In the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism, the term "Middle Way" was used in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which the Buddhist tradition regards to be the first teaching that the Buddha delivered after his awakening. In this sutta, the Buddha describes the Noble Eightfold Path as the middle way of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification: According to the scriptural account, when the Buddha delivered the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, he was addressing five ascetics with whom he had previously practiced severe austerities. Thus, it is this personal context as well as the broader context of Indian shramanic practices that gives particular relevancy to the caveat against the extreme of self-mortification. Later Pali literature has also used the phrase Middle Way to refer to the Buddha's teaching of dependent origination as a view between the extremes of eternalism and annihilationism.
, or "dependent origination", describes the existence of objects and phenomena as the result of causes. When one of these causes changes or disappears, the resulting object or phenomena will also change or disappear, as will the objects or phenomena depending on the changing object or phenomena. Thus, there is nothing with an eternal self or atman, only mutually dependent origination and existence. However, the absence of an eternal atman does not mean there is nothing at all. Early Buddhism adheres to a realistic approach which does not deny existence as such, but denies the existence of eternal and independent substances. This view is the Middle Way between eternalism and annihilationism:
Anatta
Dependent origination views human persons too as devoid of a personal essence or atman. In Theravadin literature, this usage of the term "Middle Way" can be found in 5th-century CE Pali commentaries: In the Visuddhimagga, the following is found : In the Pali Canon itself, this view is not explicitly called the "Middle Way" but is literally referred to as "teaching by the middle".
Rebirth
"dependent origination" also gives a rationale for rebirth: In Theravadin soteriology, the principle of anatta refers to the philosophical investigations and systems of inquiry that developed among various Buddhist schools in India following the death of the Buddha and later spread throughout Asia. Buddhism's main concern has always been freedom from suffering/un-ease, and the path to that ultimate freedom consists in ethical action, meditation and in direct insight into the nature of "things as they truly are". Indian Buddhists sought this understanding not just from the revealed teachings of the Buddha, but through philosophical analysis and rational deliberation. Buddhist thinkers in India and subsequently in East Asia have covered topics as varied as phenomenology, ethics, ontology, epistemology, logic and philosophy of time in their analysis of this path. of human identity is an indestructible and eternal self, whether individual or universal The other extreme, annihilationism, holds that at death the person is utterly annihilated.... Dependent origination offers a radically different perspective that transcends the two extremes. It shows that individual existence is constituted by a current of conditioned phenomena devoid of a metaphysical self yet continuing on from birth to birth as long as the causes that sustain it remain effective.
Mahayana
In Mahayana Buddhism, the Middle Way refers to the insight into śūnyatā "emptiness" that transcends the extremes of existence and non-existence, the two truths doctrine. According to Kalupahana,
In Mahayana Buddhism, the Madhyamaka school portrays a "middle way" position between metaphysical claims that things ultimately either exist or do not exist. Nagarjuna's influential Mūlamadhyamakakārikā deconstructs the usage of terms describing reality, leading to the insight into śūnyatā "emptiness". It contains only one reference to a sutta, the Kaccyanagotta Sutta from the Samyutta Nikaya: "Everything exists": That is one extreme. "Everything doesn't exist": That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, The Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle.
In the Tendai school, the Middle Way refers to the synthesis of the thesis that all things are śūnyatā and the antithesis that all things have phenomenal existence.
In Chan Buddhism, the Middle Way describes the realization of being free of the one-sidedness of perspective that takes the extremes of any polarity as objective reality. In chapter ten of the Platform Sutra, Huineng gives instructions for the teaching of the Dharma. Huineng enumerates 36 basic oppositions of consciousness and explains how the Way is free from both extremes:
