The Middle Way — A Buddhist View On Life

Brene Brown writes in her inspiring book 'Atlas of the Heart' that she is a mapmaker and traveller. In that extraordinary book about human emotions and their meaning, she introduces the concept of having a map of emotions. She refers to her discussion with Dr Kirk Goldsberry, a mapmaker and a cartography scholar. A map has two dimensions: space and place. Brown draws a map of our emotions, plotting them verbally on her map based on the longitudes and latitudes she found in her research.

The idea of space and place blew my mind. I never thought of a map in that way, and I spent one long walk and sleepless night pondering it.

About four in the morning, I dreamed of a Venn diagram. It merges the Buddhist concept of the Middle Way with Brown’s Atlas of the Heart. And I will now explore my dream for you.

Ku-Ke-Chu

In Daishonin’s Buddhist philosophy, the concept of the Middle Way is an important anchor. Nichiren Daishonin, who lived in Japan (1222–1282), based his thinking on the old Buddhist teaching of Lotus Sutra that was taught by Shakyamuni some 3000 years ago and on the theoretical classification of Shakyamuni’s teachings by Chinese Buddhist scholar T’ien-T’ai who lived 538–597.

In my dream, I saw how the infinite potential (space) merged with our potential (place), building a life map in front of me. To navigate my life using that map, I put a compass (principles) on it, and unexpectedly I knew how to find directions.

My realisation was to add the Buddhist concept of the Middle Way on top of this Venn diagram. Now I had a Buddhist view to applying to Brown’s Atlas of the Heart.

A Venn diagram with the three circles. On top are Potential, Possibility and below them, Principles. The intersection between principles and potential is approach; the intersection between principles and possibility is action; the intersection between possibility and potential is aspirations.

In the Middle Way, the Ku refers to the eternal and universal principle of the infinite potential, the latent state of everything before it becomes part of the tangible reality, the Ke. Life and death are one but not one: when our life is in the state of Ku, it is dormant, and we think of it as death. When life has a form, we can experience it, making possibilities real and believing it as life, Ke. We express that possibility in many ways; the diversity of life is in full bloom.

To navigate successfully through our life, we need principles, Chu — understanding that we are travelling through our life and eventually fading away back to the infinite potential of space, i.e. Ku. The Middle Way gives us a compass and principles to understand life’s cartography. It teaches us that nothing is permanent, but all is transient, but still real because the oneness of space and palace is the essence and makes everything worth living.

We can draw from space energy. Similarly, from the circumstances, i.e. places we are, we can build our realities in this lifetime to make our dreams come true. The compass, our principles, then guides us through this terrain.

Our emotions, thoughts, words and actions make the place we inhabit. It will look like the result of the principles we have been following while creating the place. It is not set in stone, but we can build it.

The concept of Ku-Ke-Chu gives hope: there is infinite potential, and anything is possible for us in any moment of life. The results depend on the principles we use.

And this all aligns with time: past, present and future. In my dream, I saw the future not as a fixed and pre-determined place but as potential, and I laughed in my dream because it was such a joyful and straightforward thing to understand.

For me, there is past, present, and potential from now on. It will be something I make following the principle of the Middle Way, not something that I should be afraid of and done to me without my consent.

In my Venn, I added three intersections: Approach, Action and Aspiration. We choose our approach using our principles, and then we act accordingly, working towards fulfilling our aspirations.

'Buddhism is reason', said the late SGI UK General Director Richard Causton once when I drove him to the Helsinki airport after an intensive study of Buddhist concepts. I can still hear his warm and deep voice when he said: Jussi, remember that evil exists, but you don’t need to be its slave — see it as it is and choose your way based on the respect of life – and the evil will, in the end, transform to something valuable and good in your life.

I think this Buddhist principle is now more indispensable than ever in the middle of wars and pandemics. Respect and dignity of life come from the fact that it is eternal, and we manifest this truth by shaping our world intentionally. We make things happen, not destiny. That’s the focus of Buddhism for everyday life and leadership. We are accountable and responsible for our actions.