It’s been a rough week. I found out a friend of mine committed suicide and it sent me reeling. Not only am I grieving the loss of my friend, but I’m also questioning the meaning of life, what my priorities are, how I’m spending my days, etc. The inconsequential questions, in other words.
Primarily, what her death brought up in me is nihilism. What’s the point of it all? What am I doing here? In our capitalistic culture I see an emphasis on pleasure. On squeezing every last drop of joy out of life that we possibly can. Of doing cool and unusual things – swimming with dolphins in Maui, hiking up Mt. Everest, and then snapping an Instagram photo so everyone knows about it. I’m not saying these are inherently bad things, but should they be the point of life? Our entire focus? What about acquiring wealth and power? Is that the point of life? Should we all be aiming to buy an expensive car and run a Fortune 500 company?
My friend’s death reminds me we can’t take any of these things with us when we go. When we leave the material world, we leave everything behind. Considering all this put me in a funk. In times like these, I turn to the things I know work: sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Just kidding. I turned to my spiritual practices and reached out to friends.
Looking at my spiritual practices, the point of life is not to suck every ounce of pleasure that we can from it. The point of life is to realize the beloved. To move closer to our nearest and dearest, our most precious entity. A friend reminded me this happens not through withdrawing from life to sit on a mountaintop in meditation. It happens by being here, being present, being engaging. I know some spiritual paths expound complete renunciation, but mine is not one of them.
My spiritual path advocates subjective approach and objective adjustment, which as I’ve mentioned before, makes zero sense to me. Until now. Now I understand. It means, “Keep your eyes trained on the divine and adjust how you do that based on circumstances.” For instance, if I break my leg and can’t sit in a proper meditation position, that’s OK -- I can meditate lying down. The point is, don’t stop. Keep going. I don’t have to do things perfectly or follow every rule set forth by a spiritual adviser. The important thing is to keep moving.
I’m tearing up writing this because I’m thinking of my friend who felt so hopeless, so despairing, that she took her life. I’m tearing up writing this because I, too, know what it’s like to want to stop. To feel hopeless and despairing. To believe nothing will change and to ask, “What’s the point?” I sympathize with my friend because sometimes to continue moving feels like the hardest possible thing. But I also know for me there is no other choice. Death is like changing a t-shirt, according to my spiritual teacher, so that means I’ll reincarnate in another body and trade one set of circumstances for another.
If the point of life is sacred union with something greater than myself, I have to live in such a way that I experience the sacred and holy beyond when I’m meditating. I am not the Buddha. I don’t have the patience to sit in endless meditation day after day, night after night. I have to engage in the world, and to engage in the world in a way that doesn’t feel pointless means I must feel the touch of the eternal even in the ephemeral.
I dream of a world where we see the divine in all things. A world where we keep going even when times are tough. A world where we feel our feelings and keep in mind feelings are not facts.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
