What is life? When the question arises with the individual, individuality is assumed–a state where separated entities interact through some medium. Individuality is questionable whereas the experience of separation can be taken as understood by nearly everyone or everyone.
It is possible to say no-life, no meaning, or no-What. It is impossible to say to another that the experience of sunyata exists or does not, passes or does not, is absolute or is not.
One logical conclusion, then, is that speaking occurs only from relative standpoints. But this also cannot be proven, although it can be said to another. If it were otherwise, if speaking were possible from an absolute standpoint, who could recognize that it were so? how could it be recognized? how could it fail to be recognized?
The existence of individual bodies is supported by multiple cycles; the progression of individual entities is arising, lasting for a moment, and passing. Time is marked by arising, lasting, passing. Contentment is an experience of no-need. Cyclical satisfaction may be mistaken for contentment, but progression is not mistaken for contentment. Progression that is not experienced as momentary improvement is experienced as momentary dissatisfaction. The physical body deteriorating tends to be experienced as dissatisfaction. When one identifies with this body, its context, or its deterioration, one identifies life as dissatisfaction. The mind seeking mistaken contentment will pursue awareness of cyclical stability or cyclical health since individual progression leads to individual passing. One may pursue appreciation of arising, lasting, or passing.
Physically, then, individual life may appear to be the continuance of homeostatic cycles; mentally, individual life may appear to be the pursuit or awareness of appreciation.
If the dichotomies between progression-cycles and body-mind are not accepted, the concepts of time and separate levels of reality must be put in their places. Even if this is an accepted logical conclusion, life is not experienced as oneness. In such a case, where does the question what-is-life arise? If cyclical time, linear time, and separation are not reliable concepts, it is perhaps possible to answer: here/everywhere. But this answer does not suffice. It is also possible to answer that concepts are not satisfactory, but that concept is not satisfactory.
The insufficience of here/everywhere may serve to focus the original question. We may more accurately rephrase what-is-life in why terms, specifically, “Why me?” The question that balances this why-me may be how-could-it-fail-to-be-recognized.
This how returns us to the absolute in comparison to the relative why. If the physical, the mental, cycles, progression, arising, lasting, and passing are not prejudged as troublesome or otherwise, and if the absolute is not preferred over the relative (and vice versa), where have we arrived? What is life? The category assumptions behind why-me tend to lead towards awareness of dissatisfactory answers. Therefore, the question itself may not serve because the inherent categories do not serve. The question of how-could-it-fail-to-be-recognized may be balanced by why-me, but it is possible that it may also be balanced by how-could-it-be-recognized.
If these questions are seen as a unity instead of a dichotomy, we may simplify them to how? with the rest being implied or understood, included. This allows questioning to be an expression of curiosity instead of dissatisfaction and allows pursuit of understanding and appreciation to be an expression of openness or joy instead of arrogance or dominance. It is not necessary to begin and end with the individual and moral demands on the individual. If this progression holds, it may be unnecessary to judge questioning as an expression of separation or as an expression of acquisitiveness. The relationship between the relative and the absolute or the many and the one is explored instead of categorically limited or denied.
Copyright 2007 Todd Mertz