Right now, in this moment, is there a problem?
I ask myself this question, silently, during guided meditations and at moments during the day when I feel an urgency flutter into being, an agitation rise.
There are many techniques like it, little practices that prompt us to pause, notice our body’s signals and the thoughts gathering intensity as they fill with emotion like hot air balloons, and seize the moment of choice—to act or relax. The question, is there a problem? gives the mind a little ladder to help it see above the clouds. The thought that was present, right before the question came—is it a problem right now? Usually, the answer is no, not right now. What about that pain in the hip? Not really… it’s just a twinge. As you seek the source of the problem to find out if there really is one, your world becomes replete with sensations, images, feelings, as awareness dilates beyond the dwindling idea that there is a problem, which turns out to be mostly a feeling, a tightness and heat.
Right now, in this moment, I can relax.
But what is a problem? Sometimes it’s something to puzzle out, which puts us in the comfortable realm of goal-directed doing; this is sense #1:
1a: a question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution
b: a proposition in mathematics or physics stating something to be done
And sometimes (as in the lyrics of the Talking Heads song “No Compassion”: “It’s not so cool to have so many problems. … Talk to your analyst! Isn’t that what they’re paid for?!” David Byrne shrieks) it’s a deep neurotic pattern. This, along with many other examples, is sense #2:
2a: an intricate unsettled question
b: a source of perplexity, distress, or vexation
c: difficulty in understanding or accepting
The word’s history, like that of so many, takes us from mental constructs to its origin in the body interacting with concrete objects: Middle English probleme, from Latin problema, from Greek problēma, literally, obstacle, from proballein to throw forward, from pro- forward + ballein to reach by throwing, let fly, strike, put, place. So a problem is essentially an obstacle we throw or put in our own path.
Interestingly, in Greek, the word had a cousin, diábolos, “accuser, backbiter, slanderer,” agentive derivative of diabállein “to take across, put through, set at variance, attack (a person’s character), accuse, slander,” from dia- through + bállō, bállein. This throw-through compound, which took on an aggressive, notably verbal character, eventually morphed into the words diabolic and devil by way of a translation of Hebrew śāṭān, adversary. Sometimes our problems are devils; they’re our demons.
But we can trick the tricksters out of their diabolic forms by giving them a taste of their own medicine and making them into objects of inquiry on the path.
I’ve found this technique—of asking the question—to be most helpful as I walk the path. Asking, “right now, in this moment, is there a problem?” has helped me practice moments of waking up throughout the day, and using words in the form of self-inquiry provides an anchor when I find it difficult just to have moments of awareness. The words give me a problem in the first sense, a question to consider, so I’m less likely to float into the storm clouds in my hot air balloon.
Often, what I find at the root of the problem, along with sensations, is a basic liking or not liking something. It’s not that some work situation or interpersonal vexation is truly a problem, it’s that I don’t like it. It’s not that this joint pain is a real problem, it’s just uncomfortable, and I don’t like it.
This liking and not liking may seem like a small problem with an easy fix, but it’s not just a problem, it’s our touchstone for selfhood. In the words of William James: “In the midst of psychic change [these primary reactions] are the permanent core of turnings-toward and turnings-from, of yieldings and arrests, which naturally seem central … [and are] a ‘sanctuary within the citadel’ of our personal lives.” Buddhist philosophy calls the feeling tones—pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral—associated with these primary reactions, vedanā. We confuse these feelings, valences, of experiences and our associated turnings-toward or -from with self because they are the deepest, the most interior reactions.
The important thing is not to be taken in by feeling tones alone, or to roll them into boulders we then throw in our own path, because, as Rilke says, “…we continually constitute ourselves anew and differently at the intersection of all those influences that reach into the sphere of our being.” Seeing through problems, these likings and not likings, can reveal them to be cloud-veils.
Quotes are from:
Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/problem and https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/devil.
William James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, New York: Dover, 1950 (reprint of Henry Holt, 1890 edn), p. 302–303.
Rilke, Rainer Maria, Letters on Life, ed. and trans. Ulrich Baer, New York: Modern Library, p. 74.