Under the evening moon
the snail is
stripped to the waist.

Evening Symbolically, this cycle offers the most dramatic contrast between light and darkness, between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Waist is in the middle.

Shakyamuni’s life exemplifies a basic interpretation of the Middle Way as the path between two extremes, close to Aristotle’s idea of the “golden mean” whereby “every virtue is a mean between two extremes, each of which is a vice.”

Born a prince, Shakyamuni enjoyed every physical comfort and pleasure. However, dissatisfied with the pursuit of fleeting pleasures, he set out in search of a deeper, more enduring truth. He entered a period of extreme ascetic practice, depriving himself of food and sleep, bringing himself to the verge of physical collapse. Sensing the futility of this path, however, he began meditating with the profound determination to realize the truth of human existence, which had eluded him as much in a life of asceticism as it had in a life of luxury. It was then, in his rejection of both self-mortification and self-indulgence, that Shakyamuni awakened to the true nature of life—its eternity, its deep wellspring of unbounded vitality and wisdom.