The Buddha explained the Middle Way using the example of a log. He asked a disciple, "if you put a log in the river and it stays in the middle, not getting stuck on the left bank or the right; if it doesn't sink, and if no one plucks it from the water, where does it go?" The disciple answered, "It goes to the ocean." "Absolutely," the Buddha said. It will go all the way to the ocean; it's impossible for it not to.

The log is analogous to meditation practice. If meditators aren't pulled to the left or right, if they don't sink, and if someone doesn't remove them from the path, without question they will have to reach supreme happiness, nibbana, non-attachment, where there is no suffering, forever.

But some of the Buddha's disciples wanted to know, "What do you mean by the right side?" Or, "What do you mean by the left side? And what's the meaning of sinking in the middle?" The Buddha answered that the right bank means eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. The left bank means color, sound, smell, taste, contact, and the object of the mind.

Sinking in the water means ego. If someone removes the log to build a raft, that means that he is following desire. Or it means that a friend tells the meditator that he's following the wrong path, that another teacher or technique or meditation center will be better.