What Does Buddhism Say About Finding Your Life's Purpose?

When I was in my twenties I became a bit obsessed with "finding my purpose." I felt great pain when I felt my "purpose" was eluding me and I would to all kinds of personal development seminars to help me get on track.

They never did.

Unwittingly, what these kinds of activities due is reinforce the notion that there is this self that needs to be improved upon and thus many live by the term self-improvement. But what that endeavor does not address is the inherent sense that something is missing and something is not right. This is why we see people who appear to have it all, fame, physical looks, physical prowess, talent and so on...only to lose it all or their life in a tragic manner. While the ego many times does need to be healed for a full transcendence of it's limitations, making it feel like it's not good enough by trying to improve it ultimately is an exercise in futility because, well, the ego - it already knows that.

Sure, you get a high from attending the self-improvement events and the social reinforcement from all the people there doing the same thing you are trying to do but when the high wears off you are basically back where you started unless you choose to go further by trying to recruit other people to also go to a seminar. This is essentially a bottomless pit. Because the high that produces a short term feeling of wholeness or all-rightness or "back on track" begins with an incorrect premise. That something is wrong and you need to get it right. This sense of not being OK I touched on in Friday's essay called 4 Ways Buddhism Helps Overcome Some of Life's Most Perplexing Difficulties Backed By Science in the section called the feeling that something is missing inside us. We are constantly trying to fix something. Finding your "purpose" begins with the premise that who you are right not is not who you are supposed to be or not what you are supposed to be doing. This is backwards and the culprit is a term you may have heard before: The ego.

What Is the Ego?

I found this wonderful Buddhist Dictionary in the course of my research for this essay. This entry about something that is sometimes called ego but is the opposite of what is known in Buddhism as anattā because like many concepts in Buddhism cannot being precisely translated to English. The doctrine of anattā teaches that this false self is really the misunderstood part of the mind that is taken to be the real self - but it's just conglomerations of thought. The real self is the ground of being below all that that is aware of everything. It's a fascinating subject and it points to the fact that this discovery about the human mind is the underlying culprit of all our problems.

anattā: 'not-self', non-ego, egolessness, impersonality, is the last of the three characteristics of existence (ti-lakkhaṇa, q.v.) The anattā doctrine teaches that neither within the bodily and mental phenomena of existence, nor outside of them, can be found anything that in the ultimate sense could be regarded as a self-existing real ego-entity, soul or any other abiding substance. This is the central doctrine of Buddhism, without understanding which a real knowledge of Buddhism is altogether impossible. It is the only really specific Buddhist doctrine, with which the entire Structure of the Buddhist teaching stands or falls. All the remaining Buddhist doctrines may, more or less, be found in other philosophic systems and religions, but the anattā-doctrine has been clearly and unreservedly taught only by the Buddha, wherefore the Buddha is known as the anattā-vādi, or 'Teacher of Impersonality'. Whosoever has not penetrated this impersonality of all existence, and does not comprehend that in reality there exists only this continually self-consuming process of arising and passing bodily and mental phenomena, and that there is no separate ego-entity within or without this process, he will not be able to understand Buddhism, i.e. the teaching of the 4 Noble Truths (sacca, q.v.), in the right light. He will think that it is his ego, his personality, that experiences suffering, his personality that performs good and evil actions and will be reborn according to these actions, his personality that will enter into Nibbāna, his personality that walks on the Eightfold Path.

Thus it is said in Vis.M. XVI:
"Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;
The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;
Nibbāna is, but not the man that enters it;
The path is, but no traveler on it is seen."

While this may sound complicated what is simply means is that in our heads we get stuck on our identities that are created very often out of the roles we have in life. So, we are mother, father, sister, wife, husband, child, employee, boss and whatever else you can think of. What happens is that then these thought processes get created out of all this in good/bad terms. They create suffering. That's always how you know it is this false self at work. It either needs all kinds of rules and rigid structures to fulfill what it thinks it needs to do or it throws it all out the window and wants nothing to do with any of it. On and on it goes back and forth like going up and down on a see saw. I found my life's purpose - good! I forgot my life's purpose - bad! Sound familiar?

The true self does not experience reality through thought ~ it experiences reality through awareness

Even if you believe in heaven or you believe in reincarnation it still applies. Because it is not the false self that gets carried over into those realms if that is what you believe. It is your true self that is not bogged down with all this black/white thinking and agendas. It the self that can experience true love not love with all kinds of conditions attached to it. It's the self that existed before all that insanity started and it's the self you can perceive the world through if you put in the work. Once you do you will see how silly it is to think you need a "purpose" to feel fulfilled. You will understand that being alive is enough. But it doesn't mean you become purposeless. You live with more purpose because what you choose to do is informed by clear seeing and wisdom. There is no wisdom in chaotic good/bad thinking! That should come as a relief.

Impermanence and Emptiness

Simply put, everything is in a constant state of change whether you call it entropy or whatever in Buddhism it is called impermanence. This is the reason Tibetan Buddhist monks make elaborate sand mandalas only to wash the entire thing away when they are finished with their beautiful creation to illustrate this truth about life. Nothing lasts forever and everything will cease to exist. Since everything is always changing this idea extends also the false self. The ego is useful at times to exist in the world but it is the attachment to the false self and it's ideas, roles and functions that is problematic. If you are a boss at work then you go on a date and try and tell your romantic interest what to do instead of show them a good time they may not like you very much. That is a simplistic explanation but since the ego is always shape shifting depending on what we need to get done we can see clearly that it is not a static self but an ever-changing potential that we can use for good if we understand what it truly is. What is it and it's use to the human being? It is a tool. But it is not our true self.

Along with impermanence the truth that lies underneath all forms and ideas is emptiness. Emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is the creative ground of being from which everything else arises. Whether on the level of the universe we are talking about how larger things arise from subatomic particles or on the level of mind where below the thought processes is the fertile but empty luminescent level where all ideas and thoughts arise. We give form to how this creativity organizes itself in our minds by what we choose to focus on. That is why the Noble Eightfold Path is so important. Unless you are following the path of tantra which sometimes uses opposites and other methods to help an aspirant to realization the guidelines set out by Buddha are to make sure that you are training your mind to form thoughts along the path that are noble and dignified. If you just have realization of no-self and don't give your mind direction you can form thought patterns that are no more helpful than when you were completely identified with the little me "I" false self.

Life's Purpose - Conclusion

There is a better way and while we are getting to the point of realization of our true selves which we do through mindfulness meditation and following the teachings of the Noble Eightfold Path you can read some brief essays about it starting with Making Mindfulness Meditation Work For You Part 2 - The Noble Eightfold Path - Right View. It is a two part process that leads us to realization of anattā and wisdom. When you engage in this process you understand that you don't need a life's purpose to give you meaning…life is your life's purpose. Your purpose is to become an enlightened being so you can express the highest qualities possible no matter what role you are playing. So, even though you may have a career or a calling that is your priority any and all of your engagements are the ample time to be the best version of you you can possible be that way you grow from everything, everyone around you does and you generate good karma which negates bad karma from previous unenlightened actions and sets you up for the future. But, this all becomes a natural extension of living the ethical path - it is it's own reward and it feels great! How's that for a life purpose?

Friends, I love to hear from you and I welcome any questions or comments. Perhaps a question can be explored fully in a future post! It warms my heart to be able to serve you 💖

What do you think?

@soulsistashakti is a musical artist and writer based in NYC as well as a practitioner of Buddhist teachings. You can check out my music on my FB artist page at https://www.facebook.com/soulsistashakti

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