MWE Guiding Principles: A Way of Being in the World

These nine principles represent Middle Way Education’s highest goals for what students will understand. They are based on Buddha’s words and can be found in classical texts.

• VIRTUE: Engage in beneficial actions, cultivate what is good and wholesome, and avoid causing harm to yourself and others.  Negative and unwholesome actions create obstacles to well-being and practice, positive actions create the circumstances for wellbeing and practice. Recalling the five precepts and noticing the impact of our actions and thoughts, we make better choices.
  
• ANALYSIS: You must always analyze. Never accept something as true simply out of respect, fear, or indolence. Critical thinking, research, respectful communication, inquiry, and debate help ensure that we are not swayed by external circumstances.

• MIND: Training your mind is essential to understanding and realizing the truth. A tamed mind allows one to be present and aware, and only then can wisdom arise.

• IMPERMANENCE: Everything is impermanent. Understanding and accepting impermanence, learning how to ride the waves of change, we develop deeper emotional resilience and an ability to meet the world with openness and flexibility. 

• SELFLESSNESS: There is no fixed, independent essence to anything. What we call the “self” is actually a collection of changing parts and perceptions. .  Remembering this loosens the grip of ego and the sense of separateness. This opens the door to empathy, humility, and genuine connection, allowing us to care for others without clinging to identity or self-centered concerns. 

• PERCEPTIONS: We need to look beyond perceptions. What we see, hear, and feel offers important clues, but there is much more to discover.  Our perceptions help us appreciate and understand the world around us – seen and unseen – and safeguard us from delusion. But they are also limited and changing. Other beings may have differing yet valid points of view. 

• KARMA: Everything arises from causes and conditions, and everything is subject to causes and conditions. Of all causes and conditions, the mind is supreme. Understanding the law of cause and effect (karma), we see the complexity of life, which can lead to cultivating compassion. We also see how our intentions and thoughts have a significant impact on the outcomes of our actions.

• REFUGE: You are your own refuge, no one else can liberate you. We are responsible for our experience and flourishing. With discernment, resilience, and self-reliance, we are able to be in the world but not get swayed by it. 

• LIBERATION: True liberation beyond extremes is possible in this lifetime. There are many levels of extreme dualistic thinking, and by peeling them away one by one, we come to understand the illusory quality of being human. This can help counter the types of extremism that create war and threaten human existence.