How do we find an authentic meaningful life? I like to choose very easy to tackle topics for my talks.

And this, first of all, what is authentic mean?

When I say authentic, meaningful life.

Authentic doesn't mean genuine in the sense of transparent.

What I mean is something that's free from mindless compliance.

To find a purpose or a meaning for life, that's not something that anybody can tell you.

That doesn't exist outside of you.

A meaning for life only exists in each individual, because meaning is each individual.

Because meaning is an individual thing.

What has meaning for me might have no meaning for you.

So what creates meaning in your life might very well be meaningless to me.

You might be, Jesse, his meaning might be in painting and in serving others. For me it might be a completely different meaning. So to say that there

is an objective meaning for life is to engage in pure sophistry and proselytizing and to try to make other people

conform. Each individual, each of you, must find your own meaning for your own life.

And for it to be authentic, it cannot be provided for you by me by anyone else it has to be something that

resonates deeply for you through your own experience.

The Buddha said, don't believe me,

which is a pretty radical thing for a spiritual teacher to say.

They generally say things like, be gold, say tone, in that kind of, you know, I am the holder of the truth. The Buddha said, don't believe me, don't believe what you're taught, don't believe common sense, don't believe what people have tried to reason and logic out for you.

When you see for yourself that this is true, that this rings deeply true, resonates true, follow that.

And he goes on to establish who are listening, when you act out of harm, in your experience

does that create an easy mind to be in or a mind that's filled with stress and rationalization and shame?

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