No cosmic plan

“Deep down in our hearts, we all know that the universe has a plan. There is something—maybe not God, but some sort of cosmic consciousness or highest principle—that is the ultimate source of meaning. We know there is more to life than the mundane rat race, and that in the end nothing can really be random. We must have a true calling, a reason we were put here on earth. That is our part to play in the grand plan. When we find it and embrace it, everything falls into place and we discover profound inner peace. Acting in accordance with our proper role gives life an extraordinary appeal, the wonderful feeling that we are in sync with reality and fulfilling the promise of something transcendent. Resisting this deep purpose causes only pain, struggle, and heartache.”

I hope you are feeling slightly nauseous now. This is an inspiring vision. It is also utterly, disastrously wrong.

Buddhism is hyper-atheistic. Not only is there no God to order the universe, Buddhism denies that there is any eternal, transcendent principle or force that provides meaning to the world and to our lives. The universe and everything in it are “empty,” meaning that nothing can be permanent, external, or unambiguously defined.

We cling to the idea that there must be a cosmic plan because we fear that without one everything would be meaningless. Fortunately, life is meaningful without any cosmic plan or ultimate source of meaning.

Specialness

Although we all have an intuitive feeling for specialness and ordinariness, they are not easy to define. Specialness—as I am using the word—is not merely “extraordinary” or “better than most.” Nor is ordinariness just “what is common.”

Specialness is often confused with extraordinariness. Some people are extraordinary. They are talented, famous, beautiful, or accomplished, in ways others are not. Often they are mistakenly thought of as special. Maybe they can even convince themselves they are special—some of the time.

No amount of talent, fame, beauty, or accomplishment can make you feel consistently special, though. Extraordinary people feel ordinary much of the time. That can be highly disappointing. It is not possible to become special through our own actions, by doing something extraordinary.

The problem is that extraordinariness never manages to escape into the transcendent. People vary as to how strong or clever they are—but that is just something that happens, as a matter of ordinary variation. And talent, fame, beauty, and accomplishment fade—whereas it seems specialness should be eternal.

So what is specialness, then? A special person is singled out, from birth, for a particular role in the cosmic plan. Their life-course is laid out in the plan in a special way, giving it a special meaning and value. That does not depend on any objective, personal characteristics—although we might mistake those as evidence of specialness.

Since there is no cosmic plan to choose special people, there are no special people. It is actually impossible for anyone to be special.

That might be depressing, if the only alternative to being special was to be ordinary. Luckily, there are other possibilities.

Specialness in Buddhism

No matter how many years you sit doing zazen, you will never become anything special.
—Zen Master Kodo Sawaki

Some of us become Buddhists partly as a way to become special. This is especially true in Vajrayana Buddhism. We hope that esoteric practices can somehow make us special, or bring out the hidden specialness we already had. Since it is not actually possible to be special, this distorts our motivation and practice. It can be seriously counter-productive.

We also want our teachers to be special. We may have the idea that somehow their specialness will rub off on us. Or, if we do everything they say, maybe they can grant us specialness too. In the Tibetan tradition, lamas, tulkus, and tertons are particularly regarded as special. This distorts the teacher/student relationship. Also, if we discover that a teacher is not special, we might jump to the conclusion that they are ordinary. That could be a horrible disappointment. We might become angry at the teacher and look at him or her with disdain.

In fact, a special teacher would be of no use, at least in Inner Tantra. Inner Tantra aims at full realization. In Inner Tantra, the teacher functions as a role model, which is why we view our Lamas as Buddhas. If the teacher were special, and we weren’t, they couldn’t be a role model—unless they could magically make us special. But Buddhism is a do-it-yourself religion; no one can accomplish it for you.

In Outer Tantra, the teacher is viewed as special, and that is a key part of the method. There is a story about this in Tulku Urgyen’s Blazing Splendor. The Karmapa came to visit an aristocratic family in Sikkim. Some family members concluded that “It would have been much better if the Karmapa had never come here. He wasn’t a Buddha after all! We cooked his food and we saw that he ate it. Later, we looked in the toilet after he had been there and we saw what was lying inside the bowl! So, realizing that he is just a human being, we have now lost half of our faith.” Tulku Urgyen says that “they had expected him to be a deity without a real physical body.”

In fact, there is nothing special about a Buddha. A Buddha is extraordinary, because Buddhas are rare, and because they can do interesting, useful things other people can’t. But they are not singled out by a cosmic plan, and have no defined destiny. They live and die like everyone else, and their future is as uncertain as anyone’s.

Ordinariness

True humility requires the courage to risk greatness. —Bert Hellinger

Ordinariness might seem the opposite of specialness. Actually, it is almost the same thing. What they have in common is the idea that our life has a definite proper course. The idea of ordinariness is that in the cosmic plan our role is the same as most everyone else’s. It is right for us to do “what one does” and to live for no distinctive reason, without sticking out. It is wrong to pretend to be something fancy and special.

Because there is no cosmic plan, it is as impossible to be ordinary as it is to be special. No one is predestined to be a sheep. Yet we often waste a huge amount of emotional energy in trying to be ordinary, or trying to appear ordinary. That is because we are lazy and fearful. (Isn’t it interesting how often laziness drives us to take on impossible, exhausting tasks?)

We try to be ordinary when we think that living up to some idea of specialness would be too difficult. If we could be ordinary, we would not have the responsibility of living up to our potential. We feel justified in behaving badly, so long as we are stupid and unkind in common ways.

We try to be ordinary when we cannot imagine what our special role could be. We try to be ordinary when the uncertainty of the future is terrifying. “Being like everyone else” seems at least to offer the safety of a known outcome.

We may try to use Buddhism as a path to ordinariness. Becoming a monk may be a way of renouncing individuality. Relying on the vinaya (the monastic code of behavior) may be a way of avoiding decision-making and personal responsibility. Artificial humility is an all-purpose excuse not to take on any challenges.

Confusion

Perhaps that's part of why the movies about heroes sell so well—while we watch them, we get to taste the most under-utilized aspect of what we ourselves are. —Tröma Rigtsal Rinpoche

So if we are neither special, nor ordinary, what are we? Mostly, what we are is confused. We are confused about our proper role in the world.

We know that we aren’t really special, because we recognize that we are essentially the same as everyone else. Although we secretly hope and suspect we might be special, we cannot figure out what our special role should be. We seek obscure omens and chase tentative possibilities, but they shift about and peter out. We recognize that people who present themselves as special are actually on harmful ego trips.

Yet we also know we aren’t really ordinary, because there are moments when we recognize our vast, unique individual potential. No matter how hard we try to fit in, we secretly know that our innermost possibilities do not lie in going along with society. People who present themselves as ordinary are pretending to be herd animals—but no one is really fooled.

The problem is that we see no third possibility. So we jump back and forth between trying to be special or ordinary. We try to find some sort of compromise, or some way to be special in one part of our lives and otherwise ordinary. Mostly we try to bury the issue altogether, because it is so uncomfortable. But spiritual practice, life crises, and moments of grace keep bringing it to the surface.

There is an alternative to this confusion—one that is genuinely available, unlike specialness and ordinariness.

Nobility

Self-confidence is not a feeling of superiority, but of independence. —Lama Yeshe

Because there is no cosmic plan, questions of ultimate value are meaningless. Because there is no cosmic plan, our futures are never certain.

This opens the possibility of freedom. Our destiny is always ambiguous. Of course, we cannot simply choose our futures. The future unfolds as an improvised dance: the interplay of our actions and our circumstances.

Realizing this can be frightening. We can no longer rely on a benevolent, omniscient, external force to make sense of life for us. We need to rely more on our own experience. But we can also trust everyday reality to gradually reveal meaning.

When we abandon our hope of a pre-packaged life-meaning, another possibility appears. We might call this “nobility” or “heroism.” Neither is a perfect word, but they point in the right direction.

Not blocking out richness and not holding onto poverty, which lets us be an enriching presence for the rest of the world. —Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Nobility is the aspiration to manifest glory for the benefit of others. Nobility is using whatever abilities we have in service of others. Nobility is seeking to fulfill our in-born human potential, and to develop all our in-born human qualities.

Because nobility is an intention, it is possible for everyone. Specialness tries to be better than ordinariness. It would only be possible to be special if most people were ordinary. Claims of specialness are based on uncommon qualities. It would not be possible for everyone to be special.

Everyone could be noble—and at times all of us are noble. It is not an accomplishment; it is a stance. But nobility is not easy. It is not easy to hold the intention continuously. It is not easy to abandon our laziness. It is not easy to let go of hope that one day we will discover our “true life-mission,” given by the cosmic plan. To be noble is not special—but it is extraordinary.

Specialness demands constant confirmation. That is because no one really can be special, and no one is special. The illusion of specialness is in constant danger of collapse. Nobility takes itself for granted, and needs no confirmation. When we have that intention, we have no doubt of it. Specialness aims at a brilliant destiny; nobility is always already complete.

Mere goodness is not nobility. Often we use goodness as a way of trying to be ordinary or special. Being “morally correct” in an ordinary, unimaginative, conformist way may be an excuse for avoiding the scary possibility of extraordinary goodness, or greatness. Doing good in a showy way can be a strategy for convincing ourselves, or others, that we are special. Celebrity charity work often seems to be that. Of course this is better than many other ways of trying to be special, but it somewhat misses the point. Specialness serves in order to rise, whereas nobility rises in order to serve.

In Buddhism, nobility—or heroism—is a key aspect of enlightenment. Mahayana Buddhism often describes its ideal, the bodhisattva, in terms of “the noble virtues.” The Tibetan translation of “bodhisattva” is chang chub sem pa, which means “enlightened hero.” Vajrayana Buddhism relies on yidams who are often shown dressed in the style of the Indian royalty. The ideal of Vajrayana Buddhism is the pawo or pamo—the hero or heroine.

The idea of being “noble” may sound remote or ridiculous. However, it is actually possible—whereas it is not possible to be either ordinary or special. Nobility is actually available to all of us in every moment, simply by choosing it. It is frightening; but to me it seems infinitely worthwhile.