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I
Q: What is a question?
RF: An answer seeking to be known. More accurately, the answer seeks to be known by, to and within itself, by presenting itself as a question.
From one point of view, question and answer are inseparable.
Essentially, the question is its answer.
From another point of view, the answer is in the future, reaching back and pulling the question towards it.
The answer already is, and becomes a question so we may ask it.
We are invited to engage the question, and participate in its process of becoming.
The question seeks an orientation, a direction, and a movement towards the answer. Simultaneously, the answer sets the trajectory of the question.
For question and answer to be brought together, there is a creative element.
As with any creative action, the action is outside time while unfolding within the time stream.
II
The questions we ask direct the course of our lives.
A question expresses a search; more accurately, a searching.
A question is singular. It cannot take the form of either / or.
The right question attracts the right answer, accepting that the right answer is leaning back and guiding the right question towards it.
There are different qualities of question.
The quality of the question determines the quality of the answer.
Necessary questions have heat: they may even be on fire - these are burning questions.
Necessary questions are practical.
There are also different kinds of question.
So, what is the question?
III
To ask a question sets a process in motion.
As with any process, there are three main stages: the beginning, the middle and the end.
The first main stage: Determining the question.
The second main stage: Holding the question.
The third main stage: Asking the question.
Each of these stages also have three stages: the beginning of the beginning, the middle of the beginning, the end of the beginning, and so on.
The beginning of the beginning, is the question.
Determining the question:
What is my question? I articulate the question.
Why is this my question? I weigh the necessity of the question: is it real, useful, necessary? What is my aim in asking this question? What purpose does an answer serve?
Holding the question:
How may I address this question? I engage, enter into, and examine the question. What is involved? Do I wish to have an answer?
To whom may I address this question? I seek a higher authority than my own, either within or without.
Asking the question: I ask the question.
I surrender to the question.
I surrender to the answer.
The question is answered:
I honour the answer – I act on it.
This action may be internal, external, more likely both.
Always, we act on the answer. Without this, the question withers.
If we are not prepared to act on the answer, better not to ask the question.
III
The right answer changes something on the inside.
Change on the inside makes possible a change on the outside.
Change on the outside is not inevitable.
A change has taken place in potential, while not yet expressed in form and time.
So, something has become possible, and may become actual.
IV
The question holds the answer.
Sometimes, as a gift, we are given an answer to the question we should have asked, not the question that we did ask.
Injunction: Clarify.
Sometimes, we are given the gift of no answer at all.
Injunction: Persist.
Sometimes, we get silly answers.
Injunction: Discriminate.
If we have been present within an action, it is within our experience.
If we are present within our experience, our experience is present within us.
If this is so, we may re-enter and interrogate our experience.
The answer holds the question.
Bredonborough, Middle England;
Sunday 23rd. March, 2025.
