The Meaning of Life

When we ask a question like "what is the meaning of life?" we are not questioning "life" itself. It is our awareness of life and existence that leads to the question. So its not a Heideggar like "amazement that anything exists at all rather than just void" but rather we are embedded in life already to get to this question: life is assumed. The question is more motivated by those moments of apparent simplicity in life. Its like having a huge car and nowhere to go. What am I supposed to do with this amazing thing I have which is life? A similar more pessimistic question is "what is the point of life?" I have a student at the moment who is asking that one.

Now to cut a very long story short and to answer all such questions in one fell swoop. The opening observation is critical: we are not questioning if life exists, but rather already embedded in it we are questioning it. Life is a given assumed thing with these types of questions.

[A kind of Cartesian (Descartes) anthropomorphic principle could server to prove this is always the way. Whatever life is, I must be alive to be pondering these questions. See Descartes "Cogito Ergo Sum", "I think therefore I am". Here he is noting that if he was not existing then how could he be thinking. So the presence of thoughts must mean that he exists. Now this is famously an error, there is no reason to invoke a "self" in that argument. The presence of thoughts is evidence only for thoughts (obviously). But dead people do not think, not at least in a way that conforms to the normal meaning of think. We might argue that a stone may think and just be unable to speak. This is pointless reasoning. To think means we must be able to communicate. In fact thinking is just internalised communication, and imaginary conversation (dialectic) we have with ourselves prior to expressing it in some way like this blog. Thinking presupposes the existence of discussion. So dead people cannot think because they will never be able to enter into discussion about their thoughts. Dead people do not talk is a very profound observation! So we can argue that having thoughts must mean that we are alive and able to communicate, but without being Cartesian and inventing some soul upon which to base our thoughts. Ridding ourselves of this notion of soul being behind our actions is actually the simple basis of Buddhist Enlightenment!]

So returning to the point: life is assumed before we question. That means we have life whether we question of not! And we are aware of that life whether we question or not.

And interesting development if we examine this situation more closely is that we can even become aware as we question life that this is what we are doing with our life at that moment. So to ask "what is the point of life?" is actually just something we can do for a while in our life. We might conclude that life has one value at least and that is the freedom to question it so fundamentally.

But as established such questions are not fundamental. We can't spend our whole life questioining the point of life, it is just something that comes and goes. And when it goes what are we doing with life then? Instead what is fundamental is the awareness that enables us to even be aware that we are alive, and which can be aware that we are thinking and questioning.

Now this awareness appears to come and go because most of the time we are distracted with all the things going on in our life. Indeed many people I wonder can go their whole life from birth to death in a state of constant distraction and never ever stop being distracted to become aware of what they are doing. It takes practice and persistence to stop. This is the main purpose of meditation, to stop being distracted.

However we manage it, either instinctively or through instruction and practice we will at times be free from distractions and able to see that we are alive and all the things that are going on. But this is before we ever question or think about it! These are in fact distractions!

So the quick answer to this question is that life is a greater thing than questioning and answering itself. Knowledge is a part of life, but Life is beyond knowledge. Something to remember when looking at life, that it is far greater and more precious than any conception can grasp.

There is SRH here. If Life could grasp itself don't we have a problem?