Taisen Deshimaru on the Middle Way, Madhyamaka Path

 'To him who truly seeks the Middle Way, the Middle Way will open, One step forward is enough.'

Talbot Mundy, Chapter 15 of Om—The Secret Of Ahbor Valley, 1924

 

Taisen Deshimaru, a Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhist teacher, once stated: : 'We must not lean either right or left, and we must not worry about leaning right or left.’ (31) 

 

On the Madhyamaka path he stated: ‘Nor is the middle way cowardice, fear, and inertia; it is not tepid and indecisive. Do not misunderstand it: it embraces opposites, it integrates and goes beyond all contradictions, it is beyond every dualism, even beyond every synthesis. If you want to understand, you must find the middle way. Spiritual is material and material becomes spiritual. 

 

But you must not misunderstand the word "middle": it means, in regard to material and spiritual, that you must embrace both, like the front and back of a sheet of paper. That's what makes Zen hard to understand. The middle way is the way beyond. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis’. (3) 

 

A List of Questions and Answers by Deshimaru Roshi

https://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/C%20-%20Zen/Modern%20Teachers/Deshimaru%20Roshi/Questions%20and%20Answers/Questions%20and%20Answers.pdf