1 Spirituality and the art of living Joseph Chan Department of politics and public administration 23 November 2005 2 What is the meaning of life? Dr. Joe s Lau s view Not: What is the purpose of life? But: what is a valuable (meaningful) life? what makes a life meaningful? 3 What is the meaning of life? Major values that make a life meaningful or valuable: Truth Goodness Beauty Love Cf. Wong Tak Sang s list 4 What is the meaning of life? Many different concrete ways of realizing those values Is your life good? Are the things you do valuable? Are you capable of doing those things? Do you enjoy the things you do? Do you succeed in doing so? 5 The art of living The challenge: not what makes a life valuable, but how. Problems arise from Setback: failure, sickness, breakdown of relationship loss of someone dear to you, Success The humdrum of everyday life 6 The art of living Setback Exams Relationships Health 7 The art of living Humdrum Loss of interest and vitality Success Goal displacement power, status, money 8 The art of living Alasdair Macintyre: After Virtue (1981), Ch. 14. Practices Chess playing, sciences and humanities, arts, sports Internal and external goods Internal: various excellences (skills, virtues, etc) External: rewards 9 The art of living Practices and institutions Search for knowledge vs. universities, music vs. orchestras, spiritual practices vs. churches Institutions require and distribute external goods: power, status, and money No practices unsustained by institutions can survive or flourish for long. But practices may be corrupted by institutions. 10 The art of living Sometimes the pursuit of internal and external goods don t go together Pursuing external goods but sacrificing internal ones (academics, artists) Goal displacement 11 The art of living How to value external goods (power, status, money) No one can despise them altogether without a certain hypocrisy (Macintyre, p. 183) they are characteristic objects of human desire. Rewards for excellence 12 Spirituality But, set clear priorities Confucius: 4.15 Do not worry about your lack of official position. Worry about what would earn you a position. Do not worry about the lack of appreciation of your abilities on the part of others. Seek to be worthy of appreciation. (The Analects, 4.15) 13 Spirituality How to look at success in pursuing values Put yourself in larger contexts Maintain a certain detachment to things you care Nature Poem Music 14 Spirituality-nature 15 Spirituality-music (The Mission, 1986) 16 Spirituality-poem (14881559) 17 Zhaungzi-accepting his wife s death When she first died, do you think I didn t grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change toke place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. 18 Zhaungzi-accepting his wife s death Now there s been another change and she s dead. It s just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, and winter. Now she s going to lie down peacefully in a vast room between the heaven and earth. If I were to weep over her death, it would show that I don t understand anything about fate. So I stopped. Zhuangzi, Ch.18. 19 Zhaungzi-accepting his wife s death As a small part of the whole, he is a man who must feel the loss of his wife. But as a man embracing and identifying with the whole, he can come to accept the inevitability of her death and its place in the ceaseless changes of the universe. See David B.Wong, The meaning of detachment in Daoism, Buddhism, and Stoicism, Dao, 2006. 20 Spirituality Deepen your awareness Have deeper appreciation of values Heighten your awareness Place yourself in the largest of perspectives