I’ve heard men say that their children are their greatest achievement. I’m sure that’s not what Siddhartha’s father was saying when not-yet Buddha slipped out of the family compound, abandoned his wife and infant son to their privilege, and hit the road to oblivion.
Life has no purpose. This is the whole point of Buddha’s flower sermon. It’s also the answer to Stephen Hawking’s unanswerable question: “Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”
The thing about a flower is that it has no purpose. Me neither.
If one question leads to another question, the first question has not been answered. Herein the thrust, the loaded stamen, of Buddha’s Flower Sermon. Beauty is the answer to everything.
Right action has both a negative and a positive dimension—as, indeed, does all of life. In its Buddhistic dimension, it’s what we refrain from doing. In its mystic-Christian dimension, it’s what is done through us. These are not contradictory positions. They’re tango partners.
Men's Work 