The big problem with life is...life. So what to do?

Yesterday I wrote a post for my HinesSight blog about a stand-up comedian I like a lot, Taylor Tomlinson. The post started off with a bit of semi-tongue-in-cheek philosophizing.

My big problem with life is... (drumroll please)... LIFE. 

Meaning, insofar as I know what I mean, but now that I just wrote this blog's topic sentence, I'm stuck with explaining it, no matter how many problems get fixed in my life, new ones pop up like a perpetual motion machine designed by a sadist.

I suspect most people feel this way. So what are we to do? 

Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll only can take us so far, especially if we're (OK, me) so old, sex is starting to  look like the car that zipped by in the other lane and now is so small in the rearview mirror it's barely discernible; drugs are limited to marijuana because dealers of harder stuff are find to find when you're 73; and the last rock band truly worth listening to in your entirely personal opinion was Cream over fifty years ago.

Meditation? Yeah, I've been there and done that for a really long time.

The fact that I'm still as messed up in 2022 as I was in 1969 when I started to meditate every day tells me that based on that extensive flat trend line, the chance of me taking a sudden quantum leap to a blissful state of enlightenment is vanishingly small.

So I'm becoming increasingly convinced that television is the solution to my problems.

Well, maybe.

But even if television isn't the solution to my problems, the question still remains: if not television, then what else is the solution to my problems? Or your problems? Or the problems of anyone else in the world?

It seems virtually undeniable that no one's life is problem free. At least, anyone who is capable of recognizing problems. If someone lacks that capacity, then sure, they can be free of problems. For the rest of us, though, problems are always going to be a part of life.

As noted in last night's post, I've meditated every day for over 50 years. So if meditation was going to make me look at problems with a so what? eye because they couldn't interfere with my blissful state of elevated awareness, it sure seems like that would have happened by now.

Which assumes that bliss is a goal of meditation. I'd pretty much thought it was since my first days of yoga meditation during college. Back then, in 1969, I embraced the Indian notion of sat-chit-ananda, truth-consciousness-bliss, as a hallmark of meditation.

This morning, though, I listened to a guided meditation on Sam Harris' Waking Up app where he says that no state produced in meditation is worth much. I generally agree with his point, though naturally I prefer pleasant feelings to unpleasant feelings when I meditate.

But I readily admit that this preference could simply show that I'm missing what meditation is all about, at least according to Sam Harris, someone I respect a lot. Harris said: 

If at any point when you're practicing, you begin to feel especially calm, peaceful, even blissful, and you think, well, there it is, meditation's finally working, notice that inclination to grasp a transitory experience.

And, relinquish it.

There's no state you can produce that matters. If it arises, it will pass away. The goal here is to recognize that which doesn't arise and pass away: a condition of empty, open clarity that precedes and transcends every other experience.

And as a matter of experience you're not meditating on that. You are that. It is the light by which everything else is being seen. 

Comments

[Appreciative Reader]

Great question. In fact, I suppose this is *the* great question: Having found out what we could about what things are like, as far as we know; what now? How do we deal with the small (but cumulatively potentially overwhelming) problems of life, as well as the big problem that is life itself (should we see it as a problem, as we sometimes/often do)?

Not going to hazard any answers, as they're likely going to end up being commonplace cliches. And, in any case, individual 'right' answers will like depend on the individual, and differ from person to person. But still, I guess the overall answer will include the following 'baskets' (not that everyone needs dip into each of them, not necessarily, and not unless they're drawn to):
(1) Work out your own (personal) meaning, and strive to live up to it;
(2) Strive to keep life balanced and, on the whole, enjoyable, or as much so as is possible under extant circumstances (that is to say, I suppose most cases it would be wise not to get so swayed by one's personal meaning that one descends to monomania and fanaticism; although of course that is just a generalization and specifics can be thought up where such a course, that is to say monomania and fanaticism, does make sense);
(3) Keep up the search (for meaning, for answers), because there's no reason to assume that whatever asnwer one's arrived at, while that may be the most reasonable at the current time and in the current circumstances, is indeed the necessarily correct and unchanging answer.

Yeah, that's about it, is my take. Obviously, the details are what is important, but that is probably a personal thing, an individual thing.

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"The goal here is to recognize that which doesn't arise and pass away: a condition of empty, open clarity that precedes and transcends every other experience."

.....Hmm, Sam Harris treads woo ground there. That's no different, really, than saying "Keep meditating until you see the thumb-high flame, that morphs into the particular yantra you're into, and/or the particular deity associated with that yantra and your mantra, at the anahad chakra"; or maybe "Keep meditating until you see the Guru in your ajna chakra, and hear celestial drums and flutes and what-have-you, and see constellations and stars et cetera."

Which is not to say he's wrong. He might well be right. As indeed might the tantra types; or indeed the RSSB types. Except that isn't quite where our collective knowledge, our science, our ...collective consensus of what is reasonable, is at. No evidence really.

I'll emphasize again: that's not to say he's wrong. Nor is that to say one mustn't follow his advice. One might elect to do that, in the spirit of experimentation, in the spirit of "let's find out"; and that is perfectly reasonable, IMO, should one's interests draw one to do that. Much like you'd done your RSSB meditation thing for decades, Brian.

What would be ...nor reasonable, is to imagine that such a thing is remotely scientific, or remotely evidenced, just because a bona fide scientist (Sam Harris in this case) is saying it. [Not for a moment do I suggest that you're taking that line, Brian. But, given past exchanges with 271Days about Max Planck, as well as recent comments from Hossenfelder about the God question not being scientific, I was just reflecting, thinking aloud as it were, that it is important to remember that scientists are as prone to gassing away as anyone else, and that not everything a scientist says is necessarily science. I mean, obviously; but still, it's important to not lose sight of that fact.]

[Todd Chambers]

Bliss can definitely arise during long meditation retreats. However, equanimity is the goal.

[Mirchi Seth]

Been reading an old book and this is what I read last night, easier said than done

It is bondage when the mind desires or grieves at anything, rejects or accepts anything, feels happy or angry at anything.

[Ron E.]

I reckon there is not much anyone can do about life, it happens despite trying to barricade ourselves up through beliefs, wealth, family etc. – and a multitude of other forms of insurance. One attractive escape is to hide away somewhere remote, okay perhaps for a while, then you get some illness or break a bone or two and have to creep back into society – life's like that!

Is it that for most (all?) of us, our lives are a series of escapes, escapes from the realities that keep knocking on our door. It's nice to have holidays, to have various forms of entertainment, but it is hard for us to just be still and be just what we are at that moment (providing of course that doesn't mean hanging from a cliff! But even so, even extreme sports can offer a release from the mind/self with all its chattering where participants feel in touch with reality – with their real selves.

As for meditation, well, it has been pointed out that while the constructed self is still in control, activity stemming from its separative and dualistic nature will inevitably cause confusion and disappointment, particularly if hoping it will bestow one with a future calm, serene and peaceful life - or some marvelous sort of enlightenment experience.

The most that can be 'offered' in the area of meditation is simply being able to understand what the mind/self is and how, by its very nature, divides and separates life up into me and not me with all its attendant beliefs, antagonisms, and continual battles to protect what it believes to be an isolated 'me' against the rest of the universe.

[arun marwah]

Best thing is to involve yourself in service or Sewa to mankind, Animals, birds, reptiles etc. Sewa can be giving medical help, free food, to the weak, those who cannot do anything for themselves like stray dogs or stray animals etc. Langar is a sewa in which one can serve free food to poor and weak, old people or stray animals.

[Dungeness]

@ Ron E [ As for meditation, well, it has been pointed out that while the constructed self is still in control, activity stemming from its separative and dualistic nature will inevitably cause confusion and disappointment, particularly if hoping it will bestow one with a future calm, serene and peaceful life - or some marvelous sort of enlightenment experience. ]

That dire premise is true but doesn't eclipse centuries of mystic
testimony detailing an escape portal within consciousness itself.
The "separative and dualistic" nature of the constructed self
arises from the mind's uncontrolled activity. A multi-channeled,
24x7 deluge of confusing, destabilizing thoughts results.

The mystic path of mindfulness and intense devotion offers an
empowering practice to become aware of thoughts, to dis-
engage from them, and in so doing ultimately be free. It
rejects blind faith and hollow assertions of progress along the
way but improved health and cognitive benefits are seen
quickly by most in very early stages.