Live the Questions Now

Upon first reading this letter by Rilke, I griped: "Jeez, I feel like I've been 'living the questions' for decades! When am I going to get to live some of the answers?! (grumble, grumble)"

However, upon hearing it read again for the evening, my perspective began to expand. A logical follow-on thought to the above might be: "Well, are you asking the right questions?" (But that also makes me want to grumble.)

Finally, I remembered an idea I'd seen in several books ("The User Illusion", "The Secret Teachings of Plants" - and I suppose Wittgenstein's "Blue" and "Brown" books) - that words, that language, is not reality but merely a pointer to reality. When an experience - or for that matter, a *question* - has been reduced to words (and a mental concept is usually also expressed in words), then you are no longer dealing with reality. You're working with a limited model of reality - sort of like using a map, rather than being in the actual terrain that the map points to.

So that was my ultimate take-away from the Rilke piece: Don't become preoccupied with your verbalized questions. Just be present to the experience. Live it, flow with it - and try to appreciate where it takes you.

 Last weekend, I went to Henry Cowell Park in Felton. As I walked among the redwoods, I was asking myself the question, how old is the ground on which I am walking? What does the ground say to me if it has a voice? My daughter mentioned that some of the mature trees are over 2000 years old. But knowing the redwood trees, the root system allows for more trees to grow out of the same roots and what if the roots are 10000 or 15,000 years old. What would be the story of the roots and how different would it be from the story of the trees? Then, a volunteer who was walking with us mentioned that the roots are shallow and spread across the land to support the trees because the trees are some times over 200 feet tall. That means, the ground on which I am walking has roots not too far down, They have seen the birth and death of Christ, seen the wars, seen the peace, may be have seen the dinosaurs. If only we could listen to the stories they tell, what would we do differently? So the ground looks at roots as young. Roots look at 2000 year old trees as young trees. They look at us and what would they say?

How proud, how knowledgeable I think I am. Where will my knowledge fit in the ecosystem of the redwood forest? What questions do I not even know to ask?

So all my answers are so temporary -- short term, shallow answers. But the questions -- if I could only hold onto the questions -- then maybe I can enjoy the kind of answers I had at different times of my life...

You are right, Rainier -- it is not the answers that matter -- the questions do. Do I know the right questions to ask? That is a good question to reflect on...

Thank you Viral!

I have had a quote from this passage on the fridge for years - familiar as it may be, when I read it, it doesn't fail to hit me like a jokester/fool/coyote!  :)  Reminding me of something my head does not want to believe or go along with.  Even so, some thread of truth seems to make it into my system and resonate - even if it's just an "I know, I know!" - and I often feel my shoulders drop and a big or faint amount of relief.  

I was excited to read it today - because I was wondering over the weekend, can curiosity be a substitute for intention?  

I was reading a passage in "Callings" by G. Levoy (p. 150 on "The Burning Questions") about curiosity and Big Questions - and realized that sometimes it is easier for me to be curious about something, than it is to set a clear (and committed!) intention.  Asking if I can be curious about something, somehow feels different.  Can I be curious about the unknown (and, about the uncomfortable known)?  Is that enough?  I am more in a habit of asking if I can set an intention to get through something, to be open, compassionate.  Is that too controlling, or does that get me engaged, not avoiding things, if I bring intention/commitment into the picture?  Curiosity feels like a sister of intention...lighter, though.

I wonder where the line can be drawn, between the two - intention and curiosity?  I see the merits of both.  Maybe they're not too far distant, relatives??  Sister skills?

I am curious (no pun intended!) what others would think about this?

Love and thanks, Kate

"Why can't Mama kiss and hug me as you do, Daddy?," I asked when I was four.  That is my first memory of asking my father many, many questions about love, life, and how to love and live.  My mother thought I was "weird" and "too sensitive, " and I believed that something was wrong with me, spending many decades depressed.           Decades later, the questions have led me on such an unimaginable, inner journey, including back to my first teacher, my father, who would not follow the doctors' predictions of his death.  He had more questions to ask, even as his body wasted away and he was bed-ridden with pain.  The most precious answer he shared with me is what keeps bringing me back to him: "Susan, I don't know what will happen.  All I know is that love and life continue.  My job is not to decide to die.  My job is to reach out to love and life, everyday."  He lived many, many months, beyond all predictions, because he had to practice answering the question: How can I best reach out to love and live, today. That takes courage to ask questions and be in the "I don't know" place, and courage to shed as much of the little self, before shedding one's skin.

Thanks much Viral for the opportunity to respond.  Questions often lead us to growth.  Excessive questioning, however, may arise from our desire to be certain.  Richard Rohr states that wanting to be certain is our original sin/mistake.  I agree. Accepting "what is" helps us accept uncertainty.  Knowing that I don't know and understanding that I do not understand have been helpful for me.  As it is natural to know, so is it natural to "not know."

Schools and universities could help students become more educated, as opposed to being primarily trained for jobs, when they allow students to freely explore what students find remarkable, interesting, and important  (in an ungraded atmosphere).  Noticing that training is surpassed by self-directing learning can lead us to noticing, as Shunryu Suzuki says;  we are not one and not two.

Kahlil Gibran's idea: "If the teacher is indeed wise, he is not bid you to enter the house of wisdom, but rather, leads you to the threshold of your own mind" is worth considering.  Now is the only time one can have a question.  Now is the only time one can accept uncertainty and understand that one does not understand.

As Robert Pirsig asks:  “And what is good Phaedrus, and what is not good; need we ask others to tell us these things?"

With much gratitude to all.

This is simply a divine passage – pure honesty to the soul-spirit of life’s truth’s... Just Devine.