Miroslav Volf - Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most

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Copyright 2023 by Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz

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The Open Field/A Penguin Life Book

THE OPEN FIELD is a registered trademark of MOS Enterprises, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Volf, Miroslav, author. | Croasmun, Matthew, 1979 author. | McAnnally-Linz, Ryan, author.

Title: Life worth living: a guide to what matters most / Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz.

Description: New York: The Open Field/Penguin Life, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022030876 (print) | LCCN 2022030877 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593489307 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593489314 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Life.

Classification: LCC BD431.V625 2023 (print) | LCC BD431 (ebook) | DDC 113/.8dc23/eng/20230223

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030876

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030877

Cover design: Jason Alejandro

BOOK DESIGN BY LUCIA BERNARD, ADAPTED FOR EBOOK BY ESTELLE MALMED

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Dear Reader,Years ago, these words attributed to Rumi found a place in my heart:Out beyond ideas ofwrongdoing and rightdoing,there is a field. Ill meet you there.Ever since, Ive cultivated an image of what I call the Open Fielda place out beyond fear and shame, beyond judgment, loneliness, and expectation. A place that hosts the reunion ofall creation. Its the hope of my soul to find my way thereand whenever I hear an insight or a practice that helps me on thepath, I love nothing more than to share it with others.Thats why Ive created The Open Field. My hope is to publish books that honor the most unifying truth in human life: We are all seeking the same things. Were all seeking dignity. Were all seeking joy. Were all seeking love and acceptance, seeking tobe seen, to be safe. And there is no competition for these things we seekbecause they are not material goods; they are spiritual gifts!We can all give each other these gifts if we share what we knowwhat has lifted us up and moved us forward. That is our duty to one anotherto help each other toward acceptance, toward peace, toward happinessand my promise to you is that the books published under this imprint will be maps to the Open Field, written by guides who know the path and want to share it.Each title will offer insights, inspiration, and guidance for moving beyond the fears, the judgments, and the masks we all wear. And when we take off the masks, guess what? We will see that we are the opposite of what we thoughtwe are each other.We are all on our way to the Open Field. We are all helping one another along the path. Ill meet you there.Love,Maria Shriver

To our Life Worth Living students, at Yale and beyond: This book is dedicated to you. We hope it bears witness to what we have learned together.

To our readers: Your life is worth living. We hope this book helps you more profoundly appreciate the worthiness of our shared humanity.

CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION

This Book Might Wreck Your Life

B efore he became the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautamas life was going quite well by the usual standards. He was a prince, after all, and enjoyed the luxuries and privileges of royalty. He lived in an opulent palace, ate delicacies, dressed in fine clothes. His father cared for him and was grooming him to rule the kingdom. He had married a princess. They were expecting their first child.

Wealth, power, and familial bliss were his. Every day, he tasted the fruit of the good life. Until it all turned to ashes in his mouth.

One day, while riding through the royal park, Siddhartha saw a feeble old man and was struck by the tragic decay of age. The next day, in the same park, he came upon a sick man. And the day after that, a rotting corpse. Thoroughly shaken by the suffering that seemed to pervade existence, he returned once more to the park, on the day of his sons birth. This time, he met a wandering monk and was overtaken by the impulse to renounce his royal life.

That very night, Siddhartha left everything to seek enlightenment. He didnt stop to say goodbye to his wife and newborn son, for fear that his courage would fail. His life was now a quest. He had seen the truth of suffering and would not stop seeking until he had found the way to overcome it. He began to fast and to discipline his body, trying to attain release through spiritual exertion. All to no avail. So he searched elsewhere.

Several years after leaving home, Siddhartha sat motionless at the foot of a fig tree. For seven weeks he meditated, until at last he reached the insight he had been seeking: suffering comes from craving, so the one free from craving will be freed from suffering. He dedicated the rest of his life to communicating this insight, delivering the gift of enlightenment to anyone who would receive it. Nearly twenty-five hundred years later, his teachings shape the lives of millions of Buddhists and countless others who have found value in his way of life.

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B EFORE HE BECAME KNOWN as the first pope, Simon was an ordinary man. He lived in a small house in a small town by a small lake in a small fiefdom at the edge of a very large empire. He had married a woman from the same town and lived near his in-laws. Like many of his neighbors, he made his living as a fisherman. He spent many of his nights out on the lake with his brother, Andrew, plying their trade, looking for a catch. On the seventh day of the week, as the law of God commanded, he rested and attended services at the local synagogue.

A stable trade, a family, a community. Not a flashy life, but a respectable one filled with ordinary goodness. Until two words turned the whole thing upside down.

Follow me. Jesus, the new teacher from Nazareth, stood on the shore and called to Simon and Andrew. Ordinarily, this would be crazy talk. Who walks up to two guys at work and tells them to drop everything and follow him around? But Jesus spoke with surprising authority. Word around town was that his preaching rang true, that his words carried power, that amazing things happened when he was there.

For some unknown reason, Simon followed. For three years, he listened and tried to understand. Awestruck, he watched miracle after miracle. He learned to call this man not merely teacher, but Lord. And this lord, in turn, gave him a new name: Peter, which means rock. But time and again, Peter failed to live up to his name. He misunderstood, he got overzealous, and when it counted most, he lost his nerve: when the authorities arrested Jesus, Peter denied even knowing him. He watched helplessly as imperial soldiers crucified his Lord. Everything would have been lost, all of his following come to nothing. Except that on the third day, astonishingly, he encountered his Lord, raised from the dead.

From then on Peters whole life was devoted to living as Jesus directed and spreading the good news about him. For years, he led the growing community of followers. Not many fishermen got farther away from home than a hundred-mile pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Peters mission led him to Syria and Greece and even the imperial capital, Rome. Eventually, it led to his death. According to Christian tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome. He is said to have insisted that he be hung upside down, because he was not worthy of the honor of dying in the same way as his Lord.

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