Both positions are to be avoided

To realize the ultimate nature of the Tathagata one must do so by avoiding conceptual constructions (prapañca) and the position that there is nothing to be realized.  

There certainly is something to be realized which is ultimate. The problem is this:  We cannot go about realizing it by our old ways.  We will end up reifying something we believe to be ultimate or just deny any such thing is realizable—we might call this position radical agnosticism.  Both positions are to be avoided like the plague.  

By avoiding these two positions we can get closer to the idea of the Middle Way which I hasten to add is a spiritual means to a spiritual substance.  This Way doesn’t rely on the thought generating apparatus of the psychophysical body (pañca-skandha).  Nor does the Way surmise that with the death of the psychophysical body one is simply no more and thus liberated.

 

Comments

[S]

Java Junkie is probably posting from a psychiatric ward.

[Java Junkie Junebug Julius]

brain fart on you ole boy

there is no "middle path" in sutta, it speaks of going to/synthesis with the majjha, ie the atman, the axle, the core, the nave upon which all else is "in samsara and bound to antinomies life/death etc"

Also buddha in sutta is not a "wheel turner",....the pali says "is THAT which turns the wheel", ie the Axle, ie the Absolute/Agathon

silly buddhistz gots it all wrongz

[S]

K Grey, what are you talking about?

[K Grey]

Avoidance of this sort, is itself a form of conceptual choice. Just more attachment.

Yes, clearly attachment to a position, or to emptiness, is the same error. Same delusion. Funny though you do not also note that avoidance is that same error taking another direction.

The path is not one of avoidance, but of cessation. The falling away of both grasping and rejecting. A simple recognition of suchness. An effortless aspect of realization.

Perhaps your expression is just a metered teaching approach. Not for me to say. Just offering a mirror for the pointer to point at...