Allowing Vulnerability with Open Questioning and Open Listening
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. —Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
As the Rilke quote suggests, patience can be more than simply waiting for an anticipated outcome. Patience can be a process of inquiry that involves far more than waiting. An honest question is a question that comes from not knowing. It’s not a challenge or a debate but rather a true inquiry that, even if only for a moment, originates beyond the boundaries of our safety zones. This open questioning takes courage because it asks us to stand alone, without our preconceived views of people and events. It invites a true sense of “I wonder.” And because it’s open, our view is forced to widen.
from Deep Hope: Zen Guidance for Staying Steadfast When the World Seems Hopeless by Diane Eshin Rizzetto
