Since there can be nothing beyond existence that existence can have any meaning to, anything we see as the meaning of existence can be no more than part of existence. When we try to find the meaning of existence we are therefore trying to find one part of existence that somehow gives all the others value, yet all parts of existence are aspects of the same whole and are therefore interchangeable, so that if any has value, all must have value. Meaning is a separation between sign and significance, and therefore the meaning of life requires defining a whole that is infinite, which is a contradiction in terms.
It can only end up in achieving an inequality between one aspect of existence and another, a submission of what we call the sign to the dominance of the significance. The search for meaning is a search to separate one aspect of existence from all others. In Buddhism, that separation from the rest of existence is would be called selfhood, the cause of all suffering, whereas the connection with all of existence would be called enlightenment, the cause of all happiness. If we are to find happiness, we must therefore let go of meaning.
By trying to define the meaning of our existence, our ego is trying to make head or tails of a circle.
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