Transcription
Let me ask you the last question without any serving it up without any explanation. What is the meaning of life?
I think it is either the wrong question, or that question is answered by paying sufficient attention to any present moment such that there's no, there's no basis upon which to to pose that question. It's not answered in the usual way. It's not, it's not a matter of having more information. It's having more engagement with reality as it is in the present moment, or consciousness as it is in the present moment. You don't ask that question when you're most captivated by the most important thing you ever pay attention to. Yeah, it is. That's a, that's a question only gets asked when you're abstracted away from that experience, that peak experience, and you're left wondering, why are so many of my other experiences mediocre? Right? Like, why am I repeating the same pleasures every day? Why did, why is my Netflix queue just like, when's this going to run out? Like, I've seen so many shows like this. Am I really going to watch another one? Like, you're all of that. That's a moment where you're not actually having the beatific vision, right? You're not, you're, you're not sunk into the present moment, and you're not truly in love. Like, you're in a relationship with somebody who you know, you know conceptually you love, right? This is the person you're living your life with, but you don't actually feel good together, right? Like if you, you so like, it's, it's in, in those moments of where attention hasn't found a good enough reason to truly sink into the present so as to obviate any, any concern like that, right?
And that's what, that's why meditation is this kind of superpower. Because until you learn to meditate, you think you're like the outside world, where the circumstances of your life always have to get arranged so that the present moment can become good enough to to demand your attention in a, in a a way that makes that seem fulfilling, that makes you happy. And so if you're, if it's jujitsu, you think, okay, I got to get back on the mat. It's been, it's been months since I've trained. You know, it's been over a year since I've trained. It's COVID. When am I going to be able to to train again? That's the only place I feel great, right? Or, you know, I've got a ton of work to do. I'm not going to be able to feel good until I get all this work done, right? So I've got some deadline that's coming. You always think that your life has to change, the world has to change so that you can finally have a good enough excuse to to truly, to to just be here, and here is enough. You know, that where the present moment becomes totally captivating.
Meditation is the only, meditation is another name for the discovery that you can actually just train yourself to do that on demand. So that like, doesn't mean just looking at a cup can be good enough in precisely that way. And any sense that it might not be is recognized to be a thought that is mysteriously unravels the moment you notice it. And then and you fall in, and that the moment expands and becomes more diaphanous. And then there's no, then there's no evidence that this isn't the best moment of your life, right? Like this, it doesn't, and again, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be pulling all the reins and levers of pleasure. It's not like, oh my, this tastes like chocolate, you know, this is the most chocolaty moment of my life. No, it's just the, the sense data don't have to change. But the sense that there is some kind of basis for doubt about the rightness of being in the world in this moment, that can evaporate when you pay attention. And that is the meaning of the kind of the meta answer to that question. The meaning of life for me is to live in that mode more and more, and to whenever I notice I'm not in that mode, to recognize it and return. And and to not be, to to to cease more and more to take the reasons why, reasons why not, at face value. Because we all have reasons why we can't be fulfilled in this moment. It's like, I've got all these outstanding things that I'm worried about, right? It's like, it's, you know, there's, there's that thing that's happening later today that I, you know, I'm anxious about. Whatever it is, we're constantly deferring our sense of this is, this is it, you know, this is not a dress rehearsal, this is the show. We keep deferring it. And we, we just have these moments on the calendar where we think, okay, this is, this is where it's all going to land. It's that vacation I planned with my five best friends, you know, we do this once every three years, and now we're going. And here we are on the beach together. Unless you have a mind that can really pay attention, really cut through the chat, or really sink into the present moment, you can't even enjoy those moments the way they should be enjoyed, the way you dreamed you would enjoy them when they arrive.
So it's, I mean, so it's a meditation in this sense. It's the great equalizer. It's like, it's, you don't have to, you don't have to live with the illusion anymore that you need a good enough reason and things are going to get better when you do have those good reasons. It's like there's just a mirage-like quality to every future attainment and every future breakthrough and every future peak experience that eventually you get the lesson that you never quite arrive, right? Like you, you won't, you don't, you don't arrive until you cease to step over the present moment in search of the next thing. I mean, we're constantly, we're, we're stepping over the thing that we think we're seeking in the act of seeking it. And so it is kind of a paradox. I mean, there is a, there's this paradox that which I mean, it sounds trite, but it's like, you, you can't actually become happy, you can only be happy. And and and it's that, it's the illusion that because it's the illusion that your future being happy, it can be predicated on this act of becoming in any domain. You know, and becoming includes this sort of, you know, further under, further scientific understanding on the questions that interest you, or, you know, um, getting in better shape, or whatever the thing is, whatever the, whatever the contingency of your dissatisfaction seems to be. In any present moment, real attention solves the koan, you know, in a way that becomes a very different place from which to then make any further change. It's not that you just have to dissolve into a puddle of goo. I mean, you can still get in shape, and you can still do all the things that, you know, the superficial things that are obviously good to do. But the sense that your well-being is over there is, um, really does diminish and eventually just becomes a, it becomes a kind of non-sequitur.
So well, there's a sense in which in this conversation, I've actually experienced many of those things, the sense that I've arrived. So I mentioned to you offline, it's very true that I start, I've been a fan of yours for many years. And the reason I started this podcast, speaking of AI systems, is to manipulate you, Sam Harris, into doing this conversation. So like on the calendar, literally, you know, I've always had the sense, people ask me, when are you going to talk to Sam Harris? And I always answered, eventually, right? Because I always felt, again, tying our free will thing, that somehow that's going to happen. And it's one of those manifestation things, or something. I don't know if it's, maybe I am a robot, I'm just not cognizant of it. And I manipulated you into having this conversation. So it was a, I mean, I don't know what the purpose of my life past this point is. So if I've arrived. So in that sense, I mean, all that to say, I'm only partially joking on that. Is it really, it's a huge honor that you would waste this time with me.
Yeah, well, really means a lot. Listen, it's mutual. I'm a big fan of yours. And as you know, I reached out to you for this. So so this is, um, it's great. I love what you're doing. You're doing something, uh, more and more indispensable in this world on on your podcast. And you're doing it differently than than Rogan's doing it or that I'm doing it. I mean, you have, you definitely found your own lane. And it's, it's wonderful. You.