We can straighten out what the Buddha just said: The Buddha said that the middle way is the truth, and the truth cannot be expressed in words. Why? Because the truth existed before the birth of heaven and earth, and after the existence of heaven and earth, the truth is still the truth, and human beings are intelligent animals who seem to sense the existence of truth.

In order to allow the truth to be expressed, for people to form concepts, and to better explore and pass them on, the Buddha thought for a long time, and finally came up with a more suitable word, called the middle way. But in reality, the Middle Way cannot fully summarize the truth, and the words invented by human beings can never fully explain the truth. After all, language and writing were invented and created by human beings, and truth existed before the universe, and it took a long time for the universe to have the earth, and the earth to have human beings after a long time. In other words, human beings themselves are the product of the truth, and cannot fully understand the truth.

The Buddha's view of the Middle Way, which is far from both sides of suffering and happiness, can be explained by a short story. There was a Zen master who had three disciples, and one day, the master asked the three of them: There are two trees in front of the door, one is prosperous and the other is withered. The big apprentice said: Rong is good. The second apprentice said, "It's good to wither." The three apprentices said, "Withering is also by it, and glory is also by it." The Zen master explained to his disciples: The Buddha said that the ordinary mind is the way. What this story illustrates is that it is the truth to follow the middle way without suffering or happiness, to look at everything with a normal heart through a correct understanding of all things in the world, and to follow the fate of gains and losses.

There is a term called "metaphysics", which refers to the view of the nature of the world, but also to a one-sided, isolated, static way of thinking. For example, a man came from far and wide and asked, "Dear Buddha, is there a god in this world?" Are there ghosts in this world? Is the universe eternal? Is the universe infinite?

All the questions that this person has just mentioned are metaphysical problems. The Buddha was never interested in these metaphysical questions, nor was he ever answered. Because these questions have nothing to do with the teachings that the Buddha preached. What the Buddha meant was: You haven't even figured it out yourself, and you still think about these things, isn't that just adding to your troubles? There are so many things to learn and truth in the world, and the first and most important thing is to do a good job of ourselves. If we don't even understand the basics, if we think about the vast metaphysical questions, we will definitely go into a misunderstanding.

In the early Buddhist teachings, the Buddha particularly emphasized the three learnings of precepts, concentration, and wisdom, and the simple understanding of precepts and wisdom is: only by forgetting troubles can we improve moral conduct and produce concentration; Only with concentration can we have a calm and clear heart, and only then can we produce wisdom; Only with wisdom can we correctly grasp the direction of problems and make the right way to deal with them.

The Buddha emphasized that the world is impermanent, that there is suffering in the hearts of all beings, and that the priority is to get rid of it. And the best way to get rid of suffering is to stick to the middle way and go with the flow. The Dharma explained by the Buddha is useful to sentient beings, while those metaphysical problems are not only useless for cultivating the body and mind, but can even lead people astray and lose their way.

Cultivating a normal mind is a true blessing. It can be seen that the cultivation of the mind in Buddhism is very pragmatic. When the practice reaches a very high level, the word Middle Way gradually blurs in my mind.

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There are many interpretations of the Buddhist understanding of the Middle Way, and here are some brief statements. First, it is to understand the meaning of the Middle Way from multiple angles, and secondly, we can get in touch with the knowledge of Buddhism in advance. Buddhism is still very effective for cultivating the mind.

(1) Away from bitterness and happiness, both sides are the middle way. The Buddha's view of the Middle Way was mainly addressed to ascetics who were naked and cold in the cold and freezing climate of a hot day. These practitioners think that if they can endure the pain as much as possible, they can exchange it for spiritual liberation. Actually, this is impossible, because when the Buddha first became a monk, he spent six years learning this method of asceticism, and wanted to get rid of all kinds of life sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death. Eventually, this ascetic practice was abandoned by the Buddha.

The Buddha understood that the human mind and the heart, which came from beginninglessness, were originally one, and could never be completely divided into two and regarded as two different things. If you want to use the method of abuse in order to achieve inner liberation, in the end you can only increase the mental burden and pain more. Because there is pain on the **, it is often the main cause of inner mental pain; And as a result, it often leads sentient beings into the abyss of spiritual suffering, from which they are unable to extricate themselves. This form of austerity does nothing to solve human suffering and attain superior cultivation.