The next base meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Sun 31st May at 7pm UK time on Zoom. There there’ll be a short talk on the aspiration to universality as our second criterion for the Middle Way, followed by questions and discussion in regionalised breakout groups. Some other regionalised groups will meet at other times. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. To catch up on the previous session, on practicality, please see this post.
Here are some brief details, stimulus questions and suggested reading for this session. The video of the talk and initial questions will also be posted here after the meeting.
Aspiration to Universality
The belief that you have a universal position (the ‘truth’, ‘knowledge’, ‘metaphysics’) can easily be dogmatic, not taking your limiting assumptions into account. However, the Middle Way is not just a relativist position in which we deny the possibility or meaningfulness of universality. Rather, we need to maintain an aspiration to universality to keep motivating us to try to see a bigger picture than our current one, whilst also recalling that we don’t have the total picture. Keeping those two things in tension is central to the Middle Way, and any approach that fails to maintain it won’t be a Middle Way approach, even if it uses related language.
Stimulus questions: these can be used in the group discussions if you wish.
- In what ways is universality meaningful for you? Are there particular universal symbols that inspire you?
- What would be some examples in your experience of universal ideas that started off being inspiring and practical, but became dogmatic?
- How do you think practices can help you to keep universality meaningful without assuming that your position is universal?
Suggested further reading
More accessible: ‘Migglism’ Chapter 3 (ch.2 in e-book), first three sections
More challenging: Middle Way Philosophy 1, section 4 ‘Aspects of Objectivity’
For details of my argument that the traditional Buddhist account of the Middle Way is insufficiently universal, see ‘The Buddha’s Middle Way’, section 4