Mu

I love questions that have no answer.  Many years ago a child asked me the name of a flower he'd picked, and I said "It's a Bluebell." and he looked at me wide-eyed and said "But why doesn't it ring?"

In Eastern philosophy, especially Zen Bhuddism, the answer to a question like this will be Mu - Wu in Chinese - and it means something like "the question must be unasked." It's a simple but surprisingly effective word; how many times do we formulate questions which we assume will have a Yes/No answer when in fact Mu might be much more revealing? Perhaps Mu is the answer to many of the big questions we ask:

"What was there before there was anything?"

"What is consciousness?"

"What is the purpose of life?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)

Interesting sideline: I just put Mu + "the question must be unasked" into Google and it came up with 2 websites. I clicked on the top one and it took me to... The Four Ages of Sand!

http://iainpetrie.typepad.com/the_four_ages_of_sand/2009/05/could-ghost-picture-at-museum-be-edward-jenner.html

Anyway, I was reminded of unasking questions during a discussion with my Somali and Turkish students on the political parties. They are at a L1 level of speaking which means they can discuss abstract ideas but are still impeded by vocabulary and grammar. They were struggling with the names of the parties  - Labour, Lib Dem etc - so to make things simpler I started refering  to The Red Party, The Blue Party and The Yellow Party.  Later I asked them if they knew any other parties. They didn't, so I told them about The Green Party. One of my students said "But Sir, what is The Green Party called?" 

Mu!
 

Comments

[Gorgeous and less fat now :-)]

Oh wow, what a beautiful post regarding The Mu.

You sound spiritual and even gave me a sense of peace. Glad to know that some questions are better left unanswered.... :-)

[chr]

mu for you, mu for me, mu for peace...