Yoga and the Art of Living the Questions

It's been 24 years since that fateful day forever to be known as 9/11. The main question I think we need to ask ourselves always is: "what have we learned from it that we can use to help the world at-large in some small way in each and every day?"

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When I was in my young teen years, I remember taking biology as a freshman in high school. I recall one of the first assignments we were given was to write a short essay answering the question: “what is life?” While I don’t remember what specific questions were swirling in my head, I do remember pondering that question from many different angles and working myself into a psychic frenzy. I remember peppering my mom with questions, and while she couldn’t answer all of them for me, she gave me her full motherly attention as she helped me in her patient and supportive way to try to find answers. I would love to have that essay now to see what answers I came up with back then so that I can compare them to the answers I would come up with in the present moment, now that I have had a long and full life. 
 
I’ve had a sense all through my life that on the scale of inquisitiveness from low to high that I am probably on the higher end of the spectrum. I remember I used to drive my first dance teacher crazy. He’d say: “you think too much.” Sometimes, these days, I’ll drive my husband crazy by asking too many questions leaving him to reply “I don’t know.”
 
But now, I’ve come to see that perhaps asking questions is not such a bad thing. And also, concluding “I don’t know” is also a good thing.
 
Last month, I was drawn in deeply to an On Being podcast in which host Krista Tippett interviewed the Buddhist Teacher and Ecological Philosopher, Joanna Macy (1929 – 2025) and her friend, the Psychologist and Poet, Anita Barrows. Both Joanna and Anita had translated works from the Austrian poet and novelist, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926). In this conversation, they discussed several passages from their new translation of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. Rilke had an ongoing back and forth with a young poet, Franz Kappus, who was also a 19-year-old military cadet. Their back-and-forth dialogue was set against the tumult of the turn into the 20th Century 125 years ago. Perhaps the conditions back then were not too different than the current tumult of our relatively nascent 21st Century? Certainly, there are parallels – namely that the conditions for a world war may once again be on the horizon.
 
The discussion over the 4th Letter really caught my attention. As translated by Joanna and Anita, Rilke says to the young poet and soldier:
 
I ask you dear sir
to have patience with all that is unresolved in your heart
and to try to love the questions themselves.
like closed rooms.
like books written in a foreign language.
Don’t try to find the answers now.
They cannot be given anyway because you would not be able to live them.
For everything is to be lived.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you then may gradually one day into the future live into the answers.
 
Oh, how I wish I had read this poem as a young person. It might have spurred me to embrace the not knowing as a potential path towards more freedom. And it might have helped me to let go of some of the angst arising from all the not knowing. 
 
In the commentary after the reading of this poem, Joanna Macy exclaimed: “what a wonderful way to relate to uncertainty!” I wholeheartedly agree! 
 
Krista Tippet’s went on to say that her life practice is to “hold the questions, treasure the questions … nurture [them], walk with [them].” Joanna Macy said if you do this the answers will come towards you. She says: “Open to the reciprocity of life … it’s a living world … we can listen to it … we can open to it … it’s a mystery … and we meet the mystery, then it talks.” Then, from that vantage point, we can listen for the answers.
 
Here are some key takeaways I gleaned from this discussion:
 
1) Ask good questions. Perhaps the better the questions, the better the answers will eventually be.
 
2) This is a call for me to come back to the present moment over and over again. Stay grounded in the silence of the present moment. It is only in resting my mind there that the answers can start to move towards me and I can begin to perceive them.

3) Know at the outset that the answers may take a lifetime to come towards me and/or a lifetime for me to be ready to perceive them.
 
4) Needing to know the answers is like a prison I can easily choose to free myself from.
 
Complementing this practice of “living the questions” and “one day living into the answers” is a teaching that Pema Chödrön offered, which also really resonated with me. Pema wrote:
 
“Groundlessness, uncertainty, insecurity, vulnerability – these are words that ordinarily carry a negative connotation. We’re generally wary of these feelings and try to elude them in any way possible. But groundlessness isn’t something we need to avoid. The same feeling we find so troubling when we open to it can be experienced as a huge relief, as freedom from all restraints. It can be experienced as a mind so unbiased and relaxed that we feel expansive and joyful.”
 
From this I gleaned that there is an exquisite freedom to be had in swimming in groundlessness. Yes, the practice of living the questions may start out feeling unsettling, but at some point, it could turn into a joyous adventure. Not being fixated on any particular outcome may give way to the realization of something magical and unexpected that was initially unimaginable.
 
Deepak Chopra says “uncertainty is my path to freedom ....” I think that is a remarkable statement for anyone to be able to make, and perhaps has led him to being as successful as he has been.
 
My main questions now? Here are a few:
 
1) What is to explain all the evil acts that are leading to immense suffering in the world at this time? 
 
2) In what ways within my capacity can I help to alleviate some of that suffering?
 
3) Will democracy survive?
 
4) What will I have for dinner?
 
With regard to questions 1, 2, and 3, Rilke might have advised me that I may not be ready for the answers now because I “would not be able to live them.” But if I am willing to simply “live the questions [for] now” and remain open to any and all possibilities, perhaps I will gain enough insight over time so that I “may [then] gradually one day into the future live into the answers.”
 
As for the answer to question 4, I will soon find out. One thing is for certain, I am enormously grateful that I can even anticipate having dinner, as I am well aware that many people around the world cannot do the same at this time. This makes me feel incredibly sad.
 
Over the course of the past month, as I have lived with these practices, I often wondered “what will the final draft of this e-Letter read like?” Well, readers, here it is. These are the answers and personal life experiences that, in my silent moments as I contemplated these teachings, came to me to share with you.
 
As always, I hope these lessons from a few venerable souls I admire are helpful to you as you live your questions. And, as always, I bow down to your best efforts to listen to the silence.

May you be happy, …
May you be healthy, …
May you live the questions, …
May you live into the answers, …
May whatever realizations come to you from the silent spaces of your awareness somehow serve those nearest to you, ... and ultimately benefit All Beings Everywhere.
 
Aloha and Metta,
Paul Keoni Chun

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Images from this past month that inspired me to live the questions

I also wondered what images from this past month would I end up wanting to share with you. Here's what came to me:

Tribute in Light, 9.11.25, in Lower Manhattan. As we continue to ask "Why, God, why?" may we also pledge to "never forget" and ask this question daily: "how can we serve?"

At South Lido Key Beach, this bird is asking "what's for breakfast?" Nature never ceases to amaze me!

At Selby Gardens Historic Spanish Point in Osprey, FL, Nature delighted me at this Butterfly garden. I learned earlier this month at a Stanford Open Minds event that leaves are an engineering powerhouse. How they take energy from the sun to ultimately create food to sustain life on Earth is an incredible feat. And then Nature created creatures like this butterfly to assist in pollinating other plants and flowers -- that is another miracle. My main question is: "how does Nature do all these remarkable things?!" I surely hope to one day live into the answers!

View of the windward side of the Koʻolau Mountains from the Nuʻuanu Pali Lookout on Oʻahu. i will never cease to ask "how did Nature create this spectacular beauty?!"

I got to see the Yankees play the White Sox back on 9.23. They came back to win the game in the bottom of the 9th! The question on many New Yorkerʻs minds at the moment is "will the Yankees win the World Series in 2025?!" Soon we will live into that answer! Letʻs go, Yankees! 

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Photo Credits:
Photos from around NYC, Florida, and Hawaiʻi all shot by me.