As we go through life, we will experience ups and downs because change is an inevitable aspect of life. How we respond to these changes can have a profound impact on our lives. If we revel too much in our success, this can become a dangerous road to ruin from an excess of ambition. On the flip side, becoming too concerned by what we have not achieved can be equally damaging.

The Buddha warned us against indulging in either extreme. With his first words after enlightenment, he explained the trouble that can follow when we allow the mind to get carried away: “There are these two extremes that are not to be indulged in by one who has gone forth. Which two? That which is devoted to sensual pleasure with reference to sensual objects: base, vulgar, common, ignoble, unprofitable; and that which is devoted to self-affliction: painful, ignoble, unprofitable.”

But what was special about the Buddha was that he did not simply provide admonitions about conduct to be avoided. He also provided us with a method that could be used to achieve that vision. After his warning about extremes, he immediately continued by stating, “Avoiding both of these extremes, the middle way realized by the Tathagata [the Buddha] — producing vision, producing knowledge — leads to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding.”

It is not an exaggeration to say that the middle way that the Buddha describes here is the solution to all our problems. Next, the Buddha explains the middle way in its expanded form, describing it as the eightfold path: “And what is the middle way realized by the Tathagata…? Precisely this Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.”

Among the elements of the eightfold path, our teacher and renowned meditation master, Ven. Phra Ajahn Tong Sirimangalo, has stated that right mindfulness, when applied correctly is the key that starts the whole engine. Therefore, we do not need to memorize right view, right resolve, etc. We simply need to train in mindfulness and the rest of the path arises by itself. Therefore, if we return to original problem, a tendency towards extremes, we can see that insight meditation training, is one action that we can undertake to find our way to happiness.

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(4) The Courage to Learn