The Middle Path

The school is changing again.

It always is. The rhythm of this place is shaped by the students who arrive and leave, like tides reshaping a shoreline. Yesterday a handful of English-speaking students turned up — and strangely, I knew them all.

It was good to see familiar faces.

And yet, something in me felt… older.

I’m not the oldest here. Not the youngest either. But when faces return and time has clearly moved on, I feel its weight more than I expect. I’m not entirely sure what that means.

Maybe it’s my endless belief that I should be better by now.

Maybe it’s a quiet selfishness that prefers the school calm and undisturbed.

Or maybe I’ve simply grown to love a life without small talk — just my body in motion and my thoughts moving through their own weather systems.

Sometimes those thoughts are clear and calm.
Sometimes they are loud and tangled.

My practice with both is the same: observe, allow, release.

But I have to admit — I linger longer in the darker currents than I would like. When I notice that happening, it feels like weakness. Like I should know better by now.

And yet, even that is just another thought passing through.

I sense at times that I am living with one foot in the past and one stretching toward the future. When that tension appears, I know there is still learning to do — because neither of those places is where I truly want to be.

This journey was always meant to be about the middle path. The present. Allowing feelings to pass without attachment.

On paper, it sounds simple.

In reality, it is subtle and demanding — perhaps the hardest undertaking I have ever attempted.

But even as I write this, I wonder if I am still measuring progress through the lens of an old world — a world of achievement and benchmarks and visible results.

Maybe this is not something to achieve.

Maybe it is something to experience.

To sit honestly in not knowing.

There is something beautiful about unknowing. About allowing wonder to exist without rushing to label it. Perhaps not knowing is every bit as valuable as believing we do.

Beliefs can anchor us. They can also chain us.

And sometimes the most honest position is simply this:

I don’t know.

And for now, that feels enough.