What's the Meaning of Life and Other Perplexing Questions

 Four Perplexing Questions: Why is there no “happily ever after”? / What is true love? / What’s the meaning of life? / Why “Happiness” may not be the best word to describe your life goal?

(These reflections are already part of our efforts to review the different things we’ve been studying so far in this course on the perplexing issues of life. Please watch the four short video clips from the SOL on the four perplexing issues presented here.)

Review: The Greater Reality, the Big Background and Faith

     One of the major things I’ve been arguing for so far in this course on the so-called “Perplexing Issues” of life is this: Having the “Big Background” provided by the spiritual-wisdom traditions (the religions) of the world is an important help in enabling us to give better responses to the many perplexing issues (existential questions, ultimate questions) of life. And that “Big Background” can be accessed by the attitude of being (at least) open to the possibility, or even having faith-trust that there is a bigger dimension of reality, one that is not yet accessible by conventional science but has been taught by the spiritual-wisdom traditions from the very beginning. This bigger “Spirit” dimension that encompasses everything else is also known in various spiritual-wisdom traditions as “God”, “the Sacred”, “the Numinous”, “the Ultimate”, etc. 

    Many of the greatest sages and spiritual teachers in history have claimed that they experientially know this greater dimension through spiritual experience (AKA, mystical/contemplative/religious experiences). There are techniques that can increase the possibility of experiencing directly this sacred dimension taught and transmitted by practically all the spiritual-wisdom traditions. (If you want to review what philosopher Ken Wilber says about that, please go here.) 

    This view which acknowledges that humans exist in and can access material and spiritual dimensions is expressed in what is called "the Perennial Philosophy." If you want to review what the “Perennial Philosophy” claims about reality, please go here. 

 

   When that openness to the “Greater Reality” is in place, we acquire a wider and better perspective of reality and the bigger context of where we are in our efforts to give responses to the different perplexing issues of life. As we learned when we covered the topic of “Faith” (faith as a fundamental attitude of trust in the goodness of reality), this faith is the source of our continuing decision to trust that reality is good and that life is worth living and even fighting for.

     If you want to review what we discussed about faith-as-trust, go here. 

 

Four Other Perplexing Issues

     With that fundamental attitude of openness to and optimism for life, we can better go about trying to give more concrete responses to the different perplexing issues and existential questions of life. Here, I will suggest tackling these following big questions:

·         Where are we going (in an existential sense)?

·         What is true love?

·         What’s the meaning of life?

·         What is a better way than the word “happiness” to express our goal in life?

     To give some responses to these questions, I’ll be enlisting the help of the School of Life (SOL) once again. You already know them well. You know that the SOL is basically a secular school of philosophy. You can review the “eight rules” of the school of life here. 

     So, what you’ll get from the SOL are basically secular answers to these questions. Still, I think that the SOL has many excellent insights that we can use in practical life and if one has the “bigger background” (I refer to above) to complement the insights of the SOL, I think one can acquire an even deeper spiritual wisdom! (For a further discussion of the SOL's philosophy set in the context of a "Greater Reality," please go here.)

Where are We Going?

     This question can be asked in different senses. Here we are posing this question in an existential sense. This can be expressed alternatively as: Where is my life headed? What should I aim for in life? What are the “goals” that would give my life greater meaning? We often dream of a “happily ever after” goal to our life and efforts. This dream can be the cause of the many attachments and cravings we have in life. Recall that many spiritual-wisdom traditions (such as Buddhism and also Christianity) tell us that cravings and attachments can be a big obstacle for us to acquire true wisdom. Roger Walsh in his ‘Seven Essential Practices’ has, as practice #1: Transform your motivation: Reduce craving and find your soul's desire. You can review these practices here.

     However, in its usual brutally frank yet wise way, the SOL tells us starkly: “There is NO ‘happily ever after’”. The “goal” of living is the “journey” itself! View this short film (5:37) and reflect on it - Why There’s No Happily Ever After. 

What is True Love?

     Love is commonly known as “the greatest” thing in life (see 1 Corinthians 13:13). So one of the most urgent perplexing issues is: What is true love? I’m sure that you have heard many explanations of love both religious and secular. In line with this, the same Roger Walsh in his ‘Seven Essential Practices’ has, as practice #2: Cultivate emotional wisdom: Heal your heart and learn to love.

     I think that the SOL has a fresh perspective on the nature of true love. View this short film (5:37) and reflect on it - What True Love Really Is.

What’s the Meaning of Life?

     Of course this question is one of the most asked existential questions. Each religious or spiritual-wisdom tradition tries to give us answers to this urgent question. Let’s see what the SOL suggests about this question – (4:59) What’s the Meaning of Life? 

Is the "Pursuit of Happiness" the Major Goal of Life?

     This is another one of the “biggies.” Nowadays, we often hear that the pursuit of happiness is one major goal of life. But is it really? Why is there so much unhappiness both in our lives and in the lives of others? Here is another fresh perspective from the SOL. It says that perhaps the word “happiness” is not the best way to express the goal of life. It then takes a hint from ancient Greek philosophy and urges us to consider instead an alternative way to express what we should be trying to reach in life – Why ‘Happiness’ is a Useless Word and an Alternative (3:28).

***

    You don't have to agree with any of the above perspectives. What is more important is that you listen with an open-minded attitude to different perspectives, reflect on them, and formulate your own critically thought-out answers to those different perplexing questions of life.

What is Religion? Six Insightful Statements (from Marcus Borg) to Describe It

 

What is Religion? Six Insightful Statements to Describe It

By the late Marcus Borg (biblical scholar and theologian)

Found in the public domain at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHIv-c-Rpzw&t=0s&index=2&list=WL  /  (from 08:30 to 21:05) / Annotations by Julius-Kei Kato

(The main text is a transcript of Marcus Borg’s talk. Italicized parts within square brackets [ ] are my own [jkk’s] annotations.)

 

Marcus Borg:  I will develop this part of my lecture by describing a general understanding of religions with six statements. All six statements are commonly affirmed within the academic study of religion. That is, there is widespread agreement amongst scholars of religion about these statements. In each case, I will put the statement into a very short sentence and then of course explain it.

 

[1] Religions as Cultural-Linguistic Traditions

First statement about religions: "Religions are cultural - linguistic traditions." That’s pretty abstract but it's actually a very helpful definition. Let me repeat it: Religions are cultural-linguistic traditions and I owe this language to George Lindbeck of Yale Divinity School. I'm not sure that it’s original with him, but that's where I ran into it. And what it means to say is that each religion originates within a particular culture. And thus, it uses the language and symbols of that culture. So, in that sense each religion is a cultural-linguistic tradition. Moreover, if that religion survives for any length of time and, of course, all major religions have. If that religion survives, it becomes a cultural-linguistic tradition in its own right. That is, it becomes a way of construing the world, of structuring the world, and it has its own particular language and symbols.

     And thus, being Christian or Jewish or Muslim is a little bit like being French or Italian. To be French means not only knowing French (the language). It also means knowing something about the ethos of being French. It means to have lived within a French world and to have that world structure your vision of life. And of course there's a sense in which being religious is different from this as well because it is a much more universal identity - one that transcends national, ethnic, and racial boundaries but nevertheless it is very helpful to think of religions as cultural-linguistic traditions, each with its own language, symbols, etc.

 

[2] Religions as Human Constructions

Second statement about religions, "Religions are human constructions". Religions are human constructions or human products. This is a corollary of the first statement of religions as cultural-linguistic traditions. Religions are human creations and, within that, I'm including their scriptures. Their scriptures are human products, and thus for Christians, the Bible is a human product. The religions’ teachings, their doctrines, their rituals, and their practices, all of these are human creations, human constructions.

     This time I'll use a phrase from a Harvard religious scholar, Gordon Kaufman. Kaufman speaks of religions as " Imaginative human constructions." And by imaginative he doesn't mean imagined, imaginative and sort of a negative sense of the word as when we say about something that sounds really far-fetched or that's really imaginative, not in that sense but imaginative in the sense of both creative, as well as using the language of the imagination, the language of images and symbols, and story, and so forth.

     Now, of course not all religious people would agree with this statement that, "Religions are human products or human constructions." Within the three major Western Religions, the Abrahamic traditions, as they are commonly called, there are many who would say that their religion comes from God, that it's a divine product and not a human product. I think you are all aware that official Muslim teaching is that, the Koran was dictated by Allah to Muhammad. Within Judaism, Orthodox Jews, not all Jews but Orthodox Jews typically affirm that the Torah including the laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai that are included in the Pentateuch but also the ‘Oral Torah’, all of it was given directly by God to Moses. And of course, fundamentalist Christians typically claim that the Bible is a divine product, and thus infallible and inerrant. But, within the framework of the academic study of religion, these claims look like a common human tendency to ground their sacred traditions in God. That is, if lots of religious traditions say this (that “our traditions come from God”), we can say then that one of the characteristics of religions is that they tend to ground their traditions in divine origin. 

[When seen in a humanistic way, we can say that, in order to strengthen the claims that religions make, some of the key figures involved in the institutionalization of a particular religious tradition established at a certain point in history the notion that this particular religion (e.g. Christianity) was “revealed” directly by God. Seen from a more theological or faith perspective, we can say that religions often have their origins in a powerful religious/spiritual experience of certain people at the start of the religion’s history. Reflecting on their profound spiritual experience, they concluded that this experience was a revelation of God, hence, the religion that was born out of that experience “came from God”.]

 

[Borg’s statements #1 and #2 are not theological evaluations of religions. That is, they do not come from a perspective of faith. They are a result of looking at the phenomenon of religion from a purely humanistic standpoint. We can consider them, therefore, as coming from the discipline of religious studies, which does not presuppose any faith but studies religion as a human phenomenon. The statements below, however, contain some faith perspectives. Although they are still affirmed by many in the academic study of religion, they can be considered as grounded more in the discipline of theology, which presupposes religious faith but tries to deepen its understanding of faith through reason.]

 

[3] Religions as Human Responses to the Experience of the Sacred

Now, those first two statements both stress the human origins of religion. The third statement brings God back into the picture, namely, "Religions are responses to the experience of the sacred or the experience of God, or the spirit." Those terms are ones I use synonymously and interchangeably. I take the reality of God very seriously. I am utterly convinced that there is a “More,” to use [philosopher and psychologist] William James's marvellously generic term for the sacred -- a stupendous, wondrous “More,” and I am convinced that this "More" has been experienced in every human culture, and that the origin of the major religious traditions lies in experiences of the "More". So, I see religions as human products but as human products created as response to the experience of the sacred in the particular culture within which each emerged.

 

[4] Religions as Wisdom Traditions

My fourth statement, "Religions are wisdom traditions." And I owe this statement to a man I'm honored to call my friend, Huston Smith [He was a widely respected US professor of world religions]. He speaks about this a lot--of religions being wisdom traditions. Wisdom (in both religion and philosophy) is concerned with the questions: "How shall I live?", "What is life about?" [Religion attempts to respond to humans’ most perplexing questions – also known as “ultimate” or “existential” questions.]  This is what the religions to a large extent are about. They are disclosures of how to live, and by that I don't mean just morals but something more comprehensive than that. They are disclosures of what life and reality are about, and it's not just that they have responses to that question, but they are the accumulated wisdom of the past of centuries of thinkers. [An insightful way to refer to the activity of learning about religions is the expression A.W.E. ‘Ancestral Wisdom Education’, as proposed by theologian Matthew Fox.] This wisdom ranges from very practical wisdom to theological and metaphysical wisdom. The religions are a treasure trove of wisdom.

 

[5] Religions as Means of Ultimate Transformation

Fifth statement: Religions are means of ultimate transformation. I'll repeat the sentence, religions are means of ultimate transformation, and I owe this short statement to Fredrick Strang, author of An Introduction to Religion textbook, published some 25 years ago or so now. Let me unpack that definition. Religions are means; it's partly that they're not ends, okay, but it's also that they are means in the sense of that they have a very practical purpose; and that practical purpose is ultimate transformation. And when we speak of ultimate transformation, we mean not just psychological transformation (important as that is) but ultimate transformation in the sense of spiritual transformation, in the sense of the transformation of the self at its deepest level. That is the very practical purpose of religion, and that transformation is from an old way of being to new way of being, from an old identity to a new identity. And the fruit or product of this transformation across religious traditions is compassion, becoming more compassionate beings. This is central to all the major religions and the saints of the various traditions look very similar in this respect.

 

[6] Religions as Sacraments of the Sacred

And sixth, and finally, "Religions are sacraments of the sacred." Religions are sacraments of the sacred. Now, let me define the word sacrament here. Those of us who are Christians are familiar of course with the two universal sacraments of the Protestant and Catholic traditions and then of course the five additional sacraments of the Catholic tradition itself. But I'm using the word sacrament in a broader sense and not just to refer to those two or those seven.

     Namely, a sacrament is a mediator of the sacred, or a sacrament is mediator of the spirit. A sacrament is anything finite and visible through which the spirit becomes present to us. Now, in this broad sense, nature can be a sacrament; music can be a sacrament. Okay, virtually everything in human history has, for somebody, been a means whereby the Spirit has been mediated to them. [This is the meaning of “a sacrament” in the broad sense: Something that makes the sacred present and tangible for us humans in our world.] 

     Now, to apply this definition to religions, the purpose of religions is to mediate the sacred [to make “the Sacred” present and tangible in a concrete way]. The purpose of their scriptures, their rituals, their practices is to become a vehicle or a vessel for the sacred to become present to us. Now, if one takes this seriously, it also has an effect upon what we think being religious means. Within the Christian tradition over the last 300 years (especially for Protestants but for Catholics as well because this is generally true of what's happened in Western Christianity since the Enlightenment), there's been an enormous emphasis on ‘believing’ as what it means to be a Christian: that to be a Christian means believing in the Bible and Jesus, and God, or in Christianity, or whatever. Well, if you see religions as a sacrament, the point is not to believe in the sacrament. The point is to live within the tradition and let the sacrament do its work within you; to let the sacrament mediate the reality of the sacred to you. And it seems to me that this is the purpose of the Buddhist tradition, the Muslim tradition, the Jewish traditions, and so forth -- that they are means whereby the sacred becomes present to people and works within people.

*****

How to Meditate? My Suggestion - "Vital Reading"

 

Meditation Described Briefly (by spirituality teacher Roger Walsh)

Meditation is a universal practice found in practically all spiritual-wisdom traditions. It is basically a concentration technique that has two key elements: 

1. First, choosing a focus for attention. This is usually one's breathing (in and out). But it can be extended to an emotion, a thought, a part of one's body, etc. It can even be applied to a sacred word or mantra (as it is done in the prayer-practice known as "centering prayer"). 
2. Second, when one notices that one's attention has wandered elsewhere, gently bring it back to the point of focus.

The heart of the method is to gently turn your attention back when it wanders to other places. Our minds--as Buddhism often teaches--are like restless, wild monkeys that jump from tree to tree ("the monkey mind"). When one can tame this restless, wandering mind and train it to focus on something, then the spiritual path can progress in earnest. (cf. Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality, pp. 155-56)

A Suggestion on How to Meditate - A "Vital Reading"

For the absolute beginner, I would recommend starting with 10 minutes every day and aim to expand that eventually to 15~20 minutes. For people who are especially addicted to being mentally engaged (often, distracted) with technological gadgets, that can seem daunting. But it is necessary to resolve and set out to "just do it" (as the Nike ad says).

There is a popular spiritual practice in the Catholic Christian tradition called the "Lectio Divina." That means "Sacred [Divine] Reading." It is a time-tested and proven method of reading the scriptures in a prayerful manner. It is based on a simple method that can be summarized in the following steps: (1) Read -- (2) Think -- (3) Pray -- (4) Act.

I will adopt and tweak a bit the 'Sacred Reading' method and propose it to beginners or people who want to progress further in their meditation practice. First, I'll rename the practice to "Lectio Vitalis" (Latin) which I take to mean "a life-sustaining reading." We can call it in English "Vital Reading" for the time being and take "vital" to mean primarily "life-giving, life-sustaining, life-affirming," but also as "important" for cultivating and sustaining one's spirituality.

I name it this way because this practice is meant to sustain us in our life and help us both to go deeper within and also transcend ourselves. In this way, we tap into the resources that--the spiritual wisdom traditions say--can sustain, affirm and lead us to greater peace, balance, and wholeness. It is not only meant for religious believers but for everyone as long as they feel that they can use meditation for its many potential health, psychological, and spiritual benefits, as even science clearly shows nowadays. It is described as a "reading" because it presupposes an attitude of openness and listening to what life itself is teaching us - adopting an attitude that Zen Buddhism calls "the Beginner's Mind" (初心者). All of that is what the expression "vital reading" implies. 

The method I propose here will take the traditional lectio divina steps with a few tweaks. Instead of "Read" as step one, I will add--what I think--is a more fundamental first step. Let me propose the following steps then (BReTMA):

1. Breathe
2. Read (or Recall)
3. Think
4. Meditate
5. Act

The Method: Nuts and Bolts

The different steps explained more in detail:

1. Breathe - This is the time to quiet and calm your heart and mind. Concentrate exclusively for a short while on the breath (deep in-breath / deep out-breath) until you experience some measure of inner calm. Note well that in many contemporary explanations of meditation (whether secular or broadly "Eastern"), this first phase is already what meditation is all about. This is what one should mainly be doing during one's meditation time. If you feel that you want to adopt that practice because you feel that going to the other steps would "clutter" your meditation practice too much, that is of course OK and good. Refer to the simple description of Roger Walsh above. If you feel you need more structure though, you can proceed to the other steps.
2. Read / Recall - You can use a literal text here or--what I'd like to call-- a "life text". I use "text" in the wider sense of the term. A "text" can refer to practically anything (an event, something you read, something you witnessed, a phrase you heard in a movie, a beautiful nature scene, etc.) that struck you or stood out for you recently and to which you would like to direct some reflective and meditative attention. Remember: when something "strikes" you, that usually means you need to discern some important lesson from that thing because it has a special significance for where you are in life now. If you use a written text, it can be your religious tradition's scripture (Bible, Quran, Teachings of the Buddha, etc.) or a book with short excerpts that is good for meditation purposes (for example, short passages from spiritual teachers or collections of great teachings). It is not advisable to read passages that are too long.
3. Think - This is when you reflect on what you have read (or the "thing" that stood out to you from life). This phase is when we engage in the active, cognitive reflection on what we have just "read". We actively discourse about it interiorly, in our minds: trying to understand more deeply its meaning and implications, drawing out conclusions, making connections, etc. We can also ask ourselves: What does the text say to me? Religious believers can also incorporate prayer into this phase.
4. Meditate - I differentiate "think" from "meditate." In this "meditate" phase, we tone down the busy interior cognitive/reflective activities going on in our minds about the text, select a key word, phrase, or thought (like a mantra or a "sacred word" in the practice called "Centering Prayer") and savour it, make it sink deeply into ourselves by slowly repeating it for a while. This is a move away from active thinking to a more "contemplative" phase in the process.
5. Act - We end the session by asking ourselves 'How will I act in response to the reading I've just done?'. Then we go back to life and try to practice our resolution.

Those steps might make the 10-15 minutes of 'Vital Reading' survivable for absolute beginners, right? For more advanced practitioners, this process will definitely be "too busy," way too active and structured. Feel free to tweak it as you see fit. Those steps are not set in stone at all. The main goal is  to train your mind to be less distracted and focus for a little while on a point that will hopefully lead to more interior peace, balance, and wisdom.