In the movies ‘Laggies’ is this dialogue…
Megan: (to Annika) Okay, sure. A plan. Do you have one?
Annika: It kind of seems stupid to plan that far in advance when you’re just gonna change your mind anyway, right?…
Megan: It does seem stupid to make some sort of rigid plan for the future. But it’s stupider not to start paying attention to who you are and what makes you happy. Otherwise, you just float.
Comments: It is stupid to not plan at all, as it means to be purposeless, wasting time in this short life. But it is just as stupid to plan rigidly, as conditions are likely to change later. What we really want to do is not due to who we are now, and what makes us happy, in a superficial way.
What we really want to do is due to who we can really be – liberated and enlightened, with perfect compassion and wisdom – which is what makes us happy, in a true way. Anything less than going in this direction is just floating, adrift in the sea of Samsara!
Megan later comments that ‘Monks and priests get their calling from God but that means it was from something outside; it wasn’t from something inside, right?’ Not that Buddhists subscribe to belief in such a god, for Buddhists, our spiritual calling does come from inside, but it can be conditioned from the outside to arise too. The Buddha-nature slightly awakened gives rise to the calling from within, and the inspiring Buddha’s teachings outside form the calling from without. That within and without thus aligns, as we use the teachings to further awaken our Buddha-nature.