What does the Middle Way of living mean?

To understand the Middle Way and its development you must know that the Buddha was born a prince and had every worldly pleasure. When he became aware of the unsatisfactory nature of human life (we all become sick, age and die) he realized that he too, for all his wealth would follow the same path. He tried to avoid this fate by becoming a wandering monk, starving himself and avoiding all pleasures such as comfort and food. This did not help him to understand the suffering of life. He eventually realized that both the overly rich life and the suffering of deprivation did not give him the ability to resolve the problem of suffering. One blinded him with the desire for more worldly pleasure and the other controlled his attention with hunger and other discomforts. He realized that between these two extremes (or life paths) there was a middle way of behaviour and living that provided "enough" to allow the body and mind to think and examine life and progress towards a solution to the problem of suffering. He devised a set of guidelines for living in this way (the Eightfold Path). These were not like the Ten Commandments of the Abrahamic faiths as he realized that such strict controls would be another part of an obey/disobey set of extremes, but they were a middle path of guidance that one could learn to incorporate into one's life through countless rebirths.