The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. Okay, so, what's this from the Stoic philosopher Seneca.

If one does not know to which port one is selling, no wind is favorable. I was talking to a friend about kind of meaning, purpose. meaning purpose and they ask like are there any any

darma talks about meaning and purpose I thought about it it It was like, well, the one hand, it's like, no, there's like very,

very few probably explicitly address those themes that are maybe more those

words are more familiar to Western philosophical traditions.

the sort of whole of the darma presupposes some ideas about meaning and purpose. And I ask myself the question, do I reflect on meaning and

purpose? Not really, not really.

Do I have it? I think so. But the meaning has been a kind of byproduct of

My love, not a goal to which I've aspired.

And this topic it strikes me is quite tricky, right? Because Darma Talks are meant to be at least partially a kind of way of

inviting folks into a new view.

Yeah, come see for yourself, right? But there's an invitation to a new view.

And the tricky part is that meaning involves intrinsic motivation. It cannot be prescribed by me or anyone else to you, right?

This is like very personal.

And intrinsic motivation is the pursuit of a kind of activity for its inherent interest or enjoyment, enrichment,

something we're doing, it is its own reward in a way.

And some of this is drawing on research

and the kind of body of research

known as self-determination theory.

I can post something about that.

So extrinsic motivation is instrumental.

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