On the Meaning of Life: 3 Unconventional Considerations

Opening Our Minds to New Ways of Seeing

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Hathaway’s Pond, Hyannis, Massachusetts

ONE

Ever since maybe my early twenties (I’m sixty now), I’ve been preoccupied with truth, purpose, the meaning of life. But I didn’t want to make meaning. That would only have been imposing my own fantasies onto life, I thought. I wanted to find meaning. I wanted to find the truth that I believed existed somewhere out there, or, as I was often told, somewhere deep within myself. Whether truth was God or Nature or Soul or something I hadn’t even heard of yet, I wanted to know it.

I understand now the flaw in my thinking. The idea of ultimate truth—truth with a capital T—is a human-constructed idea. These days I liken the search for ultimate truth, or God, or whatever, to searching for a needle in a haystack—when no one lost a needle in the first place! To make something up in your head (or swallow it whole from your culture) and then start searching for it in the world is a fool’s errand if ever I saw one. It reminds me of a story I read in a Dharma text: A man is on his hands and knees under a streetlight searching for his lost keys. A friend comes along and offers to help. “Where did you lose them?” the friend asks. “Over there,” the man says, pointing across the street. “What! Then why the heck are you looking for them here?” “Because it’s too dark to see over there.”

In other words, we can’t expect the world to modify itself in order to meet our needs; we’ll get nothing for our efforts. The world is what it is, and all we can do is observe it, respect it, and work with it.

But that does not mean we can’t apply ourselves to clearing away the illusions we have operated under for most of our lives (that happiness can at last be found, that there is a higher and more beautiful spiritual realm waiting for us, that we “deserve” respect, that there is such a thing as a human right, that we are Christians, Buddhists, Americans, Europeans, smart, successful, praiseworthy…). Now that; that is a worthwhile goal. With all those projected self-images and conditioned beliefs and expectations out of the way, maybe there is something to see and maybe there isn’t, but at least we have clarity, and clarity is its own reward.

TWO

If ever you hear the words, “The purpose of life is…”, block your ears quick! Don’t listen. Run the other way.

Nobody knows what the purpose of life is, and I think the worst thing we can do is settle on one possibility, thus closing the door to all those others we haven’t even considered yet—or are incapable, with our human limitations, of ever finding or even conceiving. Worse, if we accept someone else’s answer, then we’re denying ourselves the chance to go out and live and find out through our own direct experience what we think is true.

Of course, some of us do believe we’ve found the answer, some profound meaning, and we go ahead and apply it to our own life, even if we aren’t so arrogant as to assume that our purpose should be everyone else’s purpose. But even then, if we cling too tightly to our belief, we are going to run into tension and trouble whenever the real world fails to continue reflecting and validating it.

So, what is the meaning or purpose of life? (Block your ears! 🙂)

Actually, I’m proposing that the question itself is illegitimate, a trick question, sometimes called a “fallacy of presupposition,” implying by its existence that there really is a definitive answer we can ascertain if only we search hard and long enough. The question, I think, sends too many people down that often-despairing path of “spiritual seeking.”

Is there anything wrong with accepting that we simply cannot know why we’re here? Just embracing the kaleidoscopic contents of our consciousness for what it is: a beautiful mystery of aliveness—ever-flowing, ever-changing, ever-surprising?

THREE

We look at the world with ten percent eyes and ninety percent brain, in my unscientific estimation. In other words, we interpret what we see by comparing it to what we have seen, experienced, or learned in the past, projecting our memories onto the present. There is nothing wrong with this except when we’re trapped in a narrow view and our short-hand interpretation prevents us from discerning things from a fresher, more open-minded perspective.

It’s helpful to practice noticing how limited, or influenced by preconceived notions, our view is throughout the day. For example:

· When we think we already know what a friend or partner is going to say

· When we see deficiency in what we already have (I need a new car, my house is too small, my spouse doesn’t understand me, my boss is a jerk, etc.)

· When we fail to see the beauty around us

· When we blame others for our negative feelings

Here are some ways I’ve practiced noticing with my eyes rather than my brain, and thereby seeing what I may otherwise have missed:

1. Noticing and considering the space between myself and an object in the distance

2. Looking at my entire field of vision without defining or naming anything; focusing, say, only on the pattern of colors, or only on the shapes or outlines of things

3. Staring at a burning match, not thinking about the physics of fire or the symbolism of light, which would take me away from the present, but rather, just noticing what is happening in front of me. The heat, light, color, shape, movement, smoke, transformation

4. While walking in the woods, looking in a direction I would not normally look; for example, straight up through the branches of the trees. Or looking to the right or left while walking forward, noticing how the nearer trees seem to move faster than those farther away

5. Slowly circling around an object such as a car or a tree, and observing its ever-changing shape and appearance as I move

6. Spending some time focusing on the dappled light sparkling on rippling water. Asking myself, What is the nature, shape, and color of these glistening flashes of light and reflection?

7. Spending time in a place where my language is not spoken

8. Looking at my spouse as if I have never met her before. Pretending I have no idea what she is about to say, and listening closely to be sure I truly hear her words

These practices help me to stop clinging to beliefs and expectations that aren’t borne out in the real world, to be more open-minded when faced with circumstances or relationships that trigger fear or judgment, and to maintain my equanimity when people disagree with me, when things aren’t going my way, or when the world just doesn’t seem to make sense,

DB

I do so love looking up into the trees. It’s a magical world over our heads that we seldom see.

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