That question—how can I be of service, or what is my purpose—has driven my spiritual journey through many psycho dramas, and still, now at 82, it kicks within like a new fetus crying What Shall I BE? 

I write on FB, I comment here, but not to enlighten you. What is the purpose of a piano player when the fingers are let loose on the keys? What is the purpose of the bird sing? While I write the Heart Sutra plays on the computer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUzzivYjvRA

What is the purpose of this Zen chant? Purpose, planning, meaning, reason for being, what to do are all functions of the mind that draws and reads the map of us in the external world. But when you play at something, writing, singing, dancing, cooking, sewing, the heart takes over and what you are doing is your purpose. When we release ourselves from the future orientation of the mind, we fall into a purposeless play. We do what we do for the fun of it, the joy of it. 

And then, rejuvenated, we return, reluctantly, to the grind of purpose, as if this is our purpose. This question that society with which society hammers us begins in high school when we are asked: what do you want to do with your life. What’s your purpose? This confounds us because suddenly we are supposed to plan a whole life in order to be validated by society, to belong to society. To have no purpose is like being exiled, a bum, a gypsy, a vagrant. 

When confronted with this question in HS, I said I wanted to be a doctor, and it took three months in the university for me to realize I didn’t want to be a doctor, so I became a drunk. But I digress. 

So we are inquiring into what this question is, and why we can never find a permanent answer that ends the pain of the question. “What shall I BE?”

We really have to look at our Consumer Culture to help us understand the Shape of this Water. (did you see the movie).We are conditioned to think about ourselves as becoming something in the future, so NOW is never satisfying. I could be so much more. What can I buy? What can I do? What yoga, meditation, teaching can I do? 

So I listen to the Heart Sutra, which is all about Letting Go…Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate: Bodhi Svaha! 

Which means…gone..gone…gone beyond…gone beyond beyond…OH. What and Awakening! The direction to find purpose is no direction. The means and the end are ONE, not two. When the end if purpose in the future, we search for the means to that end.

When the means are separate from the End, we have divided ourself by the cleaver os time, and now we are wounded and must find the healing balm in the future. Our purpose is to See that! But not in the future. You must see the cleaver of the mind in your hand, and what can see that hatchet? The Heart of awareness can see the cleaver of the mind. The purpose of the mind is to become; the purpose of the Heart is to BE.  

There is no purpose to your life! When you go beyond purpose…you ARE purpose.