The Meaning of Life

"The meaning of life is to see."

-- Hui-Neng

Sounds simple enough. Unless you're Blind Lemon Pledge or Blind Melon Chittlin, you've got it covered, right? Not so fast there, sighted one! Hui-Neng's idea of "seeing" is a bit more than just passing your drivers license eye exam. You may see the little letters on the screen OK, and even the stop signs, 18 wheelers, and burger joints as you fly on down the road (the highway to hell?), but when it comes to things of a bit more subtle nature, do you really see just what's there, or do you project your own stuff onto the innocence of naked reality?

In fact, many of us do not see as much as we "over see." We project our fears, judgments, prejudices and expectations onto whatever is and thus miss it. What we see is not the bare bones of what is, but our own highly colorized, paint-by-numbers version, a subjective phantom world that we mistake for objective reality. To really see means to lay aside all that crap and be the eyes of God.

How does God see? With upmost clarity and boundless love. God sees every wart and flaw and loves them all. He does not attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but he loves that dam pig appendage as much as he'd love any silk accessory. God doesn't infer motives, or make up meaning, He simply observes and accepts.

OK, this is not your Old Testament, fire and brimstone, smote you in the ass type God that I'm talking about, but rather God as Spirit, God as Ultimate Reality. If God is the be all and end all, what does God really see? Only Himself.

And so I ask you today to see only your Divine Self, only God, in all. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not prescribing rose colored glasses here. Life is not all Hallmark cards, cuddly puppies and Vaseline on the camera lens. You need 20/20 spiritual vision to see Reality. And as Hui-Neng points out that's what we're really here for -- to see. And then, and only then, do we know what to do.