Question the question

My family has a love-hate relationship with Mathematics. While I dislike it, my husband and daughters show great affinity towards it. My younger daughter got a rather complex question in math as homework. She attempted to solve it, but the answer seemed elusive.

I asked my elder daughter to explain the problem to her. She encouraged the little one to ask a series of questions to clarify her doubts. At some point, their father chipped in and began another barrage of queries. I was wondering how the little one could come up with question after question and if her query was being resolved in the process, when unexpectedly it seemed her doubts were cleared and she went to her room to write her response.

I didn’t quite understand what had transpired when my husband explained it with a little anecdote. A psychiatrist, who was used to prescribing medications, and spending time with patients on prescription management found solace and comfort in scientific and logical transactions. Mysticism and ingenuousness were lost on him. When he met a Zen monk, he saw a chance to clarify a doubt he had been carrying in his mind for long. The psychiatrist asked “How exactly do you help people with their mental anguish? What technique do you use?” The monk laughed. “I have no technique, no answers. I don’t even deliberately help them. I just get them to a point where they don’t feel the need to ask any more questions, from me or from life”. “How does this work?” asked the baffled psychiatrist. “It’s simple,” said the monk, “the answer lies within each one of us. We just need to remove the layers of doubts one by one.” The psychiatrist smiled, swept by the mysteries of the mind.

By questioning our own questions and truths we begin a journey to remove the barriers we might have created in our own learning path. My daughter found the answer when she exhausted her questions. Once the ripples run their course, the water is calm again. In this clear water, pearls of wisdom reveal themselves.