Today I am thinking about the human tendency to gravitate toward extreme positions. The Buddhist community/world is no different than any other area of human interest, it is very polarized. Case in point, on the meaning of enlightenment we tend to take sides. Elitist camps forming on two or more fronts – from ‘everybody is already enlightened’ to ‘true enlightenment means the perfection of the individual.’ And left somewhere in the middle are the thousand vague, very much undefined positions, that as a result of their vagueness have become essentially powerless to truly educate and ultimately enlighten. Surely enlightenment is hard to define - some would say that it is ineffable. But the Buddha sure tried to define it, or at least tried to define everything that it was not, if the number (thousands) of sutras are any indication, (which is certainly open for debate). Taking sides . . . it’s such a human thing to do, to become polarized. (Because if you try to hold your middle ground, without in fact having a well grounded and defined position, then you tend to very quickly get pulled to one extreme or the other.) I think what I am usually trying to find and establish is, put simply, a well defined and grounded middle ground. But aren’t we all? More on this soon . . . Tallis
