Tim Ward, author of What the Buddha Never Taught, says young adults should spend time learning what is meaningful to them alone

If you’re looking for the meaning of life, you’ll benefit from seeking it out yourself, said author Tim Ward, who spent time in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand in the 1980s.

“I think it’s really valuable for everybody, preferably in their 20s, to really come up against the question, ‘Where does meaning reside,’ ” Ward said. “I think that there is an answer, and that is that part of what it is to be human is to generate meaning.

Ward wrote about his experiences in What the Buddha Never Taught, which …