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So as many of you, there have been catalogues coming my way, giving guides for the holidays,

and one of them, and I saw this some years back also, get a Zen sugar high and a dose of

antioxidants with a solid dark chocolate Buddha from Neem and Marcus.

So this is Buddhism in the West.

You might be familiar with Buddhism as described as the middle way or the middle path.

Some of you, it's also been described as the upper middle path.

But the middle, it's an interesting set of words, the middle way, because it sounds bland,

but it's actually the quite the opposite of bland.

One very simple way of understanding the middle way is that it's neither grasping, chasing after pursuing.

But nor is there a disengagement or dissociation.

It's very engaged living, but with hands wide open.

So one of the cartoons I saw a few years ago that describes this perfectly is,

had a sleeping dog, and it said, Zen dog dreaming of medium-sized bone.

Which of course doesn't in any way describe much of our contemporary society,

where there is so much billions of dollars spent to get our brains to want more,

and to spend more, and to consume more, and to produce more.

And so the overconsumption of food and drugs and big homes and big cars and what it does to our earth.

It's not even a question of assumption that the economy is supposed to keep on growing.

That's an assumption.

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