Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Bo Lozoff is a spiritual activist and co-founder of the Human Kindness Foundation, which sponsors the Prison-Ashram Project (founded twenty-five years ago with Ram Dass), a quarterly newsletter, and Kindness House (a spiritual community that is open to visitors). He holds an honorary doctorate from the Chicago Theological Seminary. He has lectured in hundreds of prisons, universities, churches, and spiritual centers around the world and his work has been featured in many national publications. He lives outside of Durham, North Carolina.

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It's a Meaningful Life

Penguin Books

Chapter One

Waking Up from the American Dream

* * *

I feel as if I've got all the right ingredients in place for a satisfying,enjoyable life. Bet they're not adding up in some essentialway. I still feel a sense of yearning for more, an absenceof real joy. What am I missing?

The Buddhist tradition emphasizes an element of spiritualliving translated as "right view." The idea of right view, likethe old saying "Don't miss the forest for the trees," remindsus that no matter how many good components we mayhave for a fulfilling life, those components must also fit intoa bigger picture with which our individual lives are in harmony.In other words, if we come to some idea of what lifein the largest sense is about, then we may begin to understandwhy or how our personal life falls short of fulfillment.We may even be surprised to see that we are not so unfulfilledas we had thought. Much of our vague yearning andsense of incompleteness may be due to wrong views shapedby modern media and unrealistic expectations.

    Be all you can be. Just do it! Climb every mountain. Dareto dream. These bumper-sticker philosophies of our daysound appealing on the surface, but they are tied to a consumermodel of life's purpose that never brings us thewholehearted satisfaction we inwardly crave, because consumerism?whilepromising satisfaction at every turn?relieson our never being satisfied. Underneath its ingeniouslywholesome images and compelling slogans, this lifeview is about selling products, nothing more.

    The two chief forces of consumer marketing are desireand fear. Eat this, drink this, do this, drive this, and you willbe happy. Take this pill to avoid pain. Meanwhile, the spiritualteachings of the world point to desire and fear as thetwo great shackles of human existence, the two biggest barriersto our natural joy.

    Of course, we all experience desire and fear. From thetime we are infants, desire for what may please us and fearof what may hurt us are important navigational systems.Their existence is not the problem; it's how we respond tothem that counts, how (or whether) we integrate them intoa more mature navigational system guided by right view.

    The sophistication and power of modern advertising and"infotainment," and the consequent globalization of consumervalues?what many analysts have begun to callEarth, Incorporated?have made it harder and harder tointegrate our natural desire and fear into a mature navigationalsystem, because consumerism relies on ceaseless desiresand fears. Helena Norberg-Hodge, author of AncientFutures: Learning from Ladakh, makes the intriguing observationthat the entire world, at present, is dominated by amentality that used to be associated with American teenageboys smoking cigarettes and riding motorcycles in blackleather jackets.

    Even if you and I have simplified our lives and haveadopted alternative values, it would be foolish to assume weare not influenced by the same blitz of messages and perspectivesthat bombard the mainstream culture with thelure of materialism, superficiality, and sense gratification.Let's face it: consumerism has taken over the world becauseit works! When I take the first bite of a Dairy Queen conedipped in melted chocolate?ah, delicious! I'm a happyman. But is there a cone in the world big enough to keepme happy for more than a few minutes?

    Earth, Incorporated, exhorts us to pursue that ultimatecone with all our might (and dollars). Clever marketinghas even convinced many of us that it is unhealthy notto satisfy our desires and fears. But when desire goesunchecked, it will eventually tempt us toward selfish orharmful or even criminal behavior in order to fulfill its object.When fear dominates us, we will eventually withdrawfrom others, or try to avoid life's natural ups and downs inunnatural ways.

    Living in servitude to our desires and fears is living likethe dogs who pursue a plywood rabbit around the racetrack. Not only do they never get to catch it, but even ifthey did, it's not really a rabbit, it's only painted plywood.They just run around that track all their lives for nothing.This is a truth many of us discover only when we attaineverything we thought we wanted, and still feel incompleteand unsatisfied.

    Keeping our heads on straight in this day and age requiresconscious and persistent effort. One way to look atour pursuit of an appropriate state of happiness is to breakit down into two parts:

1. What is my biggest view of life and my place in it? That is, what are my primary values?

2. What steps or behaviors are necessary to bring my daily existence into harmony with that view?

The gap between our sincere values and our actual behavioris the source of all self-hatred. And self-hatred is the antithesisof personal happiness. So it makes sense to ask thesequestions at the beginning of each day, or at least fairly often,and to spare no effort in bringing our behavior intoline with our values. Nothing is more important. We willnot find happiness while we are divided between the two.

    I have also found that scrupulous self-honesty helps agreat deal in integrating our fears and desires into a maturesense of happiness. For example, many of us, including me,have had some measure of problems with drugs or alcohol.When I lecture now at recovery centers, I try to point outthat one part of me would love to smoke a joint at that verymoment, or drink an ice-cold beer in a frosted mug. If Ipretended that I hated being high and had no nostalgicpulls toward smoking or drinking, I would be at muchgreater risk of backsliding, because I would be living in denial.When I talk about these things, you should see the reliefon the faces of recovering addicts who had been wastinga lot of energy trying to pretend there was nothing theymissed about their old ways.

    We can acknowledge our desires while at the same timenot indulging in them. In fact, this is the essence of freewill. In my life, drugs and alcohol come with too manystrings attached, so I choose not to fulfill my desires forthem. We cannot avoid some of the desires that come intoour minds, but we can choose to fulfill them or not. Spiritualpractices contribute greatly to the strength of our freewill, so that we may choose to respond to our desires andfears in keeping with our deepest values.

    The Bhagavad Gita tells us that only the person whopossesses self-control over desires and fears is on the roadto happiness. Another requirement for being on that road tohappiness, also expressed in the Gita, is giving up tryingto control things outside ourselves. You know the feeling:going through each day like a bowler who has already releasedhis ball but is leaning this way and that way, wavinghis hands toward a strike, shouting and nearly falling ontothe floor in gyrations that have no power whatsoever overthe ball or the pins. How often do we wave and shout andgyrate over things outside our control? I've got to find aparking space. Desire. No, no, don't let this be a flu comingon; I don't have time this week for the flu! Fear.

    True...