A Systemic History of the Middle Way - Its Biological, Psycho-developmental, and Cultural Conditions - Robert M. Ellis
A History of Integrative Practices
A Systemic History of the Middle Way - Its Biological, Psycho-developmental, and Cultural Conditions - Robert M. Ellis
Robert M. Ellis [+]
Middle Way Society
Robert M Ellis has a Ph.D. in Philosophy and a Cambridge BA in Oriental Studies and Theology. Originally from a Christian background, he spent about 20 years practising Buddhism, including as a member of the Triratna Order. However, he now describes himself as a Middle Way practitioner without exclusive loyalty to any one religious tradition. Over the last 20 years he has developed Middle Way Philosophy, initially in his Ph.D. thesis. This is best described as a practical and integrative philosophical approach, incorporating many elements not only from Buddhism but also from psychology, neuroscience, and other aspects of Western thought. In 2013 he founded the Middle Way Society (www.middlewaysociety.org) to develop and apply Middle Way Philosophy beyond the limitations of the Buddhist tradition, both in theory and practice.
Robert has earned a living for more than 20 years as a teacher and tutor of philosophy and related subjects. He has previously published both academic and introductory books about Middle Way Philosophy, and recently a parallel book on Christianity, ‘The Christian Middle Way’.
Description
The fourth section focuses on the history of the Middle Way as practice. Here we enter the ambiguous zone of human responsibility, no longer talking about feedback loops that occurred in cultures as a whole, but rather about the ways that some individuals or groups have to some extent recognized the drawbacks of reinforcing feedback loops, and tried to create the conditions for balancing ones instead. If my history in the third section is a rather depressing one of balancing processes constantly being appropriated by more absolutization, a focus on practice can offer more hope