The Joy of Inquiry

‘Living Inquiry, Endless Surrender’ 12 month online course

A few years ago, when the Olympic games were in Athens, I was watching them one night on T.V. The American commentator decided to give us a taste of Athenian life, so he walked down to the main square with the T.V. cameras. It was about 5pm, and the square was just filling up for the evening. There were children skipping rope and playing tag, teenagers on skateboards, mothers with babies in their arms, students drinking coffee, businessmen with newspapers and liqueurs, and old men playing chess. He strolled for a few minutes around the square, taking in the vitality and general friendliness of the scene.

What I noticed was how many people were actively engaged in talking with each other. Not the cursory cell phone kind of conversation we are so used to now, but real dialogue. It intrigued me so much that I lost interest in the games. When they were over, the same commentator went back to the square at one in the morning, “just for fun” he said. “We’ll see who’s left.”

He was astounded to find that the square was still full, and not because of the games. The mothers and young children had gone home, but they had been replaced by people of all ages who were still talking. This was quite unfathomable to the commentator. Finally he approached a white haired Greek patriarch, who stood up to speak with him. “Excuse me sir,” said the American, “could I ask you a few questions?”
“Of course,” the man beamed. “What would you like to know?” He was a remarkably tall and handsome fellow, towering above the American.
“What do you do here all night long?”
“We enjoy each other’s company,” the Greek replied. We laugh, we sing, and we engage in dialogue. We are eager to find out what is in each other’s hearts and minds.”
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“Will you be on time for work in the morning?” the American asked.
“Of course,” the patriarch replied with a huge smile. “But we Greeks have a different understanding of time and work than you North Americans.”

A few years later, I spent some time running a series of conversation cafes in our community. My intention was to bring as much of the community together as possible, and create an environment where they could engage in dialogue. I had been living in India for 25 years, where dialogue and inquiry are like part of the air you breathe. The people in India, like those in Greece, are not afraid to ask what I call ‘the big questions.’ As my teacher there used to say, “Any rickshaw driver will talk to you about God, life and the universe.”

It was when I was facilitating the conversation cafes that I discovered how different it is in North America. In this culture we have never really learned how to ask ourselves and each other the important questions, and how to listen. We leave that to the philosophers, theologians, preachers, scholars, and scientists. One evening, at one of the cafes, I looked around the room and realized how many people there were who did not really know how to begin engaging in dialogue.  I grabbed my friend David Mackenzie, who was my co-facilitator. “David, I said, Help me! Do something so that these people start really talking to each other.”

David really rose to the moment. He stepped into the centre of the room and said, “Okay folks! Stop. We are all on the Titanic, right now. These are the chairs on the deck of that great ship. Smell the ocean air, listen to the sound of the waves. We’re all going down in about 10 minutes. That’s all the time you have left in this world. Now, what do you have to say to your companions on the deck?”

That certainly livened things up a lot. And it became one of the questions I ask people in my Heart of Communication course. Along with “What or who have been the greatest teachers in your life? What is your deepest longing?
What calls forth your greatest aliveness? What is your biggest challenge? What matters most to you? What are you saying Yes and No to in your life? What do you really love? Who are you really?”

It’s strange, when people are first presented with these questions, they often behave as if they’re in school, facing an exam.  But this is not an exam-it’s your life!  Your life is the living answer to these questions. There are no right or wrong answers. The truth lives inside each one of us, waiting to be discovered. No one else can tell us what our answers are. But we can help each other immensely in this process of inquiry, dialogue and discovery.

A friend of mine had a new job a while ago, in a town up the lake from Nelson. Every day he traveled to work and back in a car with people he didn’t know. He approached me after a few weeks of this, and said, “I’d really like to talk to these people, instead of just listening to the radio, or making small talk. What can I do?”
“Ask them questions,” I replied, “I’ll give you my list.”
“Do you think they’ll be all right with that?” he wondered.
“They will be if you remember one thing,” I said. “Inquiry is essentially an act of love. To ask another person a big question is demonstrating a great deal of respect and deep interest in who they are.”
So he did ask, and he listened, and it was good. He began to discover who those people were on the inside, instead of settling for the outer appearance.

There was a woman in one of my courses who was deeply shocked by this kind of dialogue. “I don’t even talk to my husband this way,” she said. “It just feels so intimate.”
“But isn’t that what you want?” I asked her. “Isn’t this kind of intimacy and connection what we are really longing for?”
“I suppose it is,” she responded. “I think I had just given up hoping that we could really nourish each other in this way.”

At the Oxygen Art Centre where I used to teach writing, there is a sign that says, “Art is essential.” That’s how I feel about inquiry and dialogue. It’s not a luxury- it’s like food and water. Sit down with your partner, take a friend out for lunch, go for a walk with someone at work, and begin, gently, tenderly, to inquire.

‘My friend,
awake awhile.
Just one true moment of love
will last for days.’
-Hafiz

‘Living Inquiry, Endless Surrender’ 12 month online course