The Seba library treats Middle Path in 9 passages, across 8 authors (including Evans-Wentz, W. Y., Spiegelman, J. Marvin, Pollack, Rachel).
By keeping to the Middle Path of non-attachment, no thought appertaining to either extreme can take root and grow. On any other Path, thoughts, becoming fixed on evil, turn into an army of demons
Evans-Wentz defines the Middle Path as the practice of non-attachment that prevents extremist fixation, framing deviation from it as literal psychic enslavement to demonic thought-formations.
, The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, 1954thesis
In the First Sermon of the Buddha he teaches the Enlightenment of the Middle Path consisting of the Noble Eightfold Way.
Spiegelman grounds the Middle Path in its canonical Buddhological source — the First Sermon — and situates it as the structural core of both Mahayana and Hinayana soteriological vehicles.
, Buddhism and Jungian Psychology, 1985thesis
The divinatory meanings, like the card’s ideas, begin with moderation, balance in all things and taking the middle path. The card means right action, doing the correct thing in whatever situation arises.
Pollack identifies the Middle Path as the primary divinatory meaning of the Temperance card, translating the Buddhist-philosophical concept into a practical psychological injunction toward balance and right action.
, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980thesis
Second Yang does not undergo diminishment in order to apply itself to increasing [Fifth Yin] is because ‘it takes the middle path [the Mean] as the route for its will.’
Wang Bi’s I Ching commentary presents the ‘middle path’ as equivalent to the Confucian Mean, identifying it as the will’s proper orientation for maintaining rectitude without destructive self-abnegation.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994supporting
‘Icarus, my son,’ said Daedalus, ‘I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if too high the heat will melt them.’
Dayton invokes the Icarus myth as a psychological parable for the Middle Path’s warning against extremism, framing Daedalus’s instruction as a depth-psychological teaching on navigating between grandiosity and deflation.
, Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Lasting Fulfillment, 2007supporting
The White Path between (these two rivers) is extremely narrow. Although the two banks are close, how can I possibly cross?
Spiegelman presents the Chinese Pure Land parable of the White Path as a vivid phenomenological image of the Middle Path’s existential narrowness between the opposing rivers of greed and anger.
, Buddhism and Jungian Psychology, 1985supporting
striking a balance without obsession or indifference, proceeding gradually in an orderly fashion
Liu I-ming’s Taoist I Ching articulates a functional equivalent of the Middle Path as the discipline of balanced, non-obsessive progression, locating it within the practice of harmonious and joyful receptivity.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
During the Middle Passage it is useful to see how one’s successes have also been imprisoning, constrictive to the whole person.
Hollis employs the cognate term ‘Middle Passage’ in a Jungian midlife register, implicitly invoking a middle-way logic of psychic balance between former ego-achievements and the demands of individuation’s second half.
, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife, 1993aside
Norms for the soul that speak of adaptation, life-enhancement, balance, or golden mean are ‘Aristotelian’
Hillman critically positions the ‘golden mean’ — a Western analogue of the Middle Path — as belonging to an Aristotelian-naturalistic psychology he explicitly contrasts with his preferred Platonic-depth approach, suggesting the Middle Path ideal may be inadequate for genuine soul-work.
, Mythic Figures, 2007aside