Originally posted by dube
what is meaning?
i mean what does it mean?

methinks that when we consider the idea of meaning, it conjures connotations of purposefulness, thus when we think of life having meaning, what we are essentially saying is that life has purpose.

Originally posted by dube
what is meaning?
i mean what does it mean?

Context?
KJ

Originally posted by dube
what is meaning?
i mean what does it mean?

Meaning is anything done, spoken and thought!......that supports spiritual truth.

Spiritual truth will direct one to live the spiritual life.

The spiritual life will give the greatest success in life.

The greatest success in life is to develop ones lost love for God.

Developing love for God will allow one to receive the perfection of life.

The perfection of life, is to return home back to Godhead, and never return to this world of suffering.

Originally posted by dube
what is meaning?
i mean what does it mean?

Almost all 'meaning' is subjective. People telling each other their lives have no 'meaning' has little or no objective meaning.

Originally posted by John W Booth
Almost all 'meaning' is subjective. People telling each other their lives have no 'meaning' has little or no objective meaning.

At least say it like you really mean it.

Originally posted by dube
what is meaning?
i mean what does it mean?

Here are some of my own developed meanings about meaning. Some of it is described from a Buddhist viewpoint, which in the main I find helpful and coherent, but my understandings of re-incarnation are markedly different to the standard Buddhist one. But I describe it to show the context of practices.

To me:

All meanings are mind sourced. There are no meanings outside of mind. The Universe outside of some form of mind is meaningless, a physical deadness. But then one must ask what is mind and what boundaries does it have, if any?
We may posit that God is Mind. Or that our mind is a part of a greater mindlike awareness. Mind is first of all awareness, and its first arising is the sense of "I".
And then connections and patterns related to that "I" emerge in awareness and we choose and respond to our own meanings.

Meanings are constructed by ourselves, either singly or together with other minds. They are ultimately chosen and applied, rather than received and followed, or endured. Meanings are an essential and core aspect of living existence however, even though we choose them, and build them.

In Buddhism, three aspects of existence "kayas" are referred to, one of which involves the aspect of meaning. (This description is rough and open to doctrinal questioning, but I find the three aspects "meaningful" to my own thinking).

They are referred to as "forms", aspects or "bodies" of the "transcendental Buddha" (by Buddhists), but they may also be seen as dimensions of existence.
The highest is referred to as the Dharmakaya, the non-dual Source that appears empty of defining characteristics, yet is the fully Potent Ground of all. One could refer to it as the Ground of All Being.

The manifested level we are experiencing bodily and physically in our dualistic existence is referred to by Buddhists as the Nirminakaya. One could refer to it as simply the Physical Manifestation

Between these two "dimensions" or aspects is the Sambhogakaya, the body of meanings and archetypes, of dream-bodies,of powerful and mythic-like symbology and mind built "entities", that are real and powerful at that "level", as powerful as any archetype. Or one could refer to it as the Mind Manifestation.

It is this level that is referred to in the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and the rites and actions are used to enable the dying "person" to negotiate more easily this level more easily after death. Its essential task is to remind the dying person that these are mind-built entities (awful and beatific) and as ultimately "empty" as the life they have just left. This is connected with re-incarnational understandings.

We as co-creating minds, both together and singly build and dream our meanings, our values, our symbols and our archetypes. They are not ephemeral. They are very powerful and underly our physical existence and our behaviors. Jung, the emminent and somewhat mystical psychologist understood this realm as the Collective Unconscious, seeing in different patients recurring "archetypal" themes in dreams from widely separated cultures.

Meanings that are built can be either beneficial or destructive.
Meanings are like seeds. From our meanings more solid things arise, and types of living become more "embedded", the more we focus on them.

This is what is symbolically demonstrated by the Tibetan Buddhist dream construction of deities and demons, and of tulkas. With such potent "dreaming" powerful seeding occurs, that "change" things, including the practitioner.

Often wars are actually battles of meanings. When fundamentalist terrorists inflict harm and hurt and brutality, how we respond is important. Not just with battles, but also with strong intention to show in whatever way we can, our own positive life-affirming meanings and not copy their destructive ways and meanings.

Thanks dube.

Originally posted by dube
what is meaning?
i mean what does it mean?

What do you mean, what does meaning mean?

Do you mean, what is the meaning of meaning?

The meaning of meaning is, ah, it means, ah.....For a minute there I thought I knew what meaning meant, but now I'm not sure what meaning means.

Do ya know what I mean?

Originally posted by Taoman
Here are some of my own developed meanings about meaning. Some of it is described from a Buddhist viewpoint, which in the main I find helpful and coherent, but my understandings of re-incarnation are markedly different to the standard Buddhist one. But I describe it to show the context of practices.

To me:

All meanings are mind sourced. There are no mea nd not copy their destructive ways and meanings.

Thanks dube.

Paradoxically, and simply put,"life" has no meaning. No meaning as it relates to the eternal. (god).
There is no magic answer to all of lifes mysteries as we understand it, so in any relative sense, there cannot be meaning as it relates to the void.
The answer to a koan is based on direct understanding of the "Ground of All Being" , it is not in any way based on any thinking on the part of the adept.

(That was a nice post Taoman! 🙂 )

Originally posted by josephw
What do you mean, what does meaning mean?

Do you mean, what is the meaning of meaning?

The meaning of meaning is, ah, it means, ah.....For a minute there I thought I knew what meaning meant, but now I'm not sure what meaning means.

Do ya know what I mean?

I do. (Or were you just asking dube specifically?)