The Middle Way Society was founded to promote the study and practice of The Middle Way. The Middle Way is the idea that we make better judgements by avoiding fixed beliefs and being open to practical experience. We challenge unhelpful distinctions between facts and values, reason and emotion, religion and secularism or arts and sciences. Though our name is inspired by some of the insights of the Buddha, we are independent of Buddhism or any other religion. We seek to promote and support integrative practice, overcoming conflict of all kinds.
Middle Way Philosophy offers a radically different paradigm to mainstream scientific naturalism because of its crucially different attitudes to ethics, scepticism, meaning and objectivity. Jim Champion explores this further in this talk. Dr Jim Champion has been teaching physics at schools in the south of England since 2004. His PhD is in theoretical physics. He is also secretary of the Middle Way Society and contributor to After Buddhism: A Workbook.
This talk took place over Zoom at the Virtual Festival of the Middle Way, on 18th April 2020. It is followed by questions from the audience.
Prof. Katherine Weare explores some key learning about cultivating mindfulness in education, including the messy challenges and joys helping ‘fix it’ educators begin with themselves, and to see the links between inner work and the system change they rightly demand. Prof. Katherine Weare is internationally known for her varied work on mindfulness and contemplative approaches in education, including recently heading up two policy major networks, keeping a handle on the empirical evidence base, writing an inspirational book with Thich Nhat Hanh and teaching mindfulness to local secondary school teachers.
This talk took place over Zoom at the Virtual Festival of the Middle Way on 19th April 2020, and is followed by questions from the audience.
This 30 minute question and answer session with an audience over Zoom followed a screening of the film about Iain McGilchrist, ‘The Divided Brain’. This took place at the Virtual Festival of the Middle Way, on 18th April 2020.
Iain McGilchrist explains the difference between the capacity of the two hemispheres to understand what is meant by the Middle Way. Lack of awareness of this fact explains some apparently paradoxical’ aspects of experience. This talk was given over Zoom at the Virtual Festival of the Middle Way on 19th April 2020, and is followed by questions from the audience.
This meditation session was led over Zoom by Buddhist mindfulness teacher and author Vishvapani Blomfield at the Virtual Festival of the Middle Way, on 19th April 2020.
