The Every Day Dance of Form and Emptiness (Meaning and Meaninglessness)

Zen Mind

Traditional Buddhism doesn't explicitly address the topic of meaning. But for us contemporary Westerners, meaning is an important topic. Living a meaningful life includes such things as purpose, values, ethics, and the significance of life events. An important insight is that meaning is not be found within the "self," which from a Buddhist point of view doesn't exist in an individualized, permanent fashion. Rather meaning emerges from moment to moment in the interaction between you and your circumstances as a response to what is asked of you by the 10,000 things. A fruitful way to address the topic of meaning within a Buddhist worldview is to see it as a Middle Path between nihilism (nothing matters; everything is only subjectively constructed) and eternalism (meaning is inherent, objective, and guaranteed by God or some kind of pop-spiritual oneness). In other words, meaning emerges from a dance that doesn’t get fixated on inherent meaningfulness nor ubiquitous meaninglessness.
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Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.