Meaning of Life: Perspectives from the World’s Great Intellectual Traditions

Course Overview

Guided by a passionate and thorough professor, this intellectually gripping course offers a rigorous and wide-ranging exploration of what various spiritual, religious, and philosophical traditions from both the East and West have contributed to the question of life’s meaning.

What is the meaning of life? It’s a question every thoughtful person has pondered at one time or another. This comprehensive 36-lecture series provides an invigorating way to begin or continue your pursuit of these profound questions, exploring insights from ancient Indian texts like The Bhagavad-Gita, foundational Chinese texts like the Daodejing and the Chuang Tzu, classical Western texts from thinkers such as Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius, and modern philosophers including David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Leo Tolstoy.

Course Videos

• The Meaning of the Meaning of Life

Establish the groundwork for your journey by examining the meanings that the word “meaning” may embody and previewing the approaches you will take to the course’s central question.

Duration: 33 min

2. The Bhagavad-Gita: Choice and Daily Life

Delve into one of the core texts of the Mahabharata, exploring the critically important skill of reading a text deeply and understanding the concept of human choice.

Duration: 30 min

• The Bhagavad-Gita: Discipline and Duty

Grasp the three kinds of yogas or disciplines embedded in the Bhagavad-Gita’s metaphors, necessary for a coherent, integrated, and rational life.

Duration: 30 min

• The Bhagavad-Gita: Union and Purpose

Conclude your reading with an appreciation of Krishna’s revelation of divinity and learn how true freedom arises from disinterested action and reflective knowledge.

Duration: 32 min

• Aristotle on Life: The Big Picture

Transition from Indian to Western thought as you begin your study of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, setting out the framework of his view on life’s meaning.

Duration: 31 min

• Aristotle: The Highest Good

Explore Aristotle’s quest for the “highest good” and understand the concept of eudaimonia—the fully flourishing life.

Duration: 30 min

• Aristotle: The Happy Life

Discover Aristotle’s explanation of virtue and its dimensions, emphasizing the importance of friendship.

Duration: 32 min

• Job’s Predicament: Life Is So Unfair

Shift focus to the Hebraic tradition, where the core question transitions to our relationship with a personal God.

Duration: 30 min

9. Job’s Challenge: Who Are We?

Encounter the idea that while life may have meaning, it might be obscured by a mysterious divine force.

Duration: 32 min

• Stoicism: Rationality and Acceptance

Explore the beginnings of Stoic moral theory in the writings of Seneca and Epictetus, advocating for a life in harmony with the universe.

Duration: 29 min

• Human Finitude: The Epicurean Synthesis

Begin your introduction to Lucretius and link Stoic ideas with Epicurean thoughts on finitude and impermanence.

Duration: 31 min

• Confucius: Order in the Cosmos and in Life

Discuss Confucius’s teachings on warm-heartedness, propriety, virtue, and their relation to the cosmos and life.

Duration: 29 min

13. Daodejing: The Dao of Life and Spontaneity

Examine the profound differences in interpretation that arise among translations of this foundational text.

Duration: 30 min

• Daodejing: The Best Life Is a Simple Life

Understand how the Daodejing encourages a simple, natural life, contrasting social structures.

Duration: 31 min

• Daodejing: Subtlety and Paradox

Conclude your study of the Daodejing by examining its themes related to virtue, negativity, and life’s delicacies.

Duration: 31 min

• Zhuangzi on Daoism: Impermanence and Harmony

Explore themes of spontaneity and a critique of Confucian rigidity in this classic text.

Duration: 32 min

• The Teachings of the Buddha

Discover the Four Noble Truths and the eightfold path towards enlightenment found by Siddhartha Gautama.

Duration: 32 min

18. Santideva: Mahayana Buddhism

Study the evolution of Buddhist thought and how Bodhicaryavatara serves as a guide to leading an enlightened life.

Duration: 32 min

19. Santideva: Transforming the Mind

Enhance your understanding of Mahayana Buddhism and the six perfections essential for a meaningful life.

Duration: 31 min

20. Zen: The Moon in a Dewdrop and Impermanence

Learn about the direct transmission of knowledge and concepts within Zen Buddhism.

Duration: 32 min

• Zen: Being-Time and Primordial Awakening

Explore Zen concepts of duality and non-duality, and Dogen’s views on time and awakening.

Duration: 32 min

• Taking Stock of the Classical World

Reflect on the classical traditions studied and their common dimensions and virtues.

Duration: 31 min

23. Hume’s Skepticism and the Place of God

Examine David Hume’s challenge to theism and the implications of modern science on theology.

Duration: 32 min

• Hume’s Careless and Compassionate Vision

Analyze Hume’s ideas about nature, social lives, and the interplay between passion and belief.

Duration: 31 min

25. Kant: Immaturity and the Challenge to Know

Discuss Kant’s view of Enlightenment as a challenge to emerge from self-imposed immaturity.

Duration: 30 min

26. Mill’s Call to Individuality and to Liberty

Explore John Stuart Mill’s defense of individuality and its connection to a meaningful life.

Duration: 32 min

• Tolstoy: Is Everyday Life the Real Thing?

Reflect on Tolstoy’s critique of modernity and its tendency to lead us to a meaningless life.

Duration: 31 min

• Nietzsche: Twilight of the Idols

Grasp Nietzsche’s dismissal of modern values and his critique of philosophical progress.

Duration: 30 min

29. Nietzsche: Achieving Authenticity

Discover Nietzsche’s vision of life as a creative act and his reaction against modernity’s views.

Duration: 30 min

• Gandhi: Satyagraha and Holding Fast to Truth

Learn about Gandhi’s radical views and the potential sacrifices required for a meaningful life.

Duration: 31 min

• Gandhi: The Call to a Supernormal Life

Explore Gandhi’s life as a testament to the supernormal life he advocates, resonating with themes from previously studied texts.

Duration: 31 min

• Lame Deer: Life Enfolded in Symbols

Experience Lame Deer’s symbolic view of life, contrasting modern symbols with more meaningful perspectives.

Duration: 28 min

33. Lame Deer: Our Place in a Symbolic World

Deepen your understanding with a critique of modernity, focusing on money and nature.

Duration: 33 min

• HH Dalai Lama XIV: A Modern Buddhist View

Explore the Dalai Lama’s vision on happiness and the interconnectedness of human life.

Duration: 32 min

35. HH Dalai Lama XIV: Discernment and Happiness

Engage in a discussion on achieving happiness and the deep traditional elements within modern perspectives.

Duration: 35 min

36. So, What Is the Meaning of Life?

Recognize the complexity in finding a universal answer to life’s meaning, exploring recurrent themes that may resonate with you.

Duration: 34 min