Unresolved Questions & Issues

“In Zen, we don’t find the answers.  We lose the questions”.

-Zen saying

 

“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue”.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

 

As I have said before, I am a very introspective person.  I am always thinking and pondering and musing and contemplating.  It’s part of who I am.  All of these activities can be done too much with the possible exception of contemplation which is a kind of restful gaze into the universe or God, whichever you prefer.  However, even contemplatives need to stand up once in a while and take out the trash or perform some other chore.  The point is that we all have questions or other unresolved issues in our hearts, many of which will never be resolved.  This is true for every person.  I know some people think I have all the answers.  I might have a few.  I, too, have issues and most of them go back to my childhood which is where most issues begin for many people.  Over and above any childhood baggage we carry, we have other experiences on the path of life that may have hurt us.  Sometime we can let these experiences go and move on with our life.  Other times we carry them with us and we continually ask “Why did this happen to me”?  Many times these questions are never answered.  If we are lucky we move on and we lose the questions.  Sometimes we are broken but other times we are healed.  Even with healing there is often a scar.  I once read that gray hair and scars mean that you have survived every challenge so far in your life.  I have grey hair and scars.  You are not weak for having struggles.  You are strong for having survived.