The Third Way

First there is the way of justification and blind acceptance which goes along with everything without even acknowledging that anything ever goes wrong.. Then there is the approach of saying "this is bad, I will deny it and choose the good". To either justify or to condemn a thought, feeling, person or situation is to resist it, and what I say 'no' to I also say 'yes' to.

In life we are taught by perceived authorities, beginning with parents and teachers, to reject the evil and choose the good; this accompanied by a blind acceptance and allegiance to those whose moral superiority and judgment is falsely perceived to be truth. Or in the opposite situation, being the rebel who rejects all outside influences and opinions and forever justifies his/her own.

At the highest point of self-awareness and understanding it is discovered that even when knowing I am right in my own insight and doing well for myself there is still the condemnation of and resistance to all that I believe stands in opposition to this truth of self-discovery. In allowing this opposition to be without caving into or fighting it, is the only way to be.

The Third Way, as this writer is referring to in the interest of discovery, is a point of fusion where the undesirable factors of life are neither justified nor denied. If for example I wish to release a toxic behavior pattern, addiction or compulsion from my life the discontinuation of it cannot be a negative denial but rather a positive negation. Instead of saying negatively that I will no longer do this that and the other thing so that I may do the right thing from now on, as noble as such an intention may be it cannot work.

I neither give up nor renounce anything but instead acknowledge that this thing I don't like does exist, and from here I make a positive and conscious choice not to fuel this toxic fire with any further attention to it. Embracing the problem the solution is revealed, and the solution is simply the negation of the problem.

JDZ