Hello, this is a attempt to re-answer a question I was recently asked on Monk Radio about the nature of right and wrong.
Specifically, in the case where it is true, or if it were true, that there were no meaning or purpose to anything, how could you have a sense of right or wrong?
I think I'm going to have to clarify first of all my stance and what I understand to be the Buddha's stance on purpose and meaning and value because the Buddha did give some fairly specific teachings on what has purpose, what has meaning, what has value.
But it's the kind of teaching that you have to understand in context.
And so you have to understand some of the things that I have said about purpose and value in context.
And that was what I was trying to get across in my answer is that
The two criticisms that people will level against this idea of lack of purpose is first of all that having lack of purpose will most likely lead you to depression, apathy, hopelessness.
It has a negative effect on one's psyche.
Whereas they would argue having a purpose gives you motivation and direction and so on.
which is all well and good and certainly not to be denied.
The other accusation that is leveled, charge that is leveled, is that a person who has no meaning, purpose, sees no value in anything, isn't able to differentiate between that which is valuable and that which is valueless.
worthless, is that they won't have a sense of right or wrong.
And that's what this question was asking.
How can there be right or wrong if you don't have purpose or value, if you aren't able to make value judgments?
And so it's important to understand what the meaning behind this idea is.
First of all, these two accusations are unfounded, but they're unfounded
for a person who truly has, you could say, transcended meaning and value.
And so the problem is that we're projecting our own muddled, unenlightened state
when we answer this question.
So we say, what would it be like if I had no purpose?
If I were to accept that philosophy as though it were just a philosophy that anyone could accept?
And that's not the case.
The point is that as you understand reality, you start to change.
you stop finding meaning and purpose and value in the things that you used to find meaning, purpose and value in.
As a result of those changes, you have
you lose your ability to perform both right and wrong acts and in a sense certainly the ability to perform evil deeds disappears but at the same time a person has no sense of good either in the sense that even when they do something to help others they're simply doing it as a functional act of
response as kind of the path of least resistance because to deny someone is to create complication it requires a certain amount of evil to do so a person simply does good because the alternative would require something that is lacking in them which is evil it would require
friction and that sort of friction and defilement in the mind and all of the stress in the mind disappears from the person who has become enlightened.
So the important thing to realize is that when you say that purposeless and all of this leads to apathy or that it leads to immorality because a person
who has no purpose can then just do whatever they want you are confusing two very different states the state of someone who has actually realized true what you could call true purposelessness in the sense that they don't put value in anything they simply live their lives
And a person who still has attachment to things as this is what I'm aiming for, this is what I'm hoping for, this is what I'm wishing for.
Because a person who has given up all of that has no potential for evil to arise in their minds.
They have no potential for apathy to arise in their mind.
They have no potential for any disappointment.
And the thing is, it's funny to even suggest that purposelessness would lead to depression or any negative emotion whatsoever.
when the negative emotions are based on disappointment, they're based on a desire for value, a desire for purpose.
The only reason a person feels depressed when they have no purpose is because they want one, because they still crave for purpose.
A person who has gone beyond that isn't able to feel depressed.
It's impossible for that to come to them because they have no expectations, they have no desire
uh for anything that's what purposelessness purposelessness does to you and as a result they they they could never do anything that would cause harm that would cause stress or suffering there there is no attachment that would lead to that so that was all i was trying to say it's quite a simple answer and i think i muddled it up a little bit so here i am again thanks for tuning in everyone see you