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Meaning?
Victor Frankl said humans want meaning, a purpose, more than anything else, more than even money or power. Nobody posting here is successful, either materially or spiritually - no Bill Gates or Buddha here, am I right? Else, we wouldn't be posting here to begin with. So are we sticking to this path because it gives us a sense of purpose?
Just an honest observation; that's all. Let us discuss politely. Thanks.
Just an honest observation; that's all. Let us discuss politely. Thanks.
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Comments
What the spiritual life really has to offer are positive feelings that such things as love and compassion have to them like wet is to water. This isn't merely feeling good about satisfying our need to do good, like we might feel if we reached our goal of being able to do 100 push ups. Compassion in itself is a positive emotion that makes us feel good.
It also offers wisdom and insight as a result of study and introspection. This is about more than just repeating words on a page that one has memorized and adopting a particular dogma. It is about developing an authentic, unbiased 'non-view' of the world so that wisdom arises not as a result of some formula, this is X situation therefore one should apply Y solution, but skillful activity arises as a natural flowing of our wisdom mind.
And how do you know our spiritual/monetary success?
But this works. As least as good as any medication I've tried. It also fulfills a spiritual need in me.
I stick to the path because it gives me clarity and a greater release from the grip of depression. Does it inherently give me a sense of purpose? No. Why? Because I already had that when I showed up.
Why the assumptions that because we post in a forum we are neither?
(never mind... rhetorical question)
Everyone who enters a meditation practise is inviting a change to their lives.
What stirs one to approach such a practise, changes like everything else.
To pin everything on what one may or may not want from a practise is to also ignore the efficacy of what the meditation practise actually is.
That is...
not being conditioned by whatever we may or may not want.
On a more serious note: I'm sticking to this path because it gives me tools to make myself better, even tempered, able to resist temptation (which I really needed "girlwise" and "substancewise"!), resilient and... happy! Happy as in content
In the absence of something better, I'm sticking with this for now.
At best, meaning is something WE ascribe to our lives--it isn't some pre-packaged substance that only requires passive assent. But this doesn't mean therefore that life is meaningless either--because actually 'meaninglessness' is a kind of meaning also.
The problem is that every meaning we ascribe to reality (including meaninglessness or nihilism) is only a perspective, a particular view of the universal. The notion of meaning cuts off other possibilities and limits our openness to situations as they arise in our life right here and now. When something occurs that runs counter to that overall view, we don't accept it for what it is and instead try to fit it into this pre-scribed notion of what it is supposed to 'mean.'
Buddhism for me is the real-isation that life is neither meaningful, nor is it meaningless. It is something prior to any of that. That 'blank page' prior to all that is the spontaneity that deals with life as it is rather than through any meaning-tinted lenses. In this sense, the very notion of meaning and our belief in it is the framework out of which craving arises. 'Meaning' is just another way of saying, 'This is what I expect out of life--this is how things OUGHT to be.' And when events in life run counter to that expectation we suffer. 'Meaning' is just a philosophical way of clinging, and in that sense, meaning of any kind is a source of dukkha, not a resolution of it.
Sometimes we suffer so much that we resort to saying life is therefore meaningless. But even then, there is the original expectation that it ought not be meaningless, otherwise why bother to make the claim. The whole western notion of meaning and meaninglessness is a just one big mistake--no matter what answer is given, the question itself is the real mistake.
Meaningfulness and meaninglessness both stem from the same metaphysical aberration: a resistance to the irreducibility of the present. Even meaninglessness is a kind of negative meaning. Both terms represent an evasion from one’s own response-ability.
Response-ability grows out of the ongoing activity of engagement, which is life itself: the slow birthing of one’s own unique inner necessity—and a liberation from any metaphysical pre-scription, which is a kind of death.
:wave:
Also, in Buddhism it might be said that any kind of desire may lead to suffering, or as you say, may be kind of a source of dukkha, and not a resolution of it.
Quite a pickle, aye?
I like to think I EARN a sense of purpose.
From what I understand, it's possible to lose the
senses, but that's another thread, hahaha.
I feel that it is.
To answer this question as directly as I can, I don't really think of it that way or put it in those terms. In my head I honestly only stick with that developing these qualities has a positive quality on my well being and life, I really don't attach any kind of meaning or purpose onto it.
Maybe the purpose that I have is to be happier than I am now, nothing grand or cosmic.
"...In Buddhism all views are wrong views. When you get in touch with reality you no longer have views you have wisdom..."
I am OK with any idea that is honestly reassessed in the moment of it's expression to see if it is still true..
Of course most of us have views. That is why we suffer. Because we aren't there yet. Ideally we wouldn't have them. As TNH explains at the end, when we can look at the world without our views and see only reality, then it's no longer a view that we are seeing the world through.
But that is not the point, the meaning is the path, that is the goal. if I have grown out of being so damn self centred and selfish, have sprouted a little bit of compassion for my fellow human beings, is that not success and meaning?
I guess you could say that the meaning is whatever you give to it, but the Buddha stated that the meaning was to free oneself of suffering, which can be done IMO. You will suffer physically but that does not mean you should have to suffer on a conscious level.
What "objectivity" is in science is really a model for understanding reality, and within that context, science "works." The problem is when we confuse models of reality (and their respective contexts) with reality itself. It is in that sense that Thich Nhat Hanh says that "all views are wrong."
Models have a limited context in which they function. Outside of that limited context, they are inappropriate--that is, they don't "work." When you look at any object, you can only see it from that particular perspective. There is no metaphysical sub-stratum to rest securely upon. That is what non-self, emptiness, impermanence, non-abiding, and dependent co-origination all point toward. All views are to be transcended, even Buddhist views. To do otherwise is to cling to the finger rather than to SEE the moon that the finger is pointing at.
The problem is when we cling to one particular perspective and we say this is the Truth, we are claiming a particular view for a universal Truth. People have murdered in the name of that Truth, calling it "God" or communism or capitalism or whatever. This is because of attachment to a view that we claim absolute. But even with less fanaticism, couples argue because neither partner won't see things "my way." Both are trapped in their views, clinging to them, making one another miserable in the process.
Nirvana is non-attachment to views, liberation from views.
Isn't that obvious?
But all this is intellectual blather. The point is to real-ise tathata, not to talk about it.