Simply because the two ends in the sutta examples don't look like "extremes", and the middles don't look like "beyonds". The Middle Way transcends dichotomies, and I don't see that principle with these 6 examples.Bundokji wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 5:33 amThe middle and the extremes is a recurring theme in the teachings. The teachings on Kamma for example, good and bad can be seen as the extremes while the path is kamma that goes beyond. Also the extremes are presented as nihilism and eternalism, or death and rebirth, while the path goes beyond both. In SN 12.15 the Buddha's teachings begins by stating the extremes of existence and non existence, and then the teachings by the middle begins with dependent origination of which ignorance is presented as the root. The supramundane path is the cessation of ignorance.Spiny Norman wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 5:02 am I'd agree that the sage "not stuck in the middle" has attained supramundane right view. Specifically this would be deep insight into the workings of the 6 examples given in AN 6.61.
However I don't think AN 6.61 is anything to with the "middle way". If you look at the way the 6 examples in the sutta are set out, this idea doesn't really hold up.
The six examples in AN 6.61 are different ways of presenting the extremes and the middle. The Buddha praised the mendicants but still asserted that he was referring to the cessation of contact as the way beyond. Why do you think that AN 6.61 has nothing to do with the middle way?
The 6 examples in the sutta look more like sets of things, or processes: contact, feeling, consciousness (x2), time and sense-experience.
And the seamstress of craving keeps us involved with all these, keeps us attached.