DECEMBER 2nd, 08 - ABOUT MEANING IN LIFE

72 days ago

From this blog I just finished the homonyme book of Thomas Wharton.

Here's a profoundly moving story of someone who found purpose in his life by observing a creature that acted without "purpose" in the human sense, a creature that acted without thought of self:

"There was a lama before the turn of the century who had lived, until he was thirty, as a hunter and bandit (in Tibet, hunters are viewed with no less disapproval than bandits). One day he was trailing a doe that he'd shot and mortally wounded. He caught up with the animal and found her collapsed on the ground. As she lay there, bleeding and exhausted, she'd been giving birth; and he saw that, to her very last breath, her only concern was the newborn fawn she was lovingly licking. The sight completely overwhelmed the hunter, and he decided then and there to give up hunting. Soon the preoccupations of ordinary life began to seem futile and deceptive to him, and he devoted himself from then on to meditating on love and compassion and studying the scriptures. He became a famous teacher."

From The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life, byJean-Francois Revel and Matthieu Ricard. Translated from French by John Canti. Shocken Books, 1998.