My old tutor, a monk, towards the end of his life, told me that he had spent seventy years looking for something he had possessed all along. He was not a philosopher, nor a particularly religious man (I know, odd for a monk), but in that moment he spoke with a clarity that rendered all our books and arguments superfluous. His words have stayed with me because they point to the central paradox that any honest inquiry into life’s meaning must eventually confront.
The inquiry into life’s meaning contains a subtle but decisive flaw. To ask, “what is the meaning of life?” is already to assume that meaning is a predicate to be discovered, a proposition to be stated in language and grasped by the understanding. This assumption constitutes the primary obstacle to resolution, for what if the seeking mind is precisely what must be investigated before any answer can prove adequate? What if the instrument of inquiry is itself the phenomenon requiring the most rigorous scrutiny?
The human condition is characterised by a profound dissatisfaction. We grasp perpetually at objects and achievements, hoping that the next acquisition will confer the contentment that has thus far eluded us. Arthur Schopenhauer described life as a perpetual oscillation between want and boredom, yet his pessimism stops short of a deeper insight. The self that seeks fulfilment is itself the obstacle to its own attainment. We are, in the formulation of the Upanishads, like the thief who seeks to steal his own treasure. The seeking and the sought are one, and the very act of seeking perpetuates the illusion of separation.
Throughout history, individuals have penetrated beyond this ignorance and reported back with remarkable consistency. Plotinus described the culmination of the spiritual life as the soul’s union with the One, finding itself illuminated by a light that is not other than itself. Meister Eckhart declared that “the eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.” The Taoist sage Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly and awoke uncertain whether he was a man who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming he was a man. What unites these testimonies is a shared metaphysical vision. There exists a transcendent reality which is the ground of all existence, immanent within the human soul as its innermost essence. The ultimate purpose of human existence is to realise this identity consciously, not as intellectual assent but as direct knowledge. This realisation demands purification of desire, discipline of attention, and the surrender of the very self that seeks to attain.
If the self is an illusion, who seeks to be free of illusion? If the goal is already present, what is the purpose of striving?
The perennial philosophy (Huxley) insists that we must hold two truths simultaneously: the relative truth that practice is necessary, and the absolute truth that there is nothing to attain. The Zen master Dogen expressed this with exquisite precision: “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.” The path is a raft: once one has crossed the river, the raft may be abandoned, but without it one would drown. The danger lies in clinging to the raft after crossing, mistaking the finger for the moon.
What is the nature of that realisation which constitutes the goal of all genuine spiritual endeavour? Language here reaches its limit. It is not an experience, for experiences come and go. It is not a state, for states alternate with other states. It is not knowledge, for knowledge implies a knower and a known, and here that duality is transcended. It is awakening from the dream of separation into the reality of unity. In the dream, one takes the images for real; upon awakening, one sees that the dream was never real. The awakened awareness does not abolish the world; it sees the world as it truly is, perceiving the multiplicity of phenomena without being deceived by them.
In this state, the question of life’s meaning no longer arises, not because it has been answered, but because the one who would ask it has been seen through. The search for meaning was the expression of a felt lack, a reaching towards a future in which completion would be found. When the lack is recognised as illusory, when the completion is discovered to have been present all along, the search ceases. Not in resignation, but in fulfilment.
We return to the question with which we began. The meaning of life is not a proposition to be affirmed but a reality to be realised. It is not found at the end of a journey but recognised as the ground of the journey itself. It is not acquired through effort but discovered when effort ceases. It is not other than what we already are, yet we cannot know it without a transformation so radical that the one who seeks is lost in the finding. This is why the traditions speak of the path as pathless. There is nowhere to go, because we are already there. There is nothing to attain, because we already possess it. We must travel the path to discover that we never left home; to reach enlightenment.
The image that best captures this paradox is that of the sun and the clouds. The sun shines perpetually; the clouds that obscure it have no power to diminish its light. The spiritual life is the dissolution of the clouds, not the creation of the sun. Our task is simply to clear away that which prevents us from seeing. The meaning of life is not in any book, not in any teaching, not in any philosophy. It is in the silence between thoughts, the space between breaths, the awareness that illumines all experience and is itself untouched by any experience. It is what you were before you were born and what you will be after you die. It is what you are right now, if you would only cease your seeking long enough to recognise it.
Dominic Wightman is the Editor of Country Squire Magazine, works in finance, and the author of five and a half books including Conservatism (2024).
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I don’t think I’ve seen that put better in simple English prose. Kudos, nemo
I’m getting rather bored with the regularity of philosophic rambling articles appearing on TNC and suspect I’m not alone given the very few (or even no) comments on these.
Perhaps I’m just too dim to appreciate?
Nathaniel,
You may be many things, but “dim” is not one of them! See my comment below – I fully understand your thoughts on the subject of the number of philosophical articles published recently, with all due respect to Editor and writers.
I don’t want TNC to become overburdened with subjects that are neither contemporary politics, nostalgia for the recent past or pure entertainment/satire. One of the reasons I dislike TCW, compared to TNC and DS, is its overburdening with religion which isn’t greatly different to philosophy to many readers. No need to remonstrate Patricia, I understand and appreciate your views.
I have a lot of sympathy with Nathaniel’s comment. There have been quite a few articles philosophising about this and that recently, and this latest one, I must confess, leaves me a tad puzzled.
This sentence, for example: “The meaning of life is not a proposition to be affirmed but a reality to be realised.”
Not to play semantics but the reality of the meaning of anyone’s life at any given point in time, can mean the opposite of what it meant an hour ago. When I cannot get hold of a bar of chocolate, for example, the meaning of MY life is not only considerably diminished, but it is, to speak in plain English, all but meaningless! An hour later, having been gifted a box of Ferrero Rocher, and the sun shines again, my life has meaning beyond words!
Seriously, so much in the article begs lots of questions, none more that the following assertion about the meaning of life:
“It is what you were before you were born and what you will be after you die. It is what you are right now, if you would only cease your seeking long enough to recognise it.”
I venture to argue that philosophy is all very interesting but separated from theology, it is less than clear, to put it mildly: since I don’t know what I was before I was born (apart from the obvious stages of development in the womb) and I, unfortunately, don’t know what I will be after I die – but one lives in hope! – it seems that, according to Dominic’s old tutor, I have to live a very passive life, not asking questions, not seeking to understand the world better etc. Just be quiet, be still, be calm and carry on, so to speak. There is something of a theological argument to support that (in a sense) but let’s leave it there. Dominic’s old tutor is not, in my humble opinion, the clearest thinker in the world, which is a pity because Dominic is one of my favourite names (!)
I’m wondering, as I suspect Nathaniel may be wondering, if we are going to have some articles on real world topics – aside from immigration! The Iran conflict springs to mind, the abortion up to birth legislation just passed in the Westminster Parliament, God help us all, and the happy outcome following the Scottish Parliament’s vote against assisted dying aka euthanasia. Two contradictory votes in the same week – worth a few words of conversation, perhaps?