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Well, good morning, everybody. 
OK, so a couple weeks ago a 

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friend of mine at the hospital 
said something that kind of 

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stopped me in my tracks a bit, 
he said. 

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And this is in part of a larger 
conversation. 

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You know, if my life were to 
turn out like my dad's, I'd be 

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disappointed. 
Well, now he wasn't. 

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He wasn't being cool. 
He just meant that his father's 

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life didn't seem very meaningful
to him. 

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And not just like the lowercase 
M kind of meaningful. 

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He meant meaning with the 
capital M, the kind of meaning 

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that feels like it adds up to 
something, you know, something 

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lasting, something that would 
earn, you know, some kind of 

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attaboy from the universe. 
And, you know, we all kind of 

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want that, don't we? 
You know, to feel like our lives

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add up, like the story of me 
will mean something. 

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And so I sat with the word for a
while. 

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Meaningful. 
And the longer I looked at it, 

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the kind of slippier, slippery 
or slippery or I'll find a 

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better way or Yahoo Yeah, the 
more slippery it guts wouldn't 

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be bad. 
Like what feels meaningful to 

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one person, you know, might just
seem ordinary or even 

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disappointing to someone else. 
You know, maybe his father found

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deep meaning and things that my 
Co worker never even noticed. 

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Maybe it was like the quiet 
routines that he went through, 

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or the small kindnesses. 
Maybe what looks like a quote UN

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quote small life from the 
outside was from the inside, 

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full of many quiet joys that 
added up to something very 

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fulfilling. 
It made me realize how narrow 

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our view can be. 
When we try to measure another 

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person's life, or even really 
our own, we only ever see 

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fragments. 
We don't see the memories that 

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still make someone smile, or the
quiet choices that shape the 

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life. 
We don't see the web of 

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experiences, friendships, and 
moments that maybe to that 

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person, do cohere into something
very meaningful. 

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We're so quick to look for 
meaning with a capital M, the 

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kind that proves something, that
that shows that we left the 

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mark, that we tend to miss the 
small unshowy meanings that are 

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already living around us. 
Now, in Buddhism, we talk 

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sometimes about how all things 
are from their very nature, 

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empty and impermanent. 
Now, at first that can sound 

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like a pretty big like cosmic 
bummer, you know, kind of like 

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nothing matters. 
But but the deeper teaching is 

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something like this, that 
because everything is 

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impermanent, that means that 
everything is alive because 

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nothing holds a fixed meaning. 
Everything is free to reveal 

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meaning right now, meaning with 
a capital M isn't like a trophy 

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that we're it's not a plaque on 
the wall. 

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It's relational. 
It arises where our life 

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meaningfully touches the world. 
Think of, you know, maybe a 

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father teaching his kid how to 
tie his shoes, or a nurse 

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suggesting a blanket for a 
sleeping patient at 2:00 in the 

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morning. 
These moments don't announce 

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themselves as Capital M 
Meaningful. 

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They aren't going to make it on 
anybody's highlight wheel. 

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And yet, in the right light, 
they shine with a quiet kind of 

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complete now. 
Dogan says that each moment is 

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the entire world, and when we 
have ears to really hear that, 

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we begin to understand that the 
meaning of life isn't something 

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that we build toward. 
It's what's already here, 

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expressing itself through each 
fleeting, unrepeatable moment. 

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Now I got to be thinking about 
like, what's beauty, right? 

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Because I think beauty works in 
kind of the same way. 

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Something is beautiful not 
because it lasts or because it 

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meets some standard, but because
it it is right. 

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It's this thing. 
Beauty can be this leaf falling 

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right if you're a Potter, or it 
could be like this cracked 

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teacup. 
It can be this moment that you 

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share laughing with somebody 
else. 

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Beauty is free to vanish as soon
as it's seen as well. 

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And maybe it's precisely because
things are impermanent that they

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are beautiful or precious. 
What makes something beautiful, 

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beautiful or meaningful isn't 
that it's eternal in a sense, 

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it's that it will never appear 
in exactly this way again. 

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Beauty is this person, it's this
place, it's this time. 

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Maybe meaning with a capital M 
isn't something that we 

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construct, but something we 
uncover when we stop trying to 

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make life so damn meaningful In 
Zen. 

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Really. 
And me, I sometimes talk about 

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suchness. 
Right. 

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Just things being themselves 
before we start calling them 

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anything at all. 
When we strip away all our 

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descriptions, good, bad, 
successful, meaningful, 

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meaningless, what's left is the 
unique expression of each thing.

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Kind of just as it is. 
Like you didn't hear it earlier,

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but the sound of rain on a roof 
or the warmth of the T in your 

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hand for all those aren't here. 
Glenn's holding AT guys. 

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Optic Poe, if you will. 
You know, it could be any of 

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these things. 
Each individual moment being 

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able to shine in its own way. 
This in a nutshell, I think, is 

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kind of the world of the Darner,
right? 

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Everything be able to express 
its true nature, it's suchness 

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has it's happening and when we 
are able to meet life in this 

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way, we don't have to ascribe it
capital M meaningful or 

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beautiful. 
We can just kind of allow it to 

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be meaningful, to be beautiful. 
And for me, this kind of 

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understanding means even the 
most mundane parts of my life 

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can have the opportunity to 
become alive in a different way.

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Washing dishes becomes washing 
dishes. 

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Walking down a hospital hallway 
is difference. 

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Even trying to remember where I 
parked can be an opportunity 

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into a relationship with this 
unique experience as it's 

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happening. 
And those experiences, when 

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allowed, have a kind of quiet 
radiance, at least when I stop 

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trying to make them something 
other than what they are. 

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And maybe that is kind of the 
paradox at the heart of kind of 

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all of this, right? 
That's the more we chase after 

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capital and meaningful, the more
we try and ascribe it, the 

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further away it tends to get. 
But when we stop trying to make 

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things capital and meaningful, 
and when we stop trying to chase

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that ascription and we just 
simply allow ourselves to be 

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open to moments as they unfold, 
then they kind of reveal their 

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meaningfulness. 
So going back, maybe the 

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question shouldn't be, is 
someone else's life meaningful? 

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Or even is my life meaningful? 
Maybe the question is, am I or 

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can I be present to the meaning 
that is already there? 

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Because in that presence the 
ordinary becomes extraordinary, 

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right? 
The overlooked becomes luminous 

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in its own way, and even a life 
we may have judged as quote UN 

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quote, not meaningful enough 
might turn out to have been 

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quietly beautiful, meaningful 
all of all. 

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Big fan of Dogan. 
So Dogan wrote that the entire 

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universe is the true human body.
And so if that's so, then every 

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breath we take, every encounter 
we have, every experience, no 

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matter how fleeting, is the 
universe realizing itself right 

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here and right now. 
And that's meeting with capital 

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M isn't something we necessarily
achieve. 

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It really is the nature of being
itself that nature is always 

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expressing, always changing, and
always already complete. 

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And so maybe we don't need to 
chase meaning with a capital M 

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so much, or look for in others. 
Maybe we just need to be better 

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at noticing it in just about 
every single moment we have.