The Buddha's insight into the middle way is not simply about a balance between extremes. This conventional understanding misses the deeper revelation of the middle way as being the very nature of unexcelled enlightenment. The middle way is an invitation to leap beyond nirvana and samsara and to realize the unborn Buddha mind right in the middle of everywhere.
For legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.
Th'invention all admir'd, and each, how he to be th'inventor miss'd; so easy it seem'd once found, which yet unfound most would have thought impossible.
If you are not living with a whole heart now, the end of the world poses no threat; your life is already gone. Life is only as valuable as our presence to enjoy it. To miss the beauty of the moment because you are preparing to protect yourself from the next one, is to trade a precious gem for a cheap trinket.
I have somehow, continued to miss Oktoberfest so that's probably something that is better for me to do as a former president rather than as president, I'll have more fun.
Paradoxical as it may seem, the purposeful life has no content, no point. It hurries on and on, and misses everything. Not hurrying, the purposeless life misses nothing, for it is only when there is no goal and no rush that the human senses are fully open to receive the world.
I am a student of life, and don't want to miss any experience. There's poetry in this sort of thing, you know--or perhaps you don't know, but it's all the same.