Category Archives: Middle Way Society

Lenni Sykes: Obituary

May 22, 2023Member Profile, Middle Way SocietyRobert M Ellis

I first met Lenni approximately ten years ago, because she ran a meditation group in the village hall near where I lived. It was a small and very informal meditation group, just a group of people who meditated together to help keep them practising, but I found that useful as much as the others did. Soon after starting to come along to the group, I mentioned the Middle Way Society and that we were soon going to hold a retreat at Anybody’s Barn nearby. Lenni expressed interest and came along too. From that point she was a regular at Middle Way Society retreats as long as she was able to come. Sometimes we held retreats in other parts of the country, and I would give her a lift, so the long drives where probably when I spoke with her in most depth.

There was always more to Lenni than first impressions might suggest. She constantly struggled with her health, and it gradually worsened throughout the time I knew her, but she was adept at managing her conditions and not being ruled by them. There were many aspects to her life that she kept going: meditation practice, a non-violent communication group, a Thich Nhat Hanh based Buddhist group, veganism and concern for animal welfare, watching whales and dolphins, research into music therapy and ‘sound baths’, an ongoing interest in the theatre and in poetry, an Open University course that continually stretched out. She was the author of books about hedgehogs and whales, long-term supporter of her mother through dementia, loyal friend and passionate advocate for the causes dear to her heart.

Here is a recording of a song that Lenni posted on Soundcloud, of her singing The Last Leviathan. It combined two of her passions – whales and music, and she sang it for us on a retreat once. Her singing voice was another of the things that initially surprised me about Lenni!

What most impressed me about Lenni, though, was the way that she used practice to help her manage all the difficulties in her life. Having suffered a brain injury in an accident before I met her, she often told me that she could really not have functioned without meditation. She had also sometimes struggled in her relationships with people but, I think, worked on this effectively using non-violent communication practice. The Middle Way is a path of practice that starts wherever you are, working with whatever your life deals you – and in her constant practical engagement with what life dealt to her, Lenni was an outstanding practitioner.

All the time I knew her, Lenni lived in the same chaotic bungalow in West Malvern. One of the difficulties caused by her brain injury was in handling stuff in space: whether in her house, her car, or when packing. The stuff always seemed to be getting out of hand, and she would need help to keep it under any kind of control. In the last few years of her life, she also had a series of mini-strokes, and was isolated by the Covid outbreak. Nevertheless, she would defy the odds to sometimes stretch her capacities to their limits and take a trip somewhere. She continued to go dolphin-watching long after one would have thought it impossible, and last October she unexpectedly turned up at Tirylan House. She was determined to come and see it, and even just about managed to walk down to the end of the forest garden. The 88 mile drive home proved too much for her in one day, despite frequent stops, and she had to stay halfway.

That was to be the last time I saw her in person. She was finally finished off by a series of heart attacks, and died (I think) on 11^th May 2023 in Worcestershire Hospital.

There are various things that Lenni was secretive about and that I never found out. One was her age, but I am guessing that she was probably no older than 60. Another secret was what ‘Lenni’ stood for. I had discussed her death with her at one point previously, when I felt I had to decline her request for me to be her executor, because I was leaving Malvern. However, she didn’t tell me that she would refuse to have a funeral – this surprised me, and will probably disappoint many of her friends who would like to say farewell. All I can do, then, is to say farewell here. I will remember her as a remarkable practitioner, as a person full of surprises, and as a courageous example of living with difficulties.

Thanks to Susan Averbach for the picture. Please feel free to share your own memories (or correct any mistakes I have made!) in the comments.

Relaunch of the Middle Way Network

March 29, 2021Middle Way Society, VideoRobert M Ellis

From 25th April 2021 we will be relaunching our Middle Way Network with autonomous groups, separate talks, and a new website for communication.

New arrangements will be finalized in the meeting on 25th April, which will be the final one for the main meeting of the Network in its current form. If you’re involved in the Network, please get in touch with other people in your region to help agree the best arrangements for meetings before then. If you would like to join, this is a good point to do so – please fill in the form on this page. If you no longer want to be involved, please let us know.

The new sister website for network communication will be found at middlewaysociety.net. Please contact Vijaya (vijaya at middlewaysociety.org) for an early login to help test out and develop the new site.

Announcing our new webinar programme

October 17, 2018Buddhism, Critical Thinking, Ethics, gender, Judaism, Jung, Meditation, Middle Way Philosophy, Middle Way Society, Politics, Religion, Science, Society events, Systems Theory, The ArtsRobert M Ellis

We’ve got a new monthly webinar programme now open for booking, running for 13 months from Dec 2018 to Dec 2019. There will be a variety of topics, all of which involve the relationship between an area of practice or interest and the Middle Way – for example, the Middle Way and Meditation, the Middle Way and Science, the Middle Way and Judaism. This is your opportunity to find out more about a Middle Way perspective in relation to a topic that already interests you, interacting with members of the society in real time online.

For more information, including the full programme and how to book, please see this page.

Five Years of the Middle Way Society

September 23, 2018Middle Way SocietyRobert M Ellis

The Middle Way Society is now five years old! It had its first origins in a retreat where five people got together for five days in my house in Malvern, in late August 2013. Those five people had got to know each other in the context of secular Buddhism. On that retreat, as well as us all practising together, I tried to share some of the ideas about the Middle Way as a framework for thinking, ethics and practice that I had been developing since the late 1990’s. Barry Daniel describes his experience of this retreat here. At the end of it I proposed the founding of the society, and it was agreed.

The society aims to support the development both of the idea of the Middle Way as a principle of judgement, and of the practice of the Middle Way. These two aspects of the work of the society are thoroughly interdependent, though the former is more distinct from what other organisations are doing. We are not aiming to create a new religious group, but rather a support group that is compatible with a Middle Way interpretation of any religious (or philosophical, political, scientific, or other) tradition.

The first post on this website was a simple welcome put up on 8th Sept 2013. Since then there have been 140 podcasts, hundreds of blogs (the majority by me, but also by Jim Champion, Rich Flanagan, Peter Goble and others), 32 book reviews, further audio-visual material including a set of 30 introductory videos to Middle Way Philosophy, and a number of other pages intended to introduce Middle Way Philosophy. But the website is not the only focus of the society’s activities. We have held 14 retreats so far at various venues around England, led by me, Nina Davies and Barry Daniel. We also have an ongoing Skype discussion group and a Skype meditation group. We have an active YouTube channel, with more than 1200 subscribers, a Facebook page where quotations and helpful links are frequently posted, and an active Twitter account.

The society has grown slowly during these 5 years, and of course, like any organization, had some setbacks and difficulties. However, its wider influence has probably grown more swiftly than its actual membership. Many of the podcasts have been with relatively well known people (for instance Stephen Batchelor, Iain McGilchrist, Daniel Siegel, Sangharakshita, Daniel Goleman, Don Cupitt, Karen Armstrong, Jonathan Porritt, Ed Catmull, Stephen Jenkinson) and this has helped us to make connections between their areas of interest and the Middle Way, which sits in between them all. If a few thousand more people have heard of the Middle Way and might possibly consider it as a genuine option, when it wasn’t previously on their agendas at all, then I feel we have achieved something.

I am proud of what we have achieved in five years, even though it has sometimes felt like slow going. But there is a long, long way to go before a significant number of people even start to think of the Middle Way as a viable option. There are many individuals and movements that use the Middle Way implicitly in certain areas of belief or practice, but so far very few indeed that use it explicitly and recognise its potential. The thing we need most is more live events that help to develop a sense of community, where people are able to engage in more depth with what the Middle Way might mean for their lives. We also need more people to join the society and play a more active role in making effective live events happen.

The rest of this post gives some testimonies from three other people who have been closely involved with the society: Julian Adkins, Peter Goble and Susan Averbach.

Robert M. Ellis (Malvern, UK)

The metaphor of a middle way is used widely and so, perhaps like all of us, I have been exposed to it in different contexts for most of my life. However, it became more philosophically meaningful for me in the course of attending secular Buddhist retreats and reading related books – especially those by Stephen Batchelor. These teachings related to charting a middle way through life were much more than a benign appeal to moderation in all things, but rather a pragmatic response to radical scepticism about we can know with certainty and what that even means.

Having been a casualty of religious dogmatism at a very personal level, this is what I needed to enable me to continue to engage with a tradition I found meaningful and yet of which I was also deeply suspicious – and remain so.

It was against this background that I was introduced to Robert Ellis’s work through Barry Daniel, a mutual friend, and attended the first residential gathering of what has now become the Middle Way Society – generously hosted by Robert himself at his home in Worcestershire.

I hope my reading and involvement since has deepened my appreciation of these ideas and related practices. Indeed, it is my faltering attempts to actually practice a middle way that I value most. I still resist giving a middle way the definite article, although for convenience I often do. Perhaps this is just my own contrary nature, but perhaps it is also my own way of focusing on the metaphor of navigation; a way of proceeding rather than a specific route. As soon as I start thinking that this route is right and another is wrong, I am straight back into that black and white thinking that a middle way of doing things defies.
Of course some routes are better than others, but if I can get along the road without ending up in the ditches on either side, I’m doing okay. If I ever think I know exactly where the centre is, I am probably already in one of those ditches!

Five years since its inception is a wonderful opportunity to say thank you to the Middle Way Society; to Robert; to Barry and all those who have contributed and those who continue to do so. Thank you all.

Julian Adkins (Edinburgh, UK)

The Middle Way has internalised itself in me as a guiding principle in all my relations, with ‘myself’, with ‘other people’, and with the ‘world outside’. I am less at odds with all of ‘those things’, and the ‘connections’ I thought to have made with “every’ ‘thing’ have loosened.

I am generally less anxious and defensive.

I have been a very hard nut to crack. As when cracking a walnut, you can use a metal device, which may destroy the nut and its content, or you can use the flexed thumb as an anvil and the closed fist as a soft mallet, which does the job simply and cleanly, with practice and open-mindedly.

The Middle Way is like the latter approach, I think. But I think we may need to find other ways of sharing it more widely for it to gain traction and utility in an information- and technology-glutted world. The answer(s} elude(s) me, but beckon(s) on the periphery of my consciousness, and I acknowledge it/them.

I recently heard that the Incas knew how to use logs to move great stones, but never invented the wheel (as far as can be known from historical records and artefacts). I feel we may be at that point with the Middle Way, and I hope we are right, and that the penny will drop soon!

Peter Goble (Normandy, France)

Being actively involved with the Middle Way Society, taking classes, hearing podcasts, reading blog posts, and general discussions about middle way approaches to our everyday dilemmas, has changed me for the better. I am more open to various religious practices and thoughts. I am more able to hear points of view that differ from my own, mainly because I realize that my opinions are provisional and based upon my own experience. In avoiding absolutes I am more able to ask the right questions of those who are entrenched in absolutes. If more people learned a middle way approach we’d be less divided and would be able to create a more just and loving society.

One bonus benefit of becoming versed in middle way thought is that I now have a greater appreciation of Judaism, which I think, encourages reflection and debate, especially around biblical narrative. The shared study and analysis of the Bible and commentaries over the centuries has offered a tool that has been and continues to serve an integrative purpose for many, somewhat similar to a middle way approach, in my opinion.

Susan Averbach (San Francisco, US)

Pictures are taken from Middle Way Society Retreats: 1. Walking Retreat in the Lake District 2018, (2) Meaning Retreat at Telscombe, Sussex in 2014.

In Defence of, the Much Maligned, Twitter

July 16, 2018Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Health and well-being, Middle Way Society, News, Politics, Social Mediacommunication, Debate, Gloucester, Hijab, History, Janina Ramirez, Social Media, TwitterRichard Flanagan

“For any women who are compelled, against their wishes, to wear a Hijab, I would fully support such a notion [to arrange a #TakeOffYourHijab day in solidarity with the Iran protests]. Similarly, I would not like to see any woman compelled, against her wishes, to remove her Hijab either”.

I tweeted this on 31^st December last year, in response to the suggestion by – counter-extremist, author, broadcaster and Founding Chairman of Quilliam – Maajid Nawaz that, what he calls the ‘regressive left’ would not support a Take Off Your Hijab Day, even though they have been vocal in their support of World Hijab Day. It’s an uncontroversial response in what I think was an interesting and important debate (one that had been inspired by the Iranian protests which were ongoing at the time). However, it’s not the content of this debate that I want to discuss here but what happened next and how it caused me to reflect on my overall experience of Twitter (and online communication in general).

I’ve had loads of debates and disagreements on Twitter. These have covered a whole range of subjects and have involved people from a wide range of political backgrounds. I’ve debated with left-wing Jeremy Corbyn supporters about media bias and Donald Trump supporters about gun control, but the issue of Muslim women wearing head coverings, and the comments that I made about it, seemed to inspire a level of hostility that I hadn’t encountered on Twitter before. Now, I should say right away that, although it felt abusive at times, what I experienced was still extremely mild compared to what others – notably women – can, and do, experience on a disturbingly regular basis. Nevertheless, it was still quite shocking and, while I’m not one who takes offence very easily, it became pretty overwhelming. This was partly because of the frequency with which the criticisms came, but it was more to do with the nature of the onslaught. My points were largely being ignored in favour of increasingly personal attacks. Eventually, feeling deflated and tired following twenty-four hours of Twitter exchanges, I muted the conversation (meaning I could only view my own previous posts, but would not see anything else) and reported some of the most abusive participants, thereby bringing my role in the discussion to an end.

This spiral into uncivilised discourse all seems rather predictable. It’s a common trope to point out the negative and harmful effects of Twitter, and other forms of social media; it is often discussed by the public and widely reported upon by the media. I don’t want to play down this aspect of social media; it is real, it can have extremely severe consequences and there has not yet, in my opinion, been anyway near enough done to address it – by either the companies involved, various governments, or society in general. Online bullying, shaming, threats of rape, and the spread of destructive ideologies are just a few examples of a problem for which endless discussion has led to little in the way of meaningful action. Nonetheless, my experience, as described above, affected me in a way that was as intense and vivid as it was surprising. My initial weariness passed quite quickly, and what I was left with was the realisation that the overwhelming majority of my experiences on Twitter have been positive. Sometimes deeply so.

Sure, as I said before, I’ve had lots of debates and arguments that have often felt intense and fractious, but even these have been positive in one way or another. Even in some of the most impassioned debates, people have been civil and have tended to focus on the points being made, rather than resorting to personal insults. Inevitably, such encounters have ended with an agreement to disagree and a mutual well-wishing from each party. To my mind, the point of such arguments is not to change anyone’s mind – the chance of being successful on a platform like Twitter is miniscule – but to allow parties of differing political persuasions and opinions to understand why someone might think differently to them.

While I don’t doubt that there is a problem with some people swaddling themselves in the safety of their carefully constructed echo-chamber, this hasn’t been my experience. Brexiters and Trump supporters regularly respond to, and challenge, things that I have written – and I’m always pleased when they do. For my part, I try very hard to stick to a few simple rules that include: never passing comment on personal features and traits, and never ridiculing people for spelling and grammatical errors. Although, my biggest weakness, I have to admit, is a tendency for sarcasm. I am frequently sarcastic on Twitter – much more than I am in ‘real life’ – but I do think it serves a useful purpose. I try not to be sarcastic about the things detailed above; instead, I usually use sarcasm to highlight, what I think, is a logical error in someone’s argument or just to try and be humorous about something frivolous. What the former often achieves is the provocation of a response, in a way that blandly pointing out a perceived mistake rarely does, meaning that the issues can then be discussed in greater detail.

Of course a large part of Twitter activity doesn’t involve abuse, or politically infused arguments; most of it consists of superficial attempts to provide stimulation of the neurological pleasure receptors:

Post something that you hope is interesting or funny.

Receive a ‘like’.

Experience an instant, but short lived feeling of satisfaction (or not, if your post doesn’t get any response at all).

Despite this apparently shallow cycle, Twitter (and the wider world of internet communication) can be, and frequently is, the source of meaningful personal encounters and opportunities that might not otherwise be possible. In the spring of last year, I was struggling to find the motivation I needed to finish an assignment. I was reading the news, making repeated trips to the cupboard for snacks, listening to music, staring into space and, naturally, checking Twitter. As part of this particularly long bout of procrastination I constructed and posted some frivolous tweets – hoping, of course, for another short-lived hit of dopamine. One such Tweet was a comment on my current efforts of procrastination alongside a wish to obtain just a small portion of – Art Historian, Oxford University lecturer, author, TV presenter and enthusiastic Tweeter – Dr. Janina Ramirez’s – apparently (as anyone who follows her work will know) endless levels of energy. These kinds of Tweets rarely get any response at all, so I was surprised when Janina replied. Although it was a small gesture I was struck by the kindness of it. I wasn’t commenting on something she was trying to sell, and she didn’t need to respond; I was quite happy throwing Tweets into the, usually unresponsive, abyss. Instead, I received my sought-after hit and also enjoyed a fresh wave of motivation, with which I was able to complete the assignment (for which I received my highest mark of the previous few years).

Anyway, to take a sharpened cleaver to a rather long story, this simple sharing of Tweets led to my attending the wonderful Gloucester History Festival, where I was able to chat with Janina, who is the President of the festival, along with some of her supporters and friends – a few of whom I had briefly communicated with on Twitter before. One of the main things that struck, and surprised, me about this experience was how easy it was to speak to those people I had met previously on Twitter. Although I don’t avoid crowds (I quite enjoy them), I don’t usually feel very comfortable meeting a lot of new people and can be perfectly happy staying in the background, either on my own or with a small group of friends. On this occasion, however, the joy of meeting people who I’d only known online, and getting on well with them, was quite emotional and even a little overwhelming. Since then I regularly converse with the people I met there, and now consider them (Janina included) to be friends. That such meaningful relationships are possible from relatively flippant tweets is a wonder, and stands firmly in opposition to the characterisation of social media as a vacuous and futile cesspit.

My very involvement with the Middle Way Society, and the friendships I’ve made within it, were also made possible through online communication. If I hadn’t become involved in a debate about the definition of religion on an online forum several years ago then I wouldn’t be writing this, and nor would I have subsequently had so many wonderful opportunities. My experience of meeting founding members Robert and Barry (at what I thought was a Secular Buddhist UK retreat, but was in fact a kind of committee meeting for a soon-to-be-no-more organisation), was similar to the one I later had in Gloucester. We’d all been involved in several discussions on the aforementioned forum and, on eventually meeting in person, we seemed to know each other better than I had expected. Robert, Barry and Peter (who I met at the same time online, but later in person) quickly became dear friends. Following the ensuing foundation of the Middle Way Society, I was asked if I’d like to join, which – after some hesitation (I’ve always been wary of becoming part of a ‘group’) – I agreed to do, as well as agreeing to become a member of the committee. This has meant I’ve been able to push myself and achieve things that I never thought I would – like writing blogs, for instance.

There are many problems with Twitter (and social media in general), but there are also many positives. We are still learning how to use this relatively new form of interaction; we are still immature and naïve. Even so, I feel confident that we’ll learn how to make use of social media with more maturity and care than we currently do. Part of the problem is that this new frontier of communication gives the illusion that we are not dealing with embodied human beings, but lines of text generated from an abstract source. This has the effect of reducing our sense of social responsibility and shielding users from the effects that they have on others. Social conventions and restrictions can, when implemented wisely, serve as cohesive and stabilising forces. These have yet to develop fully, or effectively, in cyberspace and it remains difficult to predict what form they will eventually take, but I nonetheless believe that things will get better. By highlighting and encouraging that which is beneficial, as well as highlighting and challenging that which is harmful, we can begin to negotiate a Middle Way between the extremes of an imagined online utopia on the one hand and an online world that is categorised as a threat to society itself on the other.