Featured

Questions

Questions. They’re easily recognisable. It’s when a kid asks why the sky is blue, or why can’t I have that ice-cream. It’s when a tourist asks how to get to Chinatown, or when a girl asks a passer-by where are we (because guys will never ask for directions).

And then there are those that reside in our heads, constantly questioning our actions, why am I in this job, what am I having for dinner, what does my boss think of me, why am I not improving, why am I not practising hard, why am I still fat, why haven’t that guy approach me yet…

In keeping with the spirit of learning less everyday, I find that I need to lower the number of questions. I normally find that the more questions I ask, the more questions will appear. And it’s exponential, the questions somehow attracts a trail of other questions, and the trail will only stop if you stop questioning.

As I learn more about Tai Ji, I find that we tend to answer questions that aren’t being asked at all. We tend to tell others, regardless of whether we really understand what we’re saying, that you shouldn’t be doing this, you should be moving like that, you should be more relaxed, your hand should be here, your leg should be there etc. If there’s no one there for you to impart your “wisdom”, you’ll start asking yourself - why does this not feel right, why can’t I relax my kua, why can’t I bend lower, why does my knees hurt…

Somehow, we are just asking too many questions and the answers are just not catching up fast enough. The race to understanding the world around us and ultimately understanding ourselves seem to have only one winner - the Questions. Answers are constantly losing every round of this race.

Is this a fair race? Should we be constantly asking? Questioning? Is this how humans grow? Look, more questions.

It comes to a point that I hate questions. So much so that I want to stop asking, and let the Answers come to the Questions, rather than letting the Questions go seek the Answers. So I’ve cut down on questioning myself why and just ignore the Question until the Answer presents itself. By then, the Question will be irrelevant as the Answer cancels out the Question.

So if the next time I did not answer you, it’s because I don’t know the answer, and you shouldn’t be asking as well, because by telling you the answer does not actually answer your question. To really answer your question, you have to answer it yourself. Are you patient enough to learn the answer truthfully? I guess that is the real question.

© 2008 shang lee . com.