meaningless

For the Sake of Itself

We go for what is meaningful, versus what is true in our bodies, what is deep in our bones.

Meaning is in the land of the separate self. It exists in a mental landscape, in the story of me. But we are not this mental self. We are not a concept.

Meaning is conceptual, not actual. It isn’t here, on planet earth.

I do a lot of inquiry with clients—we question thoughts or drop words out of our vocabulary. I often ask this question, with regard to meaning (a variation of Byron Katie’s ‘The Work’):

‘If nothing that ever happened—nothing you did or didn’t do, nothing you’ve ever thought, felt or experienced—had any meaning whatsoever, what remains?’

I usually get a smile or a surprised look. Maybe a moment of panic. But then the client tastes a bit of freedom and says something like, “God, I don’t know!” And we just hang out in ‘I don’t know.’ We sit and feel. We see what arises. Invariably, something true (and utterly practical) comes up…