The Middle Way Society was founded to promote the study and practice of The Middle Way. The Middle Way is the idea that we make better judgements by avoiding fixed beliefs and being open to practical experience. We challenge unhelpful distinctions between facts and values, reason and emotion, religion and secularism or arts and sciences. Though our name is inspired by some of the insights of the Buddha, we are independent of Buddhism or any other religion. We seek to promote and support integrative practice, overcoming conflict of all kinds.
There’s something about the high walls and noise of prisons that inclines inmates to think in absolutes. Inside, you’re either innocent or guilty, manly or emasculated. The in-betweens count for little. So what’s it like when prisoners do philosophy, asks Andy West? Does thinking in more open ways make it easier or harder to survive their sentence?
Andy West has taught Philosophy in a range of prisons as well as in primary schools. He is now writing a book about teaching philosophy in prisons which draws on personal experience of having relatives in prison as well as philosophical reflection and his teaching experience.
This session took place over Zoom at the Virtual Festival of the Middle Way, on 18th April 2020. The chair is Robert M. Ellis.
The recent Virtual Festival of the Middle Way has galvanised interest in the Middle Way from a larger group of people than we have been in contact with before, and who have given overwhelmingly positive feedback about the event (which we’re very grateful for!). Many people have also expressed interest in follow-up either online or face-to-face.
To meet this need, we are intending to launch some new regular sessions for discussion and connection which we will call The Middle Way Network. These sessions will be based on Zoom, but are also intended to help foster the conditions that can eventually allow face-to-face groups to develop when the lockdown is over. We will have a preliminary Zoom meeting about this on Sun 3rd May 2020, and the first meeting proper on 17th May.
Middle Way Philosophy offers a radically different paradigm to mainstream scientific naturalism because of its crucially different attitudes to ethics, scepticism, meaning and objectivity. Jim Champion explores this further in this talk. Dr Jim Champion has been teaching physics at schools in the south of England since 2004. His PhD is in theoretical physics. He is also secretary of the Middle Way Society and contributor to After Buddhism: A Workbook.
This talk took place over Zoom at the Virtual Festival of the Middle Way, on 18th April 2020. It is followed by questions from the audience.
Prof. Katherine Weare explores some key learning about cultivating mindfulness in education, including the messy challenges and joys helping ‘fix it’ educators begin with themselves, and to see the links between inner work and the system change they rightly demand. Prof. Katherine Weare is internationally known for her varied work on mindfulness and contemplative approaches in education, including recently heading up two policy major networks, keeping a handle on the empirical evidence base, writing an inspirational book with Thich Nhat Hanh and teaching mindfulness to local secondary school teachers.
This talk took place over Zoom at the Virtual Festival of the Middle Way on 19th April 2020, and is followed by questions from the audience.
This 30 minute question and answer session with an audience over Zoom followed a screening of the film about Iain McGilchrist, ‘The Divided Brain’. This took place at the Virtual Festival of the Middle Way, on 18th April 2020.
