People often ask, “What is the meaning of life?”  Or they wonder, “What is the point or purpose of life?”  

If those kinds of thoughts come into your mind more often than not, maybe it’s time to reflect on just how precious this life is.

The well-loved American poet Mary Oliver has asked us in her most famous two lines from The Summer Day, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  But equally important, the line immediately above those two reminds us: “Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?”  And all the lines that precede these three, serve as a celebration of both the mystery and beauty of life that can be seen when one pays attention on a simple summer day.

Like Mary Oliver, Buddhists consider human life precious as well, for some of the same reasons she recounts and for others too:

• Unlike other life forms, humans have self-awareness. We have the capacity to become better human beings and to evolve spiritually, instead of just sleeping most hours of the day like a cat.

• Many people never encounter genuine spiritual teachings or have the freedom to practice them. If you’ve met spiritual teachings, ones that could bring about awakening, your life is considered all the more precious. Spiritual teachings can take many different forms. I see Mary Oliver’s poem as a spiritual teaching. Many others have found it to be life-changing as well.

• A human life is also seen as rare and difficult to obtain. You didn’t obtain this human life by chance, but rather as a result of positive past actions. Once your current life ends, there’s no guarantee you’ll be reborn as a human in the next life unless you’ve used your time on earth wisely. That may seem far-fetched to you but over half the world’s current population believes in reincarnation. Some people claim that early Christians also held the view of reincarnation, but this is a hotly disputed topic.

• Death comes without warning. Your life and this capacity for spiritual awakening could vanish in the blink of an eye. This makes each moment even more precious just as Mary Oliver has pointed out in The Summer Day.

So this brings us back to the original question:  What will you do with your precious life?”

What Is the Best Way to Spend Your Life?

Mary Oliver gives us a clue when, in The Summer Day, she describes her ability to pay attention and be present to the minute actions of a grasshopper as it eats sugar from her hand.  She hints again when she asks who made the world and even the grasshopper, reveling in the mystery of life without needing a definitive answer. 

Read More: Are You Living the Mystery? On Embrace of the Serpent

Buddhists would agree:  pay attention and be present in this moment.  There is power in asking the right questions, but don’t expect final answers. Enjoy living in the mystery instead. They also tell us to listen, reflect on spiritual teachings, and meditate day and night without distraction.  

Buddhists set the bar high, don’t they?  But maybe that is exactly what Mary Oliver was doing when she paid attention to the tiny reality of a grasshopper on a beautiful summer day.

After all, your mind operates 24 hours a day, right?  So, in every moment, you have the choice to think, speak, and act in ways that create benefit or ways that create harm. In each moment, you’re creating your future. It’s not going to help you much to think about spiritual matters for just a few moments each day, repeating destructive habits, big or small, the rest of the time

But don’t worry, even if you’re able to study, meditate, or be present an hour a day, it will increase your good qualities and spiritual insight. Regularity is the key to transforming your mind and heart. And these positive changes will naturally show up in your actions and interactions with others.

Why Do Your Actions Matter?

If you take a look around, you’ll see so much suffering exists.  Sure, some people may be happy, but that happiness comes and goes like the changing tide, depending on external circumstances.    

But in reality, suffering is caused by our own attachment, aversion, and ignorance of how things really are.  If you love your car and it’s damaged, you’ll likely suffer due to your attachment.  You might feel hatred towards the person who damaged it, which is aversion.  And in all this reactivity, you fail to recognize the impermanent nature of all things.

The problem isn’t that these kinds of emotions arise in our mind, after all we are human. But rather our inability to let them go.  

You might tell yourself your car is irreplaceable and create more and more stories about it that keep you miserable for days or even weeks.  You might punch the person who hit your car, acting out your anger.  They might hit you back, causing serious damage to your physical being and even more woe.

These churning thoughts and emotions lead to our own daily miseries, turning happiness upside down in a flash.  And sadly, they lead to greed, violence, war, and inequality on a massive scale too.

But it’s possible to end suffering (eventually) if we follow the path of authentic spiritual teachings.  And when we do, compassion will naturally arise when we see how unnecessary all this suffering is.

What is the point of this life? To tame these unruly emotions, ones that lead you to create suffering for yourself and others.

On top of that, all the ordinary activities of this life come to an end at death.  If you spend your life striving for success, reputation, or material gain, whatever you manage to accumulate will dissolve at the moment of death, if not sooner.  So, what is the point?

“Whatever is born will die,
Whatever is gathered will disperse,
Whatever is accumulated will come to exhaustion,
Whatever is high will fall.”

Wouldn’t it be better to invest your time cultivating spiritual qualities like inner peace, kindness, compassion, and wisdom? These qualities will transform your current life, and create positive tendencies that you’ll take along into your next life. Why not develop an unshakeable resolve not to waste your time on the pointless activities of life?

Of course, I enjoy a few pointless activities myself. The aim isn’t to be perfect, but to tip the balance so you focus more on the spiritual and less on the ordinary concerns of life. You need to take care of yourself and your family, but you don’t necessarily need to do more and more so there’s never time for the spiritual.

So again, life does have a purpose: To cultivate positive spiritual qualities that will bring more joy to yourself and others. You matter, your life matters, you can make a difference.

You don’t need to adopt a Buddhist view or believe in rebirth for this to make sense. The main question is, will you live your life intentionally in ways that bring about goodness for yourself and others? Or will you just dwindle it away?

Let’s close with Mary Oliver’s poem, The Summer Day:

“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
this grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

Note: This post is inspired by the first verse in the “37 Practices of a Bodhisattva” by Gyalse Ngulchu Thogme and Mary Oliver’s poem “A Summer Day.”

Your Turn

What do you think of these ideas? Do they make sense to you? I would love to hear in the comments.

Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious!  Don’t forget to  sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self. 

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