This seems a good analogy to me when someone asks for the meaning of life. I haven’t counted them but my strong guess is that self-help guidebooks directly or loosely related to this crucial question represent the biggest single category of all non-fiction.

A million miles away from being a professional advisor in vital questions, I know one thing for sure: finding the meaning of life is as easy as speaking in one‘s mother tongue. to realize that the meaning of life is nothing else than life itself, seems to be a gargantuan challenge for most people, but actually is a no-brainer. If you see yourself as an individual part of and your personal contribution to our world in its entirety, you‘ve already got the point.

Take a step back, for a moment, and imagine an anthill. At first glance, this anthill seems to be a mound of earth. However, when zooming in, you finally recognize hundreds of thousands of tiny ants —  all of them apparently moving in some kind of synchronized way. Our world is like this anthill: from a higher perspective, we individuals seem to behave in sync with each other. When one of us leaves (i.e. dies), some others might change their behaviors for some time, but most of us don‘t. The sum of all human beings creates what we call life. And each individual plays an important if tiny, role in it.

Connectedness With The Environment Is The Meaning Of Life

From the very moment, we understand that each one of us adds her or his contribution to a greater common something — i.e. life —  we accept that each individual is only complete if seen as part of everything. That means, we don‘t live apart from everybody else, but we all share one life. Thus, each individual is responsible not only for her individuality but for her contribution to the big picture. In that sense, a part of ourselves is represented in all other creatures, as well as others are represented in ourselves.
How could we kill anybody, if, as a result, we kill ourselves? How could we not be happy and kind to others, if, as a result, we would be angry and naughty towards ourselves?

This is the meaning of life. We don‘t have to search for it, particularly not in the external world. We already know it, deep inside our bodies.  We have internalized it, in the same way as our mother tongue. It‘s as simple as that.

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In his interview he demonstrates that he’s a very practical person: referring to the Buddhist story of 500 people on a boat threatened to be murdered, but rescued because the potential murderer himself is killed. It’s not my intention to vindicate this killing, the story — and its mentioning by Matthieu — only demonstrates that Buddhism comes with practical guidance instead of lofty periphrases.

However, what strikes me most, is Matthieu’s description of his first teacher Kangyour Rinpoche. When Matthieu first met him, Kangyour Rinpoche was 70 years old and lived in a tiny shack, together with his wife, two daughters, and one of his sons. „Kangyour Rinpoche radiated kindness. He was shining with power, serenity, and love. I felt pure generosity and empathy.“

From time to time, I meet someone who I immediately sympathize with, whom I can connect with in the first moment. However, I haven’t had this feeling of absolute generosity and empathy caused by Kangyour Rinpoche. And I assume that nobody I have met had this feeling towards me. The interesting aspect here is, that I‘m pretty sure how to achieve this state of mind in which an individual creates this kind of absolute serenity. The challenge lies in following the rules to get there. I‘m speaking of three apparently simple rules that everybody may follow. Here they are:

1. Don‘t resist!
Never mind, what happens: immediately accept any situation as it is. There are three ways to tackle any situation: first, accept it and focus on the action needed until the situation has changed. Second, try to change one or more constitutive aspect(s) of the situation. Third, leave the situation.
2. Don‘t judge!
Accept any situation, object, or living being as it is. Do not interpret or judge. Just see what‘s there. (From neuroscience we know that even this might be a task too hard in most cases.)
3. Don‘t inhere!
After having experienced a situation, do not inhere in it. It‘s gone. You live now, not then.

Of course, these rules deserved to be explained better, in a more elaborate way. And there are many different ways these rules are used in, or expressed, mostly in Buddhist, and especially its Zen tradition. For me, they are the basis for living a good life, and the essence of humanity in general.
Kangyour Rinpoche was one of those allegedly few human beings who internalized these rules. His unconditional serenity and empathy are the most obvious results. There is, by the way, a close resemblance of his behavior to a baby’s. Toddlers approach most people with the same unconditional openness, innocence, and friendliness. The fascinating aspect of Kangyour Rinpoche is that he‘s a greybeard. And, weighed down with decades of — typically mixed — experiences, older human beings tend to behave in a more introverted, straitened way.

One of the main aspects of any event is that it happens and that you essentially experience it. The fact that I stumbled upon this interview with Matthieu Ricard, today, motivated me to write this blog post — and — to again trying to follow the above mentioned three rules. If you like, give it a try, too! It‘s worth it!

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