As most of you know, my mom died a couple months ago. This has made me reconfirm something I committed to a long time ago, but which I still forget from time to time. It’s vital for every person to come into themselves. And that’s not some kind of deviant sexual reference. It means you need to find what your role is in the world and fulfill that role without fear or reservation. This is tough because often what we want to do and what we think we should do are quite dirfferent. But doing what you need to do is the most important contribution you can make to the Universe. We’re all going to die. It’s important to use the life you have in the best way possible. Just know that what you think that means and what it really means may not be precisely the same.

My teacher, Gudo Nishijima, always says that when you establish the Balanced State you can do exactly what you want. But it’s often very difficult to quiet your brain down to the point where you can differentiate between what you think you want to do and what you really want to do. I’ll give you my own concrete example.

When I was a kid, I thought that when I grew up I wanted to be a horror movie host like The Ghoul who showed cheap-o Japanese sci-fi flicks like Gamera Vs. Monster X — in which a giant fire-breathing turtle and a massive toad that spits poison spears duke it out in Osaka — and blew up plastic model kits every Saturday night on Cleveland’s channel 61. I talk about Dogen and Nishijima a lot these days but not much about The Ghoul. He was a major role model just by being honest. He’d come on during commercial breaks and tell you straight out that the movie sucked and watching it was a waste of time. Maybe so. But listening to someone who tells the truth is never a waste of time. Though the horror host business dried up before I was old enough to enter into it, I found the same attitude in punk rock and took to that. I found that what made me happiest was going up in front of people and making a fool of myself by telling them what I knew to be true.

But I was also very idealistic. I wanted to save the world! I thought that being an entertainer — especially a punk rock musician or, god forbid, a monster movie host — was a low and base thing, unworthy and ignoble. So I ended up going to college and getting a teaching degree. Teaching the little children! Awwwwwwww….. What could be more beautiful? After graduation I took a job at the Summit County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities helping poor mentally handicapped people learn how to cope with life. Even better! What could be a more saintly occupation than helping these unfortunate people find joy and value in their sad lives?

God, I hated that job. Not every minute of it. Some of the people I worked with, the retarded ones mostly, were the greatest people I ever met in my life, and they weren’t nearly as sad as I thought they’d be. But for the most part it was all I could do just to get through each day I worked at that place. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I quit, moved to Japan and eventually took a job at a company that made low budget monster movies just like Gamera Vs. Monster X. For the first couple years, I was so freaking happy my head almost exploded. Yet I felt incredibly guilty about it, too. I’d gone from something honorable and good to something almost unbelievably vile and base. A few years before, I’d been helping those in need. Now I was working on crappy monster movies. What right did I have to be happy about that?

Meanwhile I was still studying and practicing Zen. So I talked to Nishjijima about my dilemma. I was thinking of quitting the monster movie company and doing something more worthy, going out and saving all beings, that sort of thing. I was fairly vague about it. But I knew I ought to be doing something other than what I was doing. Nishijima listened to me whine for a while and then said I should definitely continue working in the entertainment business. This was clearly what I actually wanted to do and, as such, it was the place where I could be most truly useful.

At the time that just shocked me to the core. I was truly baffled by what he said. How could it possibly be better to work in an industry that made movies about mutant slugs eating Shinjuku than working for an organization dedicated to saving the planet? Isn’t that what Buddhism is all about?

But I took his advice and I stayed. And as I continued my job I began seeing that saving all beings is not limited to doing those things that society has sanctified as noble and worthy. Real balance is needed everywhere, in all walks of life. Those whom society has labeled as “needy” aren’t the only ones in need. Those professions society has labeled as “worthy” aren’t the only jobs that need doing. Society is fucked. So why would society’s definitions of who among it was truly in need and which among its professions is noble be any less fucked?

By following Nishijima’s advice, a weird thing has happened. I am now exactly the Buddhist equivalent of The Ghoul, broadcasting a low-rent, low powered message to a tiny band of weirdos who like seeing me blow shit up. Yet this is what I need to be doing. Someone who attended one of my classes (which are always open to the public, just so you know) had a similar dilemma. She wants to save the world, but what she truly enjoys — and I swear I’m not making this up — is studying the sex lives of mollusks. I told her what Nishijima told me. What you truly like to do is the best thing you can do to save the world. The world needs mollusk researchers. For all we know mollusks may hold the key to human survival. If the people who really love studying them are off doing something else because they think that’s nobler we could all end up dead! Of course, if teaching the little children or helping the handicapped or whatever is your thing, by all means do it. But do it because it’s your real calling, not because everyone else says that’s what you ought to do.

Anyway. Mom dying just gave me a much-needed whack on the head to stop hemming and hawing and start really doing what needs doing. Cuz you don’t know how long you’ve got. You really don’t. So it’s vital to be 100% honest all the time — taking into account, of course, that you need to be polite and courteous. And, hey, aren't I always polite and couteous?

Doing what you truly do best is how you save the world. It’s absolutely irrelevant whether or not society deems that a worthy profession and rewards it accordingly. The thing you like doing best may be the key to what needs doing most.

Brad Warner is the author of Hardcore Zen and the forthcoming Sit Down and Shut Up!. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff. If you're in Southern California and you want to try some Zazen for yourself, he has a group that meets every Saturday in Santa Monica.