Hello, you are listening to the Secular Buddhism Podcast, and this is episode number 19.

I am your host Noah Rosheta, and today I'm talking about how to live life artfully.

Welcome back to the Secular Buddhism Podcast, a weekly podcast that focuses on Buddhist philosophical

concepts and teachings presented for a secular-minded audience.

In every episode I like to remind my listeners, a quote by the Dalai Lama where he says,

do not try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist.

Use it to be a better whatever you already are.

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Now let's jump into this week's topic.

What does it mean to live life artfully?

This is a topic I've been thinking about lately, and I wanted to discuss this concept

a little bit.

In Western society, or perhaps even in Western thinking, there tends to be this notion

that if something doesn't have a utilitarian purpose, then it doesn't have any value.

For example, think about a lot of the things that we do in society, and we tend to do them

because they have a utilitarian purpose.

If they have a purpose, then we assign value based on the purpose of that thing.

An example of utilitarian thinking would be, why would I spend the time to build this

bench, unless the bench is going to serve value for me?

I can put it in my house and use it as a bench for the piano or something along those lines,

but I wouldn't just make it to just make it.

...