Jung’s Red Book, finally published only in 2009, is a highly ambiguous text describing a succession of extraordinary visions, together with Jung’s interpretation of them. This book offers a new interpretation of Jung’s Red Book, in terms of the Middle Way, as a universal principle and embodied ethic, paralleled both in the Buddha’s teachings and elsewhere. Jung explicitly discusses the Middle Way in the Red Book (although this has been largely ignored by scholars so far) as well as offering lots (...) of material that can be understood in its terms. This book interprets the Red Book in relation to the archetypes met in its visions – the hero, the feminine, the Shadow, God and Christ, and follows Jung’s process of integrating these different internal figures. To do this Jung needs to find the Middle Way between absolutes at every point, in a way similar to the Buddha. (shrink)

The Middle Way was first taught explicitly by the Buddha. It is the first teaching offered by the Buddha in his first address, and the basis of his practical method in meditation, ethics, and wisdom. It is often mentioned in connection with Buddhist teachings, yet the full case for its importance has not yet been made. This book aims to make that case. -/- The Middle Way can be understood from the Buddha's life and metaphors as well as his teachings, (...) and it is these that are used to provide an accessible way into it. In the traditional story, he moved from Palace to Forest, finally realising that neither offered the whole story. The acceptance of rice-porridge marks the moment of recognition. The Middle Way can also be found in the Buddha's practice throughout the rest of his life: his teaching, his politics, even his death. Well-known similes such as the raft, the lute-strings, the arrow, and the blind people with the elephant also offer a profound source of the Middle Way. They are not just allegories of Buddhist teachings, but relate closely to universal judgement in human experience. -/- This book emphasises a positive case, but also has a critical one. Although it has transmitted the Middle Way, the Buddhist tradition has also often ignored or distorted it. The Middle Way is experiential, authentic and creative, and thus threatening to the power of a tradition that has instead emphasised the Buddha's authority as a source of revelation. That authority is allegedly based on the Buddha's enlightenment, which is often interpreted as abstract, discontinuous and absolute. Too many other Buddhist teachings are routinely interpreted in these absolute terms, when they would be much more helpful and universal interpreted in the terms of the Middle Way. -/- Although it engages fully with Buddhist material, this book shows the Middle Way to be a principle of experiential judgement based on awareness that goes far beyond Buddhism. Because it's about how humans judge things, it's universal, not a Buddhist monopoly. In its final section it offers ten alternative non-Buddhist sources for the Middle Way, many of them recent. (shrink)

Sangharakshita (1925-2018) was a Buddhist writer and teacher, founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community (previously FWBO). He died very recently (30th Oct 2018). Apart from his practical achievements, Sangharakshita was an original thinker on the adaptation of Buddhism to modern conditions, an autodidact whose intellectual creativity was stimulated by both cross-cultural experience and practical contingency. His thinking is little known or appreciated outside the movement he founded, but over-dominant within it. This means that there is a shortage of (...) balanced critical discussion of his work that finds any middle way between hagiography and dismissal. Sangharakshita has also been an object of controversy in recent years, but his more controversial views and actions need to be seen in proportion to the whole of his thinking. This book surveys Sangharakshita’s most important and original ideas with an eye that combines appreciation and critical awareness in equal measure. It celebrates Sangharakshita’s pioneering syntheses of Buddhist and Western ideas, but warns against the inconsistencies and dogmas that are also found in Sangharakshita’s work – dogmas whose negative practical effects can also be traced. (shrink)