How to (insert verb) the (insert number) most (insert adjective) (insert noun, plural)

I am too old to have answers.

I have experienced too much to give advice.

Still, today is the first day in weeks nobody approached me about some issue.

I am glad to help. Open minds, windows, doors. Ignite a healing process. Lift spirits.

The majority are friends, people I know.

Their backstories. Their systems of belief. With others, I try to anticipate the background of the issue.

I am mature enough to admit when I don’t have a clue. I’ve made enough mistakes to admit when I’m wrong. I am old enough to know when I don’t know.

I learned to ask.

We like to treat questions like something we have to solve. We demand answers. We give answers, we give advice. But a lot of problems don’t need to be solved.

They need to be heard.

Questions don’t necessarily need answers. Sometimes they need to be asked and thought about.

In some Zen traditions, the teacher gives the disciple a Koan. That’s a short sentence, a question, a story or a task, with a twist.

The best known is: What’s the sound of one hand clapping.

A Koan doesn’t demand an immediate answer, or an answer at all. It demands the process of meditating about it, until some insight is gained. Dealing with the question changes something inside you when there is no right answer to be had.

Since logic only gets you so far, working on a Koan improves your intuitive understanding of reality.

Reality is weird. When you think about it.

When you don’t.

Reality gets unreal, when you try to answer. You only get a glimpse of the matter.