Ewan: How about you share your thoughts on the point of life (both yours and the collective humanity). Is it to procreate? But what about those of us without children? Is it to fall madly in love? What about those that never experience that kind of love. Is it to be admired? What about those that have ordinary lives? Is it to amass wealth? Is it to leave a legacy? Is it to be happy and/or peaceful? You tell me… I am really interested in your thoughts on this given we are about halfway through ours give it take.

Brent: What do you do to help people find their purpose?

Ingrid: How can meditation help me to find my purpose in life?

Thank you Ewan, Ingrid, and Brent for setting me off on this very big topic.

Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene makes the case that all life begins with genes, and the purpose of life is to make sure the genes survive. We have evolved to fight to survive long enough to at least pass on our genes, which back in the day gave us humans on a daily basis a big enough purpose.

But Ewan, that’s not such a helpful answer for us, living where we do in this time in history.

I think, with survival pretty much being taken care of, we now get to create our own purpose. This is one of the great opportunities, and possible burdens, of living now. If you’re reading this, you probably have a lot of freedom to choose what your life is about.

Brent, how I help people find their purpose is essentially by asking them what they want. I ask this question in a lot of different ways, and I ask it about a bunch of different domains for their life, and for the world. I help people slow down enough, and create enough space for the answer to emerge. And I try to be very present with them, and listen to what they say, and what they don’t say.

Ingrid, I think meditation can help you get still enough and quiet enough so that you can tune in to what it is you want, and what you don’t.