Maybe I'm in the minority, but I was pleasantly surprised and relieved when I finally figured out life has no 'meaning' and no 'purpose.'
In other words... all that stuff other people say you were put on this earth for? Nah.
I was reading Wen-Tzu again last night. He quotes his teacher, Lao-Tzu, as saying that laws are of men and not from heaven, but are necessary nonetheless.
If nothing else, we need laws to protect us from all the people with meaning and purpose in their lives.
But suffering/dissatisfaction, the Buddha taught, comes from attachment. And that can certainly include attachment to some notion of an external force directing your life while you try to live up to its exacting standards.
Many people seem to feel safer believing that a deity is running their lives and setting their goals. But deprived of the wonderful plan some supreme being supposedly has for your life, you must pursue harmony, inner balance and morality on your own.
My experience is that it's easier that way.
6 comments:
I do agree. I agree there's not some great end or secret or resolution or answer. I also agree this is reassuring and comforting despite the response that many people might have ("you're a nihilist" or "you're cynical"). The problem I have is the reconciliation between this embracing of clean, open space and the constant analyzing (writing) about it all. I'm not referring to you here, but to me. I've been sort of blocked as you, and other people, may have noticed, and this is precisely the reason. I mean, what can you say about being past words?
I've told people that if I ever reach capital E enlightenment, they'll know it because I'll stop blogging.
Or talking.
Or anything, I guess.
On the other hand, the Buddha achieved Enlightenment and then taught and spoke for forty-odd years.
When you write: "Many people seem to feel safer believing that a deity is running their lives and setting their goals. But deprived of the wonderful plan some supreme being supposedly has for your life, you must pursue harmony, inner balance and morality on your own." what about the Sangha? What about interdependence? What about "No-Self"?
I am a "Christian," and I see that the sense of what you write speaks truthfully to a major problem in much theistic thought. Many of us theists use our belief in God to dodge our responsibility for seeking the truth and for living our lives. Once we relinquish our responsibility, we become almost hopelessly attached to false doctrine.
So it is not about doing it "on your own", but about accepting responsibility for the self.
I would respond, in all liklihood meaninglessly, but to what purpose?
Even if we resolve those questions, we experience life on a day by day by day basis and our behaviors while in search for love and in the struggle for the legal tender don't change much whether Muslim, Jew, Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, Existentialist or whatever.
To be human, it seems to me, is to be buffeted by forces beyond our control -- popular culture, entropy, capitalism -- and it really would be comforting to think that something, someone, somewhere, somehow, knows what they are doing and why. This, of course, brings out notions like "God is Dead" or "God is a watchmaker who wound up the universe and is now just letting it tick away" or "God made this universe as a toy, but like a lot of children, he's lost interest and is doing something else now."
I long ago gave up the idea of God as the bearded white man of the Vatican ceiling, but I continue to believe that there is mystery in the universe that can conveniently be called "God". I believe there are creative and loving forces at work in our lives, in addition to many others, biological, psychological and physical. I do not believe this "locks in" any particular meaning and purpose for my life. It also does not answer the questions of who to date and how to make a living or whether to vote for the honest dolt or the corrupt genius.
There is, it seems to me, a critical difference between answering the question of whether there is a general and overall meaning and purpose for human life and answering the question of whether a single individual has a meaning or a purpose. Finally, even if an individual has a meaning or purpose, there is THEN the question of the source of that meaning and purpose.
blogblah!!!
Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra, I think that what you say is essentially meaningful. While the meaning of “meaning” is interesting in an intellectual way, the big question is “how does meaning affect the way we live.” Which means that “meaning”, even if we can argue that it’s ultimate nature is determined by “God” and is therefore “objective”, is meaningless in a practical sense until we give God’s meaning our own meaning.
So while it may be impossible to approach the underlying nature of “meaning,” we know that the meaning we each give “meaning” is meaningful.
Fuck. I'm confused.
Post a Comment