Our Mission
The Middle Way Initiative is a non-profit Buddhist organization committed to honoring and preserving the spirit, insight, and methods of inquiry that characterize the Buddha’s middle way teachings. MWI educates through meditation retreats, dialogue, and creative expression under the guidance of teacher Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel.
The Middle Way Initiative is actively committed to bringing the Middle Way tradition into the world in a broader way. It is our strong conviction that these teachings, and the methods of inquiry that characterize the middle way, are gravely needed in the world at this time as a powerful antidote to extreme thinking.
What is the Middle Way?
The term middle way refers to the discoveries and teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha. The Middle Way path, by nature and design, provides a fully integrative, responsive, and living spirituality based on the direct investigation of mind and its world, through hearing wisdom, contemplation, and meditation.
According to the Buddha, human suffering has always come from looking at the world through the lens of binary extremes: fundamentalism and doubt, is or is not, true vs. untrue, self and other, spiritual as opposed to temporal.
In the sutras, the Buddha addresses dualism in a teaching to his student Katyayana, by saying:
“That things exist is one extreme,
that they do not is another.
But I, the Tathagatha, accept neither is or is not
and I declare the truth from the Middle Position.”
We may interpret the “middle position” as merely moderation or balance, or, as a vague or neutral approach to life. But, in his timeless teaching, the Buddha introduces us to another less obvious but stunning way to see the world—a way beyond dualism. He suggests that beyond our ordinary binary way of seeing things lies a world of compassionate and creative possibilities. These avail themselves to us when we recognize that things are not limited to the labels we assign them.
The Middle Way refers to both a path and an insight. As a path, the Buddha first spoke of the middle way in the Dharmacakrapravartana Sutra, where he taught the Eightfold Path as instructions for living a life of moderation and balance. In later teachings, however, he described the middle way as being beyond binary extremes, and something that could be understood through the natural principles of interdependence, or praytityasamutpada.
In the 2nd century, the renowned Indian master Nagarjuna founded the Madhyamaka or Middle Way School by reenergizing and clarifying the teachings on interdependence. The methods of inquiry Nagarjuna introduced flourished at one of our world’s greatest monastic centers of learning, Nalanda University, from the 5th century CE to 1200 CE. During this period, the ordained community celebrated and refined their understanding through lively debate and meditative inquiry.
As an insight, the middle way opens us into the extraordinary human experience of awe, curiosity, and clear discernment. It protects us from the extremes of dualism the Buddha spoke about, and releases creativity, responsiveness, and insight. Through the wisdom of the Middle Way we find another option, another way of knowing beyond binary extremes. This is available to us by virtue of being human. It’s the best of who we are.