The Buddha sought answers to the
questions we all have: Who are we? What are we doing here? Why are things the
way they are? They are crazy-making questions that can either haunt or
enlighten. One of my favorite lines in the television sitcom, Raymond,
is delivered by Robert, Raymond’s TV brother, during an episode focusing on the
same big question Raymond’s daughter was asking: “Why did God put us here?”
Robert, in mental torment, looks to the sky and says: “You mean God made us
smart enough to ask the question, but not smart enough to know the answer?!!”
I say yes, that's exactly the
predicament we're in. But I don't think it has anything to do with God or our
lack of intelligence. It's because there are no definitive answers. And because
we really can't believe there aren't definitive answers "out there",
our nature urges us to continuously ask the questions and, ultimately, continue
the search for meaning.
In the book, Invisible Forces and
Powerful Beliefs: Gravity, Gods, and Minds, The Chicago Social Brain
Network reports, "Our drive to make meaning is irrepressible—when we do
not understand the forces that drive our actions, we invent narratives that
make these invisible forces feel more predictable and understandable, even if
only in hindsight."
And, I believe, we want narratives
that provide more than understanding alone. We want narratives that make us
feel better about our lives. We cling to the concept that somehow we must
have a grander purpose than what is evident in our everyday lives. Again, in Invisible
Forces and Powerful Beliefs, they emphasize that our human nature insists
that "actions of objects have causes, whereas actions of humans have
reasons." This highlights the human need to find meaning in connecting to
something beyond our little selves and our average, everyday lives. Yet, I rest
in the confidence that Shakyamuni Gautama Buddha taught that the ONLY
place for us to search for meaning is in our little selves and our
average, everyday lives.
Shakyamuni taught that we should not
accept anything on anyone's authority—not even his—but to verify it through our
own experience. Personally, I am highly suspicious of anyone or any group that
tells me what the meaning or purpose of my life is, how I should go about
fulfilling that purpose, and what I should have "faith" in. As an
out-of-the-closet skeptic, the use of the word "faith" itself raises
my defenses. I am much more comfortable with the word "confidence". I
believe and have confidence in what the Buddha taught because I've directly
experienced it.
In the Bright Dawn, Kubose lineage,
I learned that it is in my everyday where I will find meaning, if I awake to
it—awakening to what is right in front of us; to things as they are. This
direct experience of reality can provide us with a transcendent joy; joy that
emerges from being in our lives 100%, without looking for something outside of
us to provide meaning.
In the documentary, Examined Life
by Astra Taylor, Princeton professor Cornel West suggested that we refuse the
gratification of finding meaning. I interpreted his remark as an echo of
Shakyamuni's teachings. Looking outside of ourselves for answers to why we're
here and what the meaning of our lives are, provides a way out, or
gratification to the uneasiness of sitting in the questions.
Searching for meaning beyond what
your life brings you everyday is like believing the satisfying experience of a
jigsaw puzzle is knowing what the picture is. The meaning of the jigsaw puzzle
is not in the finished picture or design, but in placing the pieces.
Everyday meaning—meaning found in
your own experience—shows up more dependably than new mail in your inbox. Just
the fact that you have this life, this "precious human birth" (the
first of the "Four Reminders" or the "Four Thoughts that Turn
the Mind to the Dharma"), is meaning enough.
Everyday in our precious human lives
we have a choice about how to make our day meaningful. Meaning is delivered to
us everyday in everything we do, as soon as we wake up to what we're doing.
Sometimes that choice may only be to "keep going" when circumstances
make us question whether we can keep going. Sometimes it may be to
keep starting; starting over and over again to be the person we want to be ...
starting again today when the day before ended in a character failure of anger,
selfishness, resentment, or disappointing a loved one.
My life has demonstrated to me that
the search for meaning beyond what happens to me day-to-day is fickle. The
things I think will provide meaning rarely do: the perfect holidays planned for,
the job, the raise, the award, the vacation, the day off ... Meaning generally
doesn't emerge from those planned-for experiences, but from the little moments
of everyday life. Meaning has no fixed, inherent existence—in you or prescribed
from a super being, outside of you.
Like all things, it is empty of a
fixed, external, inherent existence. Like all things, meaning changes
day-to-day because it is subject to the dynamic interplay of causes and
conditions, including those of the people and things interacting with you in
your life. And, because of that, meaning is given to you by others.
Immense satisfaction—or even
meaningful great joy—arises when we are truly being IN our life; fully
participating without anticipation, or avoidance, in the life given to us every
day, as a part of a continuously-becoming emergent wholeness. To me, this is
what, in Shin Buddhism, is the primary spiritual experience of
"shinjin", a believing or entrusting heart. The Sanskrit word,
"prasanna" expresses it as well. Prasanna roughly means
"satisfied", "balanced", "serene", or
"gracious". This balance is not founded on blind faith, but has a
connotation of clarity—a clarity of mind—a mind that grasps what is, as it is;
who we are, as we are. In that moment of grasping completely what is, we have
discovered our meaning.
In Zen Shin Talks by Sensei
Ogui, he relates a story that says all this much better in way fewer words than
I have used here today. One hot summer he was watering the lawn and was
approached by a young woman carrying a notepad. She asked, "Are you the
Reverend?" He replied that he was and she went on to explain that she was
interviewing clergymen about their thoughts on creation verses evolution. She
asked Sensei, "What do you think about creation versus evolution?" He
answered, "I'm watering the lawn because it's dying." She said,
"I know! Answer my question!" But Sensei persisted through her
frustration, explaining that he was answering her question and told her to
write his answer down on her notepad.
We will find the meaning of life
when we give up the search. Echoing the Zen Shin insight, from a Tibetan
Buddhist perspective, Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche writes in his poem, Free
and Easy: A Spontaneous Vajra Song:
"Wanting to grasp the
ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax this
tight fist of grasping,
Infinite space is there—open,
inviting and comfortable.
Make use of this spaciousness, this
freedom and natural ease.
Don't search any further.
Don't go into the tangled jungle
looking for the great awakened
elephant,
who is already resting quietly at
home
in front of your own hearth."
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