The Spirit of Diplomacy

 Many people in this day and age don't seem to value diplomacy so much, at least not in the way that it is often cast. I think that the reason is that many times, people are diplomatic in ways that compromise their way of being in the world. For example, someone who strongly disagrees with someone else is now said to "take the high road" by not commenting back to the other by hurling insults or the like. Yet, people have often come to believe that not saying anything is really a way of hiding something. Is diplomacy nothing more than refraining from saying what one truly feels, or is there something to be said about a certain spirit of diplomacy that isn't necessarily artificial.
  I think that Buddhist teachings can allow people to be diplomatic in more authentic and spiritual ways. Part of what I have understood about the Middle Path is that it is not upholding one view at the expense of the other: instead, it somehow stands between views, neither rejecting them nor upholding them as absolutes. Why? I think it's because the doctrine of the Middle Path sees all viewpoints, thoughts or stances as fundamentally empty in nature. What I think is "true" today is really only relative to certain kinds of conditions. For example, I might think that I am a "shy" person or will always be shy, but what happens when I am put in a party full of people who are "more shy" than I am? More likely than not, I suddenly become the "outgoing" person in their eyes. Similarly, conditions might change in the sense that I might become less inhibited for various reasons, some within my influence and some not. Given the notion that my "shyness" is not absolute, a diplomatic spirit would not force this person to become less shy, but would rather seek ways to influence conditions so that the person might feel more at ease in company with others, even if it means not saying a lot. In other words, the Middle Path is not to insist on one way of doing things, but to find skillful means which might fit that particular contingent moment in time.
  The spirit of diplomacy might thus be thought of as a kind of spirit of experimentation. Having the humility to recognize that there is no one single "formula" to solve all problems, spiritual diplomats are always willing to seek out new ways of benefiting others. It's not about trying to find a single way, but being open to several different ways. Surprisingly, when people are less pressured to do things one way or fit a standard mold, they become more likely to try more things or to be flexible to change.  I think that for this reason, diplomacy is still a valid way of being, in the sense that it tries to navigate complex relationships in a spirit of gentle openness.