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

Tue Jul 31 07:45:52 PDT 2012

Aha moment!!!  Thanks Steve
Peace....Wanda

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.

On Jul 31, 2012, at 7:22 AM, steve har <stevehar11201 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
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