Can Buddhism help me find my passion?
score:7
The "passion" you talk about sounds like a craving for something which you haven't defined. Your question seems to be asking, "I crave something (I crave something to feel passionate about), but I don't know how to find the object of my craving. Can Buddhism tell me how to find what I crave?"
I think that basic Buddhism teaches one to recognize that "craving" as the source of dissatisfaction.
If your craving were for the sense-pleasure or the feeling-pleasure of an addictive drug (cocaine for example), I think that Buddhism would recommend that you seek less of it rather than seeking more.
The "happiness" you mention at the end sounds to me like it might be Sukha. I think there are several sources of sukha (i.e. several conditions, several types of activity which condition sukha), for example such as listed in the Pali literature section of that Wikipedia article.
Someone once lent me a book, titled The Buddha's Teachings to Laypeople: Practical Advice for Prosperity and Lasting Happiness, which I recommend. It organizes, summarizes, and references suttas which contain practical advice for laypeople. There are a lot of them! It has various chapters: about earning, saving, and spending money; having good relationships with people; making good decisions; and so on.
Upvote:4
Usual disclaimer - this is a Zen answer, not a Vipassana answer.
The short answer is yes, but I think the reasons for me saying so may disappoint you. It's basic Buddhism to say that our dissatisfaction in life comes from craving. I agree with ChrisW in that I think the passion you are seeking is just another manifestation of that craving. That is not a slight against you. The Buddha was not stating the obvious when he first declared the noble truths. After almost 2,500 years, it's pretty obvious that people still haven't caught on.
What Buddhism offers - especially in the way of meditation practice - is another way of engaging the world. We often see our lives as an unfolding narrative. We imagine the characters who come into it and the events that transpire to be a meaningful, cohesive story. We add further artifice when we throw our expectations into the mix and think things like "I must find a passion in my life!", "such and such must happen by the time I'm 40!", "I want to be such and such kind of person!", etc. According to Buddhism (specifically Zen), these expectations are a source of immense unhappiness; our belief that life has a sense of narrative cohesiveness is also a complete illusion. Rather than searching for something or expecting our life to play out in a predetermined way, our practice asks that we simply sit and watch it unfold without forcing it. I think it's profoundly presumptuous to believe that we can forge a better life for ourselves than that which grows naturally simply from our wholehearted being in the world. We miss so much happiness when we try to force the world to conform to our expectations. We set ourselves up for misery when we try to become the people we think we ought to be. The way of Buddhism is to be what Christian author C.S. Lewis calls "surprised by joy". Don't look for it; it will find you.
Meditation practice develops that hands-off approach to living in microcosm. It equips us with the tools to just be with the universe. Rather than relying on desire and expectation to reveal a passion to you, sit down on the cushion and let it come all on its own. If it never appears, who cares? At the end of a life of sincere practice, the wisdom you find and the joy you discover unexpectedly will more than make up for it.
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