Your Questions Are The Key: A Story For The Serious Student
“This issue has been bothering me for quite some time now. I need to tell him about this. I know he’ll hate me for even asking, but I have to try”.
6 am. Cold morning. A cup of tea in his hand. And his mind is worried about a question he feels his Master can provide with the answers.
The Master wasn’t your conventional Monk. Nor he was the conventional old man. He was the type of Master that would go unnoticed by society’s standards, as was the Student.
He arrived at his Master’s house. Nervous. Even shaking by the excitement.
“Good morning” the Master said. “Come on in”.
“What can I help you with? My dear Student”. As they both seated on the carpet floor at the living room, the Student would glance again at the collection of knowledge in the room, it had always intrigued him. The place was huge, it was packed with books and notebooks. He had always asked himself what those notebooks had written inside. He had never dared to ask, so he wasn’t going to start now.
The Student took a pen that had at his reach, and started playing with it.
“I… I have a question Master”.
“Of course you do. Well, just tell me”.
The Student had been under his Master’s wing for over a month already. He knew some of his ways, although there was still lot to learn.
“There is this particular problem I have. I would like to ask you something about it”
The master had his eyes locked in his student as he listened the young boy articulating the words.
“I need to know what can I do to…”
The Master got up.
He wasn’t mad. He just got up, and left the room.
The Student was confused.
The Master came back, with a cup of hot tea and said:
“You like black tea don’t you?”
The Student was annoyed. Looking up he replied:
“Yes… I do”
The Master put the cup in front of him. He took a notebook from the shelf. Skimmed through the pages and said:
“You can leave the cup there when you finish”. Pointing at a small table at the corner.
“It was nice to see you”.
He took the notebook, and left the room.
The Student was baffled. There was something inside of him that was genuinely angry. He didn’t even touched the tea. He got up, and left.
In the next months the scene would repeat. The Student would walk back to his apartment with more questions than he had the answers he was looking for.
He opened his eyes. It was still dark. He looks at the alarm clock. 5 am.
He had stayed awake the night before taking notes in his notebook. Wondering what had gone wrong the past few months. Wondering what had been his mistake.
It was enough. It was time to find out.
He came back to his Master’s house.
Same scene. Both sitting in front of each other.
The Master completely engaged in the Student’s eyes.
The Student took a deep breath, and said:
“I’ve never dared to ask anything about your ways. Why have you avoided my questions? You haven’t even listened to them”.
The Master leaned forward.
“You were not ready for truth”.
The Student’s eyes opened.
The Master continued.
“Your questions were the world’s questions. Full of assumptions and preconceptions. You were going to ask me, how to do something”.
The Student was ashamed. He looked down. Disappointed.
Then he said:
“I need introspection before I formulate the right question for my problem”.
The Master smiled.
“Now you are on the path of truth”.
It is not about the answers. It is all about the questions.
If the question has a flaw, the answer would be false, full of assumptions.
There are questions that can’t be answered through the lens of truth.
Not because there are no answers to them, but because the preconceived notions around them are false from the beginning.
A serious Student would explore his own self before asking a question out of desperation or reflection.
The questions of the world ask for the how, the plan, the recipe, the step by step, the doing.
The questions of the serious man ask for clarity, more than action.
The serious man knows is up to him to create the action. For the path is only within us.
Free Your Mind.
