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The middle path, which lies at the heart of the Buddha's awakening.

On one level, probably the most profound level,

it concerns skillful approaches to life's challenges where individuals get frequently caught between unhealthy dynamics,

all or nothing extremes,

vacillating between indulgence and abstaining.

The middle path is about carving out an entirely different approach to how we engage in both consuming and

relating to others and living our lives.

So it is a pretty important topic to say the least.

And before we dive into exactly how the middle way or path plays out in our daily lives, it's kind of important to talk a little bit about

the life of the Buddha because for one the Buddha's life as it's told in the

poly cannon and the early suitas often in an autobiographical teachings.

The Buddha's life is very instructive. Putting aside the idea that there, whether or not there was any

historical Buddha or whether it was more a compilation of various different teachers.

My suspicion is probably the latter because when you read the poly cannon in depth, so many of the styles of teaching are so vastly

different. It seems highly unlikely it was one figure, but the Buddha's life has turned into a kind of instruction.

And so whether or not it represented a whole bunch

of individuals or one person who lives some 2,500 years ago,

the story is important in understanding

some of the core concepts of the darma.

So the Buddha was born as the story goes into a very wealthy family in what was the

warrior caste known as as Shastria in an area in northern Nepal what is now

...