When the Buddha taught there were a number of great controversies in India about the nature of reality, self and the path to enlightenment.
On the one side, people argued that because things (and selves) passed they had no meaningful substance. On the other, people argued that things (and selves) had an eternal identity.
Likewise people argued about the path to enlightenment, with some saying that renunciation meant giving up all the pleasures of the world, with others arguing no, and that hedonism and generally the pursuit of pleasure was the path to eternal truth and happiness.
The Buddha in response taught the middle way. Having said that, sometimes his teachings seem remarkably one-sided. No self, all things are empty and an austere lifestyle as the way for example. But this is only because he recognised the majority human tendency to go one side rather than the other - to believe in the self, in free will, in seeking pleasure not pain and so his teaching were aimed at the majority of human beings giving them the antidote.
This book should be read in the same light. The middle way between free will and determinism, self and world, and so forth.
Having said that, we are so fixated on the
On the one side, people argued that because things (and selves) passed they had no meaningful substance. On the other, people argued that things (and selves) had an eternal identity.
Likewise people argued about the path to enlightenment, with some saying that renunciation meant giving up all the pleasures of the world, with others arguing no, and that hedonism and generally the pursuit of pleasure was the path to eternal truth and happiness.
The Buddha in response taught the middle way. Having said that, sometimes his teachings seem remarkably one-sided. No self, all things are empty and an austere lifestyle as the way for example. But this is only because he recognised the majority human tendency to go one side rather than the other - to believe in the self, in free will, in seeking pleasure not pain and so his teaching were aimed at the majority of human beings giving them the antidote.
This book should be read in the same light. The middle way between free will and determinism, self and world, and so forth.
Having said that, we are so fixated on the
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