Perhaps one of Buddhism's most famous doctrines is The Middle Way. It is the overarching rule Buddha gives for how to reach Nirvana, and has drawn parallels to Aristotle's idea of the Golden Mean.
It's ironic then, that the two school of Buddhism that arose after Buddha's death have been so unable to find a way to reconcile their differences.
The differences between the two schools come down to their answers to three fundamental questions:
1. Are people independent or interdependent.
2. Is the universe inherently helpful to humans, indifferent to humans or hostile to humans?
3. What is the best part of the human heart, its head or its heart? Essentially, which is more human: reason or emotion?
The two schools of Buddhism split mostly along these questions, with Mahayana Buddhists answering interdependent, inherently helpful because of a divine being watching over them and the heart, respectively. Theravada Buddhism, on the other hand, answers independent, indifferent and the head, respectively.
The problem I have with this is that, often the different answers to these questions are not irreconcilable. Humanity is rather complex, and so often I find that there can be two answers to these questions. Perhaps independence and interdependence are equally important. The second question is a bit trickier, but it does provide its own middle ground: indifference. And finally, perhaps the head and the heart are both equally human. I see no reason why these two schools have to be hostile to each other when both sides have equally valid points. It seems that if they both truly believed in The Middle Way, they would find some way to split the differences between the two. Personally, I find that my answers to these questions fit in the middle of the two schools. So where would I belong?
Sounds a lot to me like the two party system we have in our political system. Ironic both for democracy and Buddhism because both domains have messages of freedom and peace, yet they inherently contradict those themes by forming such hard lines with a rigid two party or dual ideological approach.
ReplyDeleteGood work. You're our resident philosopher.