The Middle Way, Wherever We Are

We go through life trying to find harmony and balance, yet we often overlook the harmony and balance that are already here.  We have ideas about where we stand and how we compare with others, and a sense of identity based on those ideas.  Our comparing mind disturbs our sense of harmony and balance, yet our comparisons are based on faulty logic.  Whenever we compare ourselves with others, those “others” are a limited group – not everyone, not every possibility. And when we compare, we see that we are actually comparing ideas about how things are.  We come up with a mental image and compare it with another mental image.  But mental images are not reality.

When we drop vague ideas and get as specific as possible, if we look at any single characteristic it is easy to see that it could be way better or it could be way worse. Or to use less value-loaded language, it could be way more developed or it could be way less developed.  Extrapolating further, extrapolating to the furthest point, it could be infinitely more, way beyond what we can conceive—or it could be infinitely less.

So how do you find a comparison point when there’s infinity in either direction? You don’t.  In that scale, which is the reality, you are always in the middle, and there’s no way to be anywhere else.  In the infinity in which we actually stand, comparison no longer exists.

Awareness in all directions shows you that are already in the middle. The middle way is where you already are, and there is nowhere else. Behind you, in front of you, around you, under you, above you, infinity in all directions—and infinity after that, and after that, and after that—and you are in the middle, the exact middle.

Standing in this recognition, we find that where we actually are—not where we think we are—the balance and harmony we seek are already present.  And as we explore this recognition and return to it, it can more and more permeate our understanding. Eventually, even when we’re not aware of it in the moment, we still know at a deep level that the reality of where we are is more true than our ideas about where we are.  And as mere ideas are less and less able to fool us, that reality is felt more and more.

© 2022 Shanti Natania Grace
Photo by Lincoln Harrison – Star Trails

The Depths

When the white fog burns off,
the abyss of everlasting light
is revealed. The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black fir trees are flakes
of white ash in the world’s hearth.

Cold of the sea is counterpart
to this great fire. Plunging
out of the burning cold of ocean
we enter an ocean of intense
noon. Sacred salt
sparkles on our bodies.

After mist has wrapped us again
in fine wool, may the taste of salt
recall to us the great depths about us.

– Denise Levertov

Underwater photography by Cristian Palmer:
https://unsplash.com/photos/XexawgzYOBc