Life is Absolutely Meaningless

[Lucky7Strikes]

Life is absolutely meaningless.

 

All values, goals, structure, the physical world, phenomena, the Buddhas, the immortals, etc. all amount to absolutely no true value or meaning. They are there and you see it because you have given it meaning and purpose. There are no gods, no self, no enlightenment, no end.

 

On a blank space, forms are seen and given life and their characteristics. In this made up dream you create a story for yourself. You laugh in it, cry in it, realize in it.

 

Everything is like thus. Everything has come before us because of this.

 

Ok, now that sounds depressing. But really it isn't.

 

Realizing meaningless unbinds you. Once anything is valued, you become chained by it. See it's very simple. In this meaningless there is great freedom.

 

The Buddhist have decided to make compassion their eternal refuge. And rightly so, there is great happiness there. And this is NO TRUER than valuing anything else. It just leads to great happiness. But it is not any truer, because compassion too has no inherent meaning to it. In other words, you DONT HAVE TO be compassionate. You don't HAVE TO do anything. First understand that everything is really meaningless. Then cultivation doesn't become a disciplinary act, and meditation doesn't become a "Oh I have to go meditate to become enlightened" thing.

 

It's kind of like what the existentialists say. You are the one giving meaning to life, how you create your reality, how you create your experience is all of your own doing. But existentialists think there is an objective world your are giving a false meaning to. But really, there is no objective world. There is only you and your intent traveling the endless path called existence.

 

So yes, the only meaning there is is this meaningless freedom of existence. Don't limit yourself to anything else otherwise. Thoroughly realizing meaninglessness is important to getting you to the next step of

 

"why not?" .

 

Just thoughts today after meditation... ...

Edited November 8, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

There is nothing more important than Life.. it is the basis of all realization.. it resides eternally in the Cosmic Memory, a reference for the future evolution of existence.. nothingness retreats before its evolving Light..

 

Be well...

[Lucky7Strikes]

Greetings..

 

There is nothing more important than Life.. it is the basis of all realization.. it resides eternally in the Cosmic Memory, a reference for the future evolution of existence.. nothingness retreats before its evolving Light..

 

Be well...

 

If you say so...

 

Life is neither important or not important. It ceaselessly continues on for eternity taking different shapes and forms according to what direction it tries to reach.

 

But there is no destination. If you make a destination, yes, you will think you have arrived somewhere. But then you must go on. On and on. You have no choice but to keep making choices. .

Edited November 8, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

OK, I can grant you all that you say. So, what would you say you believe in? Certainly not Buddha, it sounds like, nor 'enlightenment, nor liberalism or conservatism, or neo-platonism or string theory...

 

Is it possible that actually believing in nothing will lead to contentment and happiness? I once read a book entitled 'How to Believe in Nothing and Set Yourself Free' that makes a very similar case to what you are stating. All beliefs are just that: concepts that we have invested ourselves in. They can't all be right. Probably none of them is right, despite what Buddha or scripture or sutra or anyone else says.

 

I like your idea, and I think you are right, Lucky7...I just don't believe it...

[Encephalon]

I think you're trying to express a basic assertion of the postmodern realization, which is the constructedness of our experience, our social institutions, or cognitive maps. I'm a postmodernist too, and I am precisely because it jives with buddhist psychology, modern psychology and quantum physics.

 

But there is a bigger process going on that transcends our limited fqaculties but which we are also participating in with varying degrees of consciousness. Welcome to the Santiago Theory of cognition.

 

"ONE OF THE MOST revolutionary aspects of the emerging systems theory of life is the new conception of mind, or cognition, it implies. This new conception was proposed by Gregory Bateson and elaborated more extensively by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in a theory known as the Santiago theory of cognition.'

The central insight of the Santiago theory is the identification of cognition, the process of knowing, with the process of life. Cognition, according to Maturana and Varela, is the activity involved in the self-generation and self-perpetuation of living systems. In other words, cognition is the very process of life.

 

It is obvious that we are dealing here with a radical expansion of the concept of cognition and, implicitly, the concept of mind. In this new view, cognition involves the entire process of life - including perception, emotion, and behaviour - and does not necessarily require a brain and a nervous system. At the human level, however, cognition includes language, conceptual thought, and all the other attributes of human consciousness.

 

The Santiago theory of cognition, in my view, is the first scientific theory that really overcomes the Cartesian division of mind and matter, and will thus have the most far-reaching implications. Mind and matter no longer appear to belong to two separate categories but are seen as representing two complementary aspects of the phenomenon of life - the process aspect and the structure aspect. At all levels of life, beginning with the simplest cell, mind and matter, process and structure are inseparably connected. Thus, for the first time, we have a scientific theory that unifies mind, matter and life.

 

Let me illustrate the conceptual advance represented by this unified view with a question that has confused scientists and philosophers for over a hundred years: What is the relationship between the mind and the brain? Neuroscientists have known since the nineteenth century that brain structures and mental functions are intimately connected, but the exact relationship between mind and brain always remained a mystery.

 

In the Santiago theory the relationship between mind and brain is simple and clear. Descartes' characterization of mind as the "thinking thing" (res cogitans) is finally abandoned. Mind is not a thing but a process - the process of cognition, which is identified with the process of life. The brain is a specific structure through which this process operates. The relationship between mind and brain, therefore, is one between process and structure.

 

The brain, moreover, is by no means the only structure involved in the process of cognition. In the human organism, as in the organisms of all vertebrates, the immune system is increasingly being recognized as a network that is as complex and interconnected as the nervous system and serves equally important co-ordinating functions.

 

Classical immunology sees the immune system as the body's defence system, outwardly directed and often described in terms of military metaphors - armies of white blood cells, generals, soldiers, etc. Recent discoveries by Francisco Varela and his colleagues at the University of Paris are seriously challenging this conception. In fact, some researchers now believe that the classical view with its military metaphors has been one of the main stumbling- blocks in our understanding of auto-immune diseases such as AIDS.

 

Instead of being concentrated and interconnected through anatomical structures like the nervous system, the immune system is dispersed in the lymph fluid, permeating every single tissue. Its components - a class of cells called lymphocytes, popularly known as white blood cells - move around very rapidly and bind chemically to each other. The lymphocytes are an extremely diverse group of cells. Each type is distinguished by specific molecular markers, called "antibodies", sticking out from their surfaces. The human body contains billions of different types of white blood cell, with an enormous ability to bind chemically to any molecular profile in their environment. According to traditional immunology, the lymphocytes identify an intruding agent, the antibodies attach themselves to it and, by doing so, neutralize it.

 

Recent research has shown that under normal conditions the antibodies circulating in the body bind to many (if not all) types of cell, including themselves. The entire system looks much more like a net- work, more like people talking to each other, than soldiers looking out for an enemy. Gradually, immunologists have been forced to shift their perception from an immune system to an immune network.

 

This shift in perception presents a big problem for the classical view. If the immune system is a network whose components bind to each other, and if antibodies are meant to eliminate whatever they bind to, we should all be destroying ourselves. Obviously, we are not.

 

The immune system seems to be able to distinguish between its own body's cells and foreign agents, between self and non-self. But since, in the classical view, for an antibody to recognize a foreign agent means binding to it chemically and thereby neutralizing it, it remains mysterious how the immune system can recognize its own cells.

 

Varela and his colleagues argue that the immune system needs to be understood as an autonomous, cognitive network which is responsible for the body's "molecular identity". By interacting with one another and with the other body cells, the lymphocytes continually regulate the number of cells and their molecular profiles. Rather than merely reacting against foreign agents, the immune system serves the important function of regulating the organism's cellular and molecular repertoire.

 

From the perspective of the Santiago theory, this regulatory function is part of the immune system s process of cognition. When foreign molecules enter the body, the resulting response is not their automatic destruction but regulation of their levels within the system's other cognitive activities. The response will vary and will depend upon the entire context of the network.

 

When immunologists inject large amounts of a foreign agent into the body, as they do in standard animal experiments, the immune system reacts with the massive defensive response described in the classical theory. However, this is a highly contrived laboratory situation. In its natural surroundings, an animal does not receive large amounts of harmful substances. The small amounts that do enter its body are incorporated naturally into the ongoing regulatory activities of its immune network.

 

With this understanding of the immune system as a cognitive, self-organizing and self-regulating network, the puzzle of the self/non-self distinction is easily resolved. The immune system simply does not and needs not distinguish between body cells and foreign agents, because both are subject to the same regulatory processes. However, when the invading foreign agents are so massive that they cannot be incorporated into the regulatory network, as for example in the case of infections, they will trigger specific mechanisms in the immune system that mount a defensive response.

 

The field of "cognitive immunology" is still in its infancy, and the self-organizing properties of immune networks are by no means well understood. However, some of the scientists active in this growing field of research have already begun to speculate about exciting clinical applications to the treatment of auto-immune diseases. Future therapeutic strategies are likely to be based on the understanding that auto- immune diseases reflect a failure in the cognitive operation of the immune network and may involve various novel techniques designed to reinforce the network by boosting its connectivity.

 

Such techniques, however will require a much deeper understanding of the rich dynamics of immune networks before they can be applied effectively. In the long run, the discoveries of cognitive immunology promise to be tremendously important for the whole field of health and healing. In Varela's opinion, a sophisticated psychosomatic ("mind-body") view of health will not develop until we understand the nervous system and the immune system as two interacting cognitive systems, two "brains" in continuous conversation."

 

From http://www.combusem.com/CAPRA4.HTM

 

Fritjof Capra is The Man.

[Thunder_Gooch]

sDQX3MybtVA

Edited November 8, 2009 by More_Pie_Guy

[Marblehead]

Life is for living.

 

That's all I have to say at the moment.

 

Peace & Love!

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Life is for living.

 

That's all I have to say at the moment.

 

Peace & Love!

 

Me like Marbleheaded wisdom.

[Lucky7Strikes]

OK, I can grant you all that you say. So, what would you say you believe in? Certainly not Buddha, it sounds like, nor 'enlightenment, nor liberalism or conservatism, or neo-platonism or string theory...

 

Is it possible that actually believing in nothing will lead to contentment and happiness? I once read a book entitled 'How to Believe in Nothing and Set Yourself Free' that makes a very similar case to what you are stating. All beliefs are just that: concepts that we have invested ourselves in. They can't all be right. Probably none of them is right, despite what Buddha or scripture or sutra or anyone else says.

 

I like your idea, and I think you are right, Lucky7...I just don't believe it...

 

I like the Buddha! . And I don't think what I've written actually contradicts anything Buddhism says. Well, at least my understanding of it.

 

It's like realizing that you are not the character in the play, and that you can actually BE anyone in the play or be in any play. But you have to know that there are only characters and no real actor. Fully coming to this realization, as in, breaking the habits you have built believing you are this "character" takes effort.

 

Right, when beliefs are conceptualized and adhered to, you at once create a view or a path you think is so set and objective you become chained to it. If you do this, suddenly there is this dual approach to life where there are activities you consider "practice" and activities you consider "non-practice." This is a limiting way of cultivation.

 

One has to fully realize that all of this has no REAL value or meaning. This of course applies to all those Buddhists who are stuck in the methodology or think that one HAS to attain Buddhahood to be perfectly happy oR what not. Buddhahood is just as much a contrived state of being as with any state, even that of a sewer rat.

 

Fully knowing this, and having the ability to become it or unbecome it is true freedom.

Edited November 8, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

It's giving meaning to meaninglessness,

 

clinging to non-clinging,

 

habitualizing non-habit.

 

But this isn't the important part. The important part is the part where you go,

 

NOW WHAT?

 

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH IT?

 

WHAT WORLD DO YOU WANT TO CREATE?

Edited November 8, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[Thunder_Gooch]

42

[Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that]

42

 

If memory serves me correctly(and it often doesn't) 42 is the meaning of life from 'life, the universe and everything' Douglas Adams(Hitch Hikers guide to the galaxy)as generated by the universal super computer. Actually it may be 62, I've mixed this one up before.

[Thunder_Gooch]

42 it is

 

42 is also the specific brainwave frequency (gamma band brainwave) produced by advanced monks practicing, tummo, and metta meditations.

[thelerner]

A piece I picked up is this:

 

Sacred is what you make sacred.

 

 

Our actions and reverence make or break Meaning.

 

Michael

Edited November 8, 2009 by thelerner

[goldisheavy]

sDQX3MybtVA

 

What I don't like in monologues like this is that they confuse the ultimate groundlessness for falsity.

 

In other words, there is no grounds to believe anything, but that does not mean that those beliefs are false. In order to believe something is false, you must have grounds for that, but the ground is missing at the ultimate level of investigation.

 

I suppose this is a subtle error and can be forgiven, but it's an important error to overcome.

 

Truth exists where falsity exists. If there is nothing that can be considered true, there is nothing that can be considered false. It's important to distinguish groundlessness from falsity because groundlessness is very spacious and accommodating. It's not a rejection like falsity is. When you say something is false, you reject it. When you say something is groundless you do not reject, you simply state a certain mysterious quality, namely, the quality that if you investigate something for its basis, you cannot find those basis.

 

Groundlessness is creative and peaceful. It's not a rejection like claiming stuff to be false. It's not a non-rejection either. It is beyond positions and open to all positions. It's like a clean white piece of paper upon which you can draw, write a poem, write prose, write nonsense, or tear it in half -- it is accommodating to all of that and more. White piece of paper does not reject poems simply because it offers them no specific support. White piece of paper is just as happy being white piece of paper as it is being one with a poem or one with a splotch on it, or being torn in half. It doesn't have its own opinion and welcomes our creativity. But since it includes us on its pages, it kind of has its own opinion too... or more like, it's own opinions, but those opinions rise and fall and shift and turn and swirl in a creative dance and never do they stay still and never are they completely coherent.

 

And lucky7 makes the same error as Jed by going with a rejectionism of claiming everything to be false.

Edited November 8, 2009 by goldisheavy

[hagar]

This morning, (very early actually) as most sunday mornings, my son and me sat and watched Winnie the Pooh, and this song came along:

 

Winnie the Pooh's Most Grand Adventure soundtrack lyrics -- If It Says So

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1Js0EGGbs0

 

A map is not a guess

An estimation or a hunch

A feeling or a foolish intuition

 

A map is a dependable

Unwavering, inarguably accurate

Portrayer, of your position

 

Never trust your ears

Your nose, your eyes

Putting faith in them

Is most unwise

Here's a phrase you all

Must memorise

In the printed word

Is where truth lies

 

Never trust your tummies

Tails, or toes

You can't learn a thing

From any of those

Here's another fact

I must disclose

From the mighty pen

True wisdom flows

 

If it says so

Then it is so

If it is so

Well so it is

A thought's not fit to think

'Til it's printed in ink

Then it says so

So it is

 

Never trust that thing

Between your ears

Brains will get you nowhere fast

My dears

Haven't had a need

For mine in years

On the page is where

The truth appears

 

If it says so

Then it is so

If it is so

So it is

A thought's not fit to think

'Til it's printed in ink

Never differ from or doubt it

Or go anywhere without it

 

Thank goodness we've got this

 

So we don't need to fret about it

If it says so

So it is

 

 

PS: Its in kindergarten all the cutting edge stuff's going down...

 

h

[Lucky7Strikes]

What I don't like in monologues like this is that they confuse the ultimate groundlessness for falsity.

 

In other words, there is no grounds to believe anything, but that does not mean that those beliefs are false. In order to believe something is false, you must have grounds for that, but the ground is missing at the ultimate level of investigation.

 

I suppose this is a subtle error and can be forgiven, but it's an important error to overcome.

 

Truth exists where falsity exists. If there is nothing that can be considered true, there is nothing that can be considered false. It's important to distinguish groundlessness from falsity because groundlessness is very spacious and accommodating. It's not a rejection like falsity is. When you say something is false, you reject it. When you say something is groundless you do not reject, you simply state a certain mysterious quality, namely, the quality that if you investigate something for its basis, you cannot find those basis.

 

Groundlessness is creative and peaceful. It's not a rejection like claiming stuff to be false. It's not a non-rejection either. It is beyond positions and open to all positions. It's like a clean white piece of paper upon which you can draw, write a poem, write prose, write nonsense, or tear it in half -- it is accommodating to all of that and more. White piece of paper does not reject poems simply because it offers them no specific support. White piece of paper is just as happy being white piece of paper as it is being one with a poem or one with a splotch on it, or being torn in half. It doesn't have its own opinion and welcomes our creativity. But since it includes us on its pages, it kind of has its own opinion too... or more like, it's own opinions, but those opinions rise and fall and shift and turn and swirl in a creative dance and never do they stay still and never are they completely coherent.

 

And lucky7 makes the same error as Jed by going with a rejectionism of claiming everything to be false.

 

Groundless is exactly that: groundless. There is no white sheet of paper to speak of, but only the relative relationship of the action and the reaction. The contents of this relationship is completely subjective because there is no inherent "ground" to it. But simile wise, I think the white paper it makes a sense of it's own in a way.

 

When we say that there is no Truth, I mean to say that there is no "what" that is the truth as in becoming a Buddha, worshipping a God, etc. There is no Truth to experience.

 

There is a Truth to "how" all this exactly works however, and that is experience's meaninglessness and hence unlimited creativity. I mean to say that this is something a practitioner should fully realize before believing that they strive to attain a state that i somehow more REAL or BETTER than the current state they are in.

Edited November 8, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[frp]

Life is absolutely meaningless.

 

All values, goals, structure, the physical world, phenomena, the Buddhas, the immortals, etc. all amount to absolutely no true value or meaning. They are there and you see it because you have given it meaning and purpose. There are no gods, no self, no enlightenment, no end.

 

 

 

L7,

 

What you say is true.

 

Except you left out one thing.

 

**This is where the Magic starts!**

 

frp

[Lucky7Strikes]

L7,

 

What you say is true.

 

Except you left out one thing.

 

**This is where the Magic starts!**

 

frp

 

HAHAHA You're absolutely RIGHT!

 

I didn't call it magic, but it's this moment that strikes where you go...

 

NOW...WHAT????

[forestofclarity]

Luck7,

 

Please send me all your meaningless bits of paper called money. Also, sell off you meaningless personal objects and send the money to me. Thanks!

 

If everything is meaningless, then what is the knowing?

Edited November 8, 2009 by forestofemptiness

[Lucky7Strikes]

Luck7,

 

Please send me all your meaningless bits of paper called money. Also, sell off you meaningless personal objects and send the money to me. Thanks!

 

If everything is meaningless, then what is the knowing?

 

Haha! I'll enjoy my bits of paper, I like my money! And I like pretending money has value! .

 

The knowing is in meaninglessness.

[frp]

 

NOW...WHAT????

 

 

 

Let this thing we call Tao strip us to our bones.

 

We will reshape ourselves using Compassion, Restraint & Unimportance.

 

This is where the Magic lies.

 

frp

[C T]

The society in which we live thrives on structure.

 

Structure demands meaning.

 

Transcend society, pull out all societal roots, and you may forsake meaning.

 

As long as you remain in society, to will meaningless-ness could be troublesome.

 

Depart from society, leave everything, give up all attachments, cut off all ties - only then will meaning mean less.

Edited November 8, 2009 by CowTao

[TianhuaQigong]

if you go back further, yes, there are nothing.

 

also, in some level of meditation , everything is gone,

 

that is just a status,

 

there are steps , from exist to nothing, from nothing to exist , from exist to nothing. ...

 

enlightenment is true and final goal of life.

[Ya Mu]

meaningless?

 

Do not agree. There are some things that can only be done here.