What is life?

Chow : What is life?

Old man : I do not know.

Chow : What is death?

Old man : Again, I do not know.

Chow : What is it that you know?

Old man : I know nothing. At least nothing that words could convey.

Chow : Have I wasted a trip then?

Old man : I do not know. It depends on what you’re hoping to find.

Chow : I’m looking for the meaning of life.

Old man : There is no “meaning of life”.

Chow : Then why am I living?

Old man : Simply because you’re not dead.

Chow : So is there any reason to stop me from dying?

Old man : No.

Chow : Are you saying that I should end my life now?

Old man : Possibly. But have you found the meaning of death?

Chow : No.

Old man : If not being able to find the meaning of life forces one to die, then not being able to find the meaning of death would force one to live as well. Why should you end your life?

Chow : Because I need a purpose to live!

Old man : The purpose as to why you are manifesting in this form which you call “my human body” is exactly the purpose of one droplet of water that makes up the ocean. One droplet is minute compared to a vast ocean. Yet its significance is tremendous. Without one droplet of water, the ocean could not exist, could not manifest as an “ocean”. It can only manifest as an “ocean with one droplet of water less”. Your purpose is to fulfill this function of simply making up the universe so that it can continue to exist. Without you, nothing else can exist.

Chow : Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?

Old man: Because you were asking me the wrong questions.

Chow : What do you mean?

Old man: You asked me the “meaning of life”… To which I answered there is no meaning to it.

Chow: Why?

Old man: Because the concept of “life” has no reality. I can’t give meaning to something which is unreal.

Chow: Why is it unreal?

Old man: Life is a concept invented by people due to their inability to see pass the barrier of time.

Chow: I don’t understand.

Old man: Let’s just put it this way. The difference between you and an enlightened being is the fact that he lives on the plane of reality, whereby you live on the plane of existence. And everything, in order to exist, requires it be to dual, requires it to be relative, thus it cannot be real, because it is not a “thing-in-itself”. Nothing can exist on the plane of reality, and yet everything that exist has no reality.

Chow: I still don’t understand. Give me an example.

Old man: It is exactly as your concept of “good” and “evil”. On the plane of existence, they exist as two separate entities. But what you fail to understand is that they are essentially one. Without the good, there can be no evil and vice versa. The concept of “good” and “evil” arises out of a misapprehended reality. By condemning what is “evil”, you are condemning what is “good” and vice versa. They are mirror reflections of each other thus they cannot be real. Just as the image that appears in the mirror when you look into it. The image in the mirror is unreal, it is merely a reflection of what is real. And the concept of “good” and “evil” is even more absurd because they are both reflections of reflections! In reality, they are one. There is no word for this “one” simply because nobody has been able to apprehend this simple truth. Every word ever designed was to describe everything on the plane of existence, thus the enlightened beings found it hard to describe what they have realized simply because there are no words designed to describe anything on the plane of reality. Good and evil is unreal. You can perhaps call it “goovil” to describe its individuality but who would understand?

Chow: I understand now. So what is the reflection of life?

Old man: Life is the reflection of death. Life and death are essentially one. They are nothing but concepts invented. Just like the leaf that falls from the tree. To the eyes of an unenlightened person, perhaps the leaf is “dying”. But in reality, it is merely moving from one phase of life to another. It has lived on the tree, now it will fall and live in the wind, and eventually it will return to the earth and start another phase of life. You might think its “dying”, but the leaf knows nothing about “dying”, it is merely living its death.

Chow: So the meaning of life?

Old man: A wild goose chase.

Chow: Bugger! What have I been doing all this while then?

Old man: I do not know.

Chow: But why is there an urge to realize the meaning of life, even if it means to come to a realization that there is no such thing as life?

Old man: That is your intuition. Everybody has their intuition. The depth of their search will depend on how much they listen to their intuition instead of heeding the ego. To realize that “there is no life” is perhaps one of the greatest realizations. But have you truly realized it or merely lingering around the level of intellection?

Chow: The latter.

Old man: Alas!

Chow: So what do I do?

Old man: Nothing really. Just look I guess. Just look.