Krimel said: I think the Buddha enjoins us to renounce ALL desire. The middle way is a kind of cop out that says, well it's ok to have lots of stuff and friends and family as long as we are not "attached" to them; as long as we can get along just find with out them. In that case whether you have these things don't matter. It is your attitude toward them that counts. This seems to me to be much the same as the Christian cop out that "The love of money is the root of all evil." It provides the same end run around this issue and keeps the rich folks in the pews and pagodas. dmb says:Yea, that's especially true for American trust-funders and other wealthy Western Buddhists. But I think the middle way also means something else. It is in the middle between absolutism and nihilism, between eternal truths and no truths. The MOQ's distinction between DQ and sq reflects this middle way. Truth is intellectual and provisional and practical, not eternal or divine. Truth depends on context and perspective and it evolves but that doesn't mean the truth is so fleeting that we are powerless to make any claims. That's my favorite version of the middle way, anyway. And "desire" in the context of Buddhism goes beyond the physical appetites. The tougher task is to deal with the desires of the ego, especially for the philosophically inclined. And it seems to me that the Western religions' emphasis on "sin" is almost entirely about the body's desires and so strikes me as relatively undeveloped. It can open the heart and quell the beast in you. It can make a person human, if you will, but enlightenment isn't really on the table at your local church.
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