Once, in the city of Rajgriha in ancient India, there lived a prince called Shron. He was materialist to the core. He lived
a life of luxury and opulence. He would spend his time eating, drinking and being merry. He was also fond of wine and beautiful women. He would wallow in sensual pleasure. One day when Buddha visited his city, Shron went to meet him. He was so impressed with the sight of Buddha that he fell down on his feet and begged to be ordained as a monk. This surprised many people in the city. But Buddha knew that there was nothing surprising about it. The mind goes from one
extreme to another.
Shron, with all material things, renounced his clothes too. He started living naked. Buddha never advocated nudity. Buddha had asked all his monks to eat once in a day. Shorn started eating once in two days. He went deep into self-mortification. Other monks would meditate under the shadow of tree. Shron would meditate under intense sunlight. He was a very handsome man. But self-mortifications turned him into an ugly old man. When Buddha heard this about Shron, he called upon him. Buddha said- "Shron, I have heard that when you were prince you played Vina (a string musical instrument). If the strings of Vina are very loose what type of music will come?" Shron said, "There will be no music Lord." Buddha again asked, "What if the strings are too tight?" Shron said, "Again no music will come." Buddha said, "To produce music the strings need to be properly attached, neither too loose nor too tight. They have to be in the middle. Likewise in life too, you should learn to remain in the middle. You should avoid the extreme of anything. Keep the strings of life in the middle." The Tantra says that if you go to the extreme of anything, opposite happens. If you go to the extreme point of love, hatred occurs. Likewise if you reach the extreme point of hatred, love occurs. So it is important to avoid extreme of anything and remain in the middle.
The middle path is central to the Buddha''s teaching. Even if we are not Buddhist, we can learn a lot from this ‘Middle Path'' theory. For example if we eat too much, we become physically unfit. If we eat too less, we become weak and undernourished. For sound health, we need to eat a balanced diet. We can train ourselves to keep a
balance in all walks of life- in food, sex, clothes, speech, thoughts, passion, religion, faith etc. For harmony in life, keep the string of life in balance. Various Buddhist meditation techniques help in acquiring mastery over our mind. That further helps in maintaining the balance.