[Dialogue] Whole-hearted questions, Whole-hearted Answers

[steve har]

I got a 1 to 1 note from Joyce asking what's up with this Wiegel &
Harrington exchange about questions.

I'm guessing she's worried there is some kind of animus in our
back-and-forth -or she thinks one or the other of us are in deep weeds
of confusion.

Just to be clear: I have no animus or upset going what so ever.
I actually like Wiegel's questions.
I'm thinking he is trying  to open up some more powerful more lively
discorse in this dialogue.

Personally I like the idea of
-sharper questions that move texting forward
-sharper questions that cause interesting answers
-koans, and cross-word puzzles that make you do an Arsinio Hall
reaction like..."Makes you go hmmm?"

I enjoy obscure references to our common and uncommon literature.
Surely Wiegels carp quote [is he carping]? is out of the book the Ronin.
So is my retort, by the way: "neither does the severed branch leave the tree"
Didn't read the Ronin? Worth it and cheep on Amazon. I think Jack
Gilles may have a list of the sections that used to be read as a bed
time story in LENS seminars.

I think Wiegel is on to something by inviting edgy questions and a
more focused dialogue - especially in a year celebrating 50 years of
past and envisioning 50 years of ICA future.

By comparison, in the Soto Zen community there is a tradition called
"Dokusan" where there is a public, pregnant exchange of views between
the  teacher & student about what is real and what is important. It
often takes the form of Q & A but at a deeper more existential
levels...almost anything goes that engages what is ready-to-hand in
the exchange.

Shunryu Suzukii's famous quote comes from this tradition: "In
Beginner's Mind there are many possibilities, In Expert's Mind there
are few. It implies that fresh questions and real inquiry create fresh
answers; which in turn loose their freshness.

Two short personal examples of teacher-student encounters

Some questions become life-long inquiries. For example one time Kaye
Hayes asked: "Steve, what is one thing that grounds you in history? I
said immediately: Satyagraha: Gandhi's term for something like firm
grasping for the truth." I'm stilly carrying around that question. It
is still alive for me.

Another time the Sarpanch of Maliwada asked me a question when Chan
and I came to visit and to see what Maliwada was -long after the
project was over. He offered me tea and I refused to drink it. He
asked: "Steve, you came all this way and I see you refuse to drink my
tea, why is this? I knew the answer immediately but couldn't say so I
bowed Namaste fashion in silence. What I couldn't say but saw
immediately that I was afraid to drink the tea boiled in water for
fear of becoming ill. It was a foolish fear of course, but the deeper
point, I was just just being a tourist in my own life at that moment,
just passing through, full of thinking but very little being, very
little doing, not much integrity -the kind of integrity that JWM
called Maliwada Integrity where what you say and what you do actually
fits together, you know you are not a tourist in your own life, just
passing through on a tour.

So in a Soto Community  "Dokusan" type encounter, anyone can claim
either the role: student or teacher. Often the student asks the
teacher a question or offers an assertion, the teacher responds. Or it
is the other way around the teacher asks, the student self-selects and
engages the question. there is an 800 year tradition of recording
these encounters with respect poetry, commentary and picking up the
question again and again to squeeze new wisdom out of it.

In the Q & A encounter people listen for the wisdom point not for
animus, not for logic either.   The Q & A proceeds until either the
student or the teacher bows and steps back realizing the last point is
the wisdom point and acknowledging it. The other listeners often "get
it" too and write it down.

There really is no "make wrong" no shame-making or cynicism, no
animus, no snarky drive-bys.

In the Q & A , it is a discourse to find out what's so and make what
is actually so clear to everyone present: the student, the teacher and
the audience.

It is said to be how "Stones polishing each other" and learn to speak
clearly & wholehearted. "Stones" also do real work besides real
discourse.

In non-poetic lingo some kinds of discourse are performative not just
"words. See: "speech acts": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin

What IS the "proper" form of dialogue in the dialogue?

What possibilities do you notice?

More like this:
-acknowledgement of the life and energy of colleagues? Yes
-announcements? yes
-personal epiphanies and realizations? yes
-ICA hopes and dreams? yes

Less like this [I say]
-flights of wistful nostalgia for the past? Boring
-ORID in a texting sequence? Meh. In text ORID is horrid. Gets
processed in my in box not my heart
-aimless chit-chat? Drivel. It drives people away like Wayne Elsworth
-people opining more layers of self-referencing abstractions? Thank
you Dr. Descartes, who thinks thinking comes 1st before being and
doing which might come later [or not]

Not every dialogue needs whole-hearted intentionality, of course.

Returning to Joyce's question: what's up with you guys in the dialogue?
It is a good question.

My answer is polishing stones, learning to ask and answer wholehearted
questions with wholehearted answers. I think this is what Wiegel might
be up to. Anyway it is what I'm up for.

Joyce's Q is like Brian Stanfield's story from Courage to Lead from
his own acknowledged teacher Joe Pierce who had something to say at
the Lusaka airport.

The customs official asked: Have anything to declare Mr. Pierce.
Mr Pierce answered the question full-out and whole-hearted.
The official stepped back.
Stanfield doesn't say if the customs official bowed - or not.

Do you have anything to declare Mr. Wiegel?
[heh, heh, heh]

Steve







--
Steve Harrington