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1. Introduction<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Peace, we assume, is better than\nwar. A society without slavery is better than one with.  A science that shows the earth revolving\naround the sun is better than one that shows the sun revolving around the\nearth. But in what sense are they \u2018better\u2019? Religion has inspired many\nmeaningful and saintly lives, but how can we account for this when it seems so\noften to be based on dogma[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middle Way Philosophy<\/em> tries to answer questions like these, and it\ndoes so for a practical purpose. In order to make practical progress in our\nlives, we need some clarity about the theory that supports that progress: for\nevery practical judgement we make depends on assumed beliefs of some kind.\nReligions and moral systems contain ideas of practical value that need to be\nseparated from accompanying dogmas, without assuming that we can manage with no\nbeliefs at all. Middle Way Philosophy thus brings together practically useful\nideas from a range of sources, and tries to judge which are useful and which\nare dogmatic: a task which is always provisional and subject to further revision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This little book is a response to\nrequests for a more manageable and practically-focused account of the ideas\nthat I have been developing since 1997, and which have now come to be called\nMiddle Way Philosophy. In 2013, for the first time, I held a retreat for a\nsmall number of people in which I tried to explain the core of the philosophy\nsystematically in a series of talks, within the wider balancing context of\nrelaxation, meditation, conversation, and artistic activity. I am grateful to\nthe participants of this retreat both for the overwhelmingly positive response\nthey gave me, and for their clear feedback that they wanted more brief,\npractically-focused accounts of Middle Way Philosophy, as free of technicality\nas possible. This book is one attempt to respond to this feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title, \u2018Migglism<\/em>\u2019, is an adaptation of a suggestion I owe to Peter Goble,\nwho was looking for a shorter version of the rather lengthy term \u2018Middle Way\nPhilosophy\u2019. Peter is, indeed, regularly using the verb \u201cto miggle\u201d meaning \u201cto\npractise Middle Way Philosophy\u201d, and others are also beginning to take up the\nterm. The attraction of \u2018miggle\u2019 is its suggestion of babyish mispronunciation\nof \u2018middle\u2019, and it is thus a way of conveying that Middle Way Philosophy\ndoesn\u2019t always have to take itself too seriously. With its practical side comes\nhumour and an acceptance of the childish within us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middle Way Philosophy began as an\nattempt to explain in what sense ethics could be \u2018right\u2019 or \u2018objective\u2019 without\nappeal to God or any other such absolute ideas beyond our experience. In trying\nto answer such a question, I made use of insights and practical experience I\nhad gained from Buddhist<\/em> practice,\nbut rejected any appeal to traditional Buddhist authorities and was very\nselective in the adoption of Buddhist terminology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These ideas have gone through\nseveral phases of evolution. They started off as a Ph.D. thesis, then for\nseveral years I was trying to develop them within Buddhism. However, I\neventually recognised that they needed to stand independently of the Buddhist\ntradition. Although I have previously been involved in both Western and Secular<\/em> forms of Buddhism, I found too\nmany contradictions between the Middle Way and the more traditional elements in\nBuddhism. I am thus no longer a Buddhist, and Middle Way Philosophy involves no\nallegiance to the Buddhist tradition, though it acknowledges the Buddhist\ninspiration of the concept of the Middle\nWay<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I have been engaged in\nthe substantial project of creating an updated, multi-volume account of the\nphilosophy in depth: the Middle Way\nPhilosophy<\/em> series. This series is now not far off completion. It attempts\nto combine detail, comprehensiveness, a reasonable degree of accessibility, and\nat least a fair academic standard of referencing. It is to this series that I\nwill constantly refer readers who want more detailed information, argument, or\nexplanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the challenge I have set\nmyself in this book is rather different. Setting myself a limit of 30,000\nwords, I have aimed to identify the key features of Middle Way Philosophy, and\nwhy it is relevant and important. Within this length, I cannot aim to convince\nthe unconvinced. If you are unconvinced, please read my more detailed work; or\nbetter still come along to one of the further retreats that will now be held by\nthe Middle Way Society, in which Middle Way Philosophy will be given some of\nthe space it really requires to be understood. Instead, I aim merely to engage\nthe curious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middle Way Philosophy depends on\nseveral interdependent elements, which put together provide a basis for\nchallenging widespread unhelpful assumptions in our society: assumptions about\nourselves, about ethics, about knowledge, about science, about meaning, about\nreligion and much else. These interdependent elements are outlined in the first\nsection of this book as \u201cdeparture points\u201d. You could also see these departure\npoints as different inspirations that I have encountered in putting together\nMiddle Way Philosophy, so to reflect this I will approach them with a few\npersonal stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putting these \u201cdeparture points\u201d\ntogether allows us to derive some \u201ccore theories\u201d \u2013 the second section. The\nthird section, \u201cpractical application\u201d, shows how this overall approach\nprovides a new rationale for a range of activities that can help us improve our\nlives. As for a final account of why I believe Middle Way Philosophy to be so\nimportant, and how you can engage with it personally, I leave that to the\nconclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of each chapter I have\noffered a summary, to promote clarity about the main points, and suggestions\nfor further reading. In most cases some of this further reading is from my own\nwork, to provide a progression of detail for those who wish to look further at\nany areas of argument in Middle Way Philosophy. However, I have also suggested\nwider reading from other sources, which may be required in some cases to\nunderstand the context of where I am coming from. Rather than using a formal\nreference system I have tried to give more of an explanation of further\nreading, with further details of each book available in the bibliography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one of the complaints about\nMiddle Way Philosophy is often the use of terms in unfamiliar ways, I have also\nincluded a glossary at the end of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope this provides an account\nof miggling that, though not comprehensive, is both accessible and scalable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert M Ellis, December 2013
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Departure\npoints<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Middle Way<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In part of my earlier career I\nwas a Religious Studies teacher in a college. I was young, newly-qualified, and\ninfluenced by Buddhism. I was working in a small department with one colleague,\nwho was an evangelical Christian. This might potentially have been a recipe for\nconflict, but actually for the most part we got on well, because we were able\nto reach sufficient agreement on our educational goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there was one aspect of\nmy colleague\u2019s approach that intrigued and puzzled me. This was the way he\ncoped with the requirement for \u201cobjectivity\u201d in Religious Studies as an academic\ndiscipline whilst maintaining a strong personal belief in a particular\nChristian approach. He did this through a rigorous cut-off between the two. He\nwould never talk about his \u201cpersonal beliefs\u201d in class, and saw his task as\nteaching the students about \u201creligions\u201d rather than in any sense teaching them\nreligion. At the same time, of course, he favoured factual topics (such as\nBiblical Studies) that were more familiar to him from his own background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There seemed to me something very\nodd and unsatisfactory about this approach. For one thing, it was self-deluded\nin the sense that his beliefs were always rather obvious from the chosen\ntopics, the way they were framed and communicated, and the assumptions made.\nFor another, it seemed to result in a nervous repression that obviously created\ntension in him, for he had to hold back his passion for much that inspired him.\nGradually, I began to realise that my colleague, despite his absolute beliefs\nin God\u2019s revelation through the Bible, was also effectively conforming to the\nexpectations of relativism. In the public sphere, where these expectations\nruled, no religious view could be accepted as better than another. There were\njust different facts about religion laid out for examination, and then (so the\nimplicit model went) students would exercise a private personal choice in\ndeciding which belief to select. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This way of operating was largely\nnot the fault of my colleague, but rather the product of a set of attitudes and\nassumptions in modern society, which he had adapted to as best he could. Faced\nwith clashes between incompatible absolute beliefs, modern \u201csecular\u201d society\nhas often dealt with them by privatising them and making public space\ntheoretically neutral. This disjunction is perhaps most obvious in the US,\nwhere religion is privatised by the constitution; but even in the UK, the\nfeeble relics of established Anglican consensus co-exist inconsistently in the\npublic sphere with a large degree of practical secularisation. The neutrality\nsought in this secularising approach goes too far to another extreme in its\navoidance of religious dogma, tending to create depersonalisation, inner\nconflict, and confusion about how we should make the judgements necessary in\nour lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on my previous experience\nof Buddhism, I felt there had to be a better way. For myself, I felt that I\ncould teach Religious Studies without the disjunctive stress that my colleague\nwas suffering from, because I felt that religions primarily offered resources\nfor a process of spiritual investigation and development. We do not need to\nrelate to religions just as incompatible revelations \u2013 and indeed, the more we\ndo so, the harder it becomes to engage in Religious Studies with one\u2019s whole\nexperience. Understood differently, the subject could unite the personal with\nthe academic rather than dividing them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather sketchily at that point, I\nfelt that the way forward might have something to do with the Middle Way of the\nBuddha. By the time I left that teaching job, I had determined to study for a\nPh.D. in Philosophy, in which I worked out what kinds of solutions the Middle\nWay might offer to the disjunction between absolutism<\/em>\nand relativism<\/em>. My puzzlement about\nmy colleague and the ethos he represented thus created the roots of Middle Way\nPhilosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Buddha is a historical\nfigure, Siddhartha Gautama, who lived in Northern India about 2500 years ago.\nIt is his life story before he was said to have achieved enlightenment (nirvana)\nthat provides a symbolic account of the Middle Way in experience. Although we\nhave this story from Buddhist scriptures of various kinds, the value of the\nstory only needs to be understood symbolically and does not depend at all\neither on the historical truth of the stories about the Buddha, or on scholarly\narguments about scriptures \u2013 so please lay these sorts of concerns aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Buddha-to-be is said to have\nbeen brought up as a prince in a palace, where he was indulged in every\npleasure and protected from all sources of pain and suffering. However, he was\ntroubled even as a young man with a sense of dissatisfaction with this life,\nand was also said to have had spontaneous meditative experiences. One day, on a\nchariot ride out of the palace, he encountered an old person, a sick person and\na corpse, which all seem to have represented a sudden recognition of suffering\nthat he must have been denying or repressing. He is also said to have\nencountered a mendicant holy man, which made him aware of the possibility of an\nalternative way of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fired by this experience,\nSiddhartha Gautama is said to have \u201cgone forth\u201d, renouncing his luxurious life\nin the palace, giving up all his belongings and social position, and becoming a\nwandering mendicant in the jungle. He is said to have been focused on finding a\nsolution to the suffering he had suddenly become aware of, and wandered around\nseeking the instruction of different teachers to find the right way. After\nlearning from two different teachers but then becoming dissatisfied with their\nlimitations, he joined a group of five ascetics who were practising\nausterities: bringing suffering on themselves in the expectation that this\nwould lead to rewards in a future life. Siddhartha tried this approach too,\nnearly killing himself through extreme fasting, but eventually recognised that\nit did not provide any solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, Siddhartha hit\nupon the Middle Way. He recognised that neither indulging in pleasure nor\npractising austerities would help him \u2013 but what would help him was to maintain\nhealth and meet the basic conditions of life for his mind and body. He would\nalso not find any solutions by going along with the conventions of his closeted\nroyal family on the one hand, nor the absolute ideas about rewards in a future\nlife that motivated the ascetics on the other. By this means, balancing his\noutlook and avoiding two different types of delusion, the Buddha is said to\nhave attained enlightenment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has always been the Buddha\u2019s\nmethod here that has interested me much more than his supposed results. Given\ntheir commitment to this method, I am puzzled by the obsession that many\nBuddhists, including Western ones, seem to have with the Buddha\u2019s enlightenment\nand the revelatory authority that they believe flows from that enlightenment. I\ndo not know whether or not the Buddha achieved nirvana, still less what that\nmeans if he did. Assertions about it lead us into a scholarly quagmire of\nauthority claims, which is not only likely to bog us down, but is also of no\npractical use to us. Of much greater interest is the method that the Buddha\nused to make progress, the Middle Way. This method is of universal significance\nbecause it can be used flexibly at all sorts of different levels in all sorts\nof different contexts. It can thus be applied and checked in experience rather\nthan being dependent on authoritative claims made about a person in a remote\ntime and place.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our understanding of the Middle\nWay can be reinforced by many other stories about the Buddha\u2019s teachings.\nPerhaps the most important of these is that the Buddha, when asked questions\nabout claims that lie beyond experience, such as whether the universe is\ninfinite or eternal, or whether there is an eternal soul, remained silent. He\nneither affirmed nor denied such claims, but when pressed said that it was not\nuseful to take a position on them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Buddha also used various\nparables and analogies that encapsulate the Middle Way. A man shot with an\narrow does not ask who shot the arrow, what it is really composed of, or where\nit ultimately came from, before plucking out the arrow \u2013 practical requirements\ncome first. A person crossing the River Ganges on a raft does not pick up and\ncarry the raft on reaching the other side, but leaves it on the further bank \u2013\nso, even if there are some teachings or beliefs that are useful to us, this\ndoes not mean they will always be so. A lute-string \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
\nneeds to be tuned neither too tight nor too slack, but just with the right\ndegree of tension \u2013 a direct physical analogy for the Middle Way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the Buddha\u2019s Middle Way is\nthe first of the starting points for Middle Way Philosophy. This Middle Way is\nboth an epistemological<\/em> principle (a\nprincipal for justifying our beliefs) and a moral principle. According to the\nMiddle Way, we make progress by avoiding different types of claims that lie\nbeyond experience. Claims that lie beyond experience are known as metaphysical<\/em> claims. Crucially, the\nMiddle Way involves not just avoiding positive metaphysical claims (such as\n\u201cThe universe is infinite\u201d or \u201cGod exists\u201d) but also their negative\ncounterparts (such as \u201cThe universe is finite\u201d or \u201cGod does not exist\u201d). Since\nthese sets of opposed beliefs involve different types of delusion, to make any\nkind of progress we need to avoid getting trapped in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Middle Way offers an insight\nthat can help us resolve the problem of absolutism and relativism. We do not\njust have a choice between the absolute \u2013 i.e. accepting a big claim about how\nthings are on authority \u2013 and the relative \u2013 i.e. denying these big claims and\nfalling back on the conventions of our society. The Middle Way provides a model\nfor how we can stretch<\/em> our relative\nperspective without trying to jump to an absolute one, provided we constantly\nresist the temptation to turn the Middle Way itself either into an absolute or\na relative value. How this stretching works will gradually unfold. To follow\nthe Middle Way, we need to rest content with the ambiguity that follows when we\ndo not accept either absolute perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summary<\/h3>\n\n\n\n