# Inquiring Together > Learning About Learning ## Pages - [An Ode to the Unknown](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1474): It’s good to map the empty expanse, to have a compass and somewhere to go. It’s good to follow the signs and glide down the road, well paved and well lit. It’s good to stick to the solid ground and to look before the leap. It’s good to gaze at the stars and imagine in their ancient light the face of the future. It’s good to know the names and the forms of the leaves of grass that go into the bundle of being. It’s good to hold on to the speech and the silence of the explorers gone by. It’s […] - [Who Am I ?](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1456): Sep 4, 2026 I am the shadow that basks in the sun, the fog of desire on the mirror of love, the flickering veil that hides the faceless, the sighs of yesterday, the songs of tomorrow in the heart of oblivion, the dream of exhaustion in the eyes of the inexhaustible— I am the breath that rises and falls in the belly of unending slumber. - [The Perceiver](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1444): Does an acorn dream of becoming oak?And does the sprawling oak remember the acorn?Between cackles of the youthAnd groans of the oldWhat fractures?What holds firm?If time were to speed upThe acorn would blink into oakAnd the oak into acornCackles and groans wouldmean the sameThe day and the nightThis and thatAll blinking into each otherThe whole realitythe dreaming and the rememberingcollapsed intoa single blinking pointWhat place would becoming havein a world that is everythingin every given moment?And nowIf time were to slow downand all movement were invisibleThe acorn would remain an acornThe oak an oakThe cackles would echo endlesslyAs would groansThe day […] - [The Cessation of Storytelling](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1432): But…..therefore… That….and hence this.. ….because… …so… …consequently…. The conjunctions of cause and effect Of sequences and consequences. The building blocks Of plots, of stories Of lives. The creators of meaning The tools of sense making The roots of suffering Why must they be? Must everything Have a cause Become a cause? Does sun cause life? And what causes sun? Or Are sun and life… not related? Not related and Not divisible? Life and death, pain and pleasure, Chaos and order, fear and desire Not related and Not divisible? Not distinguishable? Not two but one? Not one but…? Must life be a […] - [The fatigue of living and inquiring](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1419): I walk, I run, I drift, I drown, I float, I fumble…to what end? I look back, and what do I see? Smoke and ash that were once bridges. Footprints everywhere, leading nowhere. Looping trails closing in on themselves. Serpents eating their own tails. Writhing spiders caught in their own webs. Fever dreams disguised as stories.  I look ahead, and what do I see? A mapless expanse, littered with bottomless sinkholes. Floating, glittering stairways to a glassy sky. A burning pyre of the images of the unformed. A tangled thread and a runaway needle. An infinite spiral. Tired, I sit down. […] - [On Beliefs and Questions](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1404): We all grow up with beliefs. Throughout our lives, we continue to acquire new ones while discarding or updating others. As we’ve seen, somewhere along the way we begin forming abstractions that become the primary lens through which we perceive and understand the world, both the physical and the abstract. Among these, deeply rooted beliefs are perhaps the most invisible. Because they function as our primary lens, beliefs feel as though they must be protected. Even when specific beliefs change, the underlying need to have beliefs remains one of the hardest things to dislodge. How do beliefs change? Beliefs have an […] - [On Paying Attention](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1398): Our physical senses form the foundation of how we construct knowledge about the world and ourselves. All the information we gather through these senses is processed through various cognitive functions—such as naming, classification, categorization, interpretation, and contextualization—and stored as memory. It is through this cognitive processing that raw sensory input gains meaning, allowing us to build a coherent and continuous mental image of our world. A red rose, a tall tree, or a smiling child are all perceived and remembered as meaningful, coherent mental images, which are not only coherent but also, inevitably, distorted. The very act of image-making involves a […] - [On Experience and Authority](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1355): The root meaning of the word experience is ‘knowledge which comes from trials and tests. We are born with biological impulses and various capacities and abilities like learning language, but without any experience or ability of surviving in the world- both physical and the world of abstractions, on our own. As children, we rely on the experience of others, while simultaneously accumulating our own experiences. Physically and emotionally, we are reliant on the external world. We are curious, but we are also helpless. We implicitly trust our environment of elders to feed us, protect us, hold our hands when we learn […] - [On Identity](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1330): The root meaning of the word identity is “sameness, oneness or the state of being the same.”  To identify as something or someone is to say that one is the same as or is of the same essence as that which one identifies with. And what is it that one identifies with? Usually, one doesn’t identify with concrete objects. E.g. one would not identify as a tree or as a car or as one’s own parent etc. That would be too absurd. More usually, one identifies with abstractions or concepts or various mental objects. For example one identifies as a particular […] - [Measurement and Comparison](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1292): Our daily lives involve a constant measurement/comparison of our current situation and who we perceive ourselves to be, against others or the ideals we have imbibed from our world.   But most of us hardly ever really inquire into the role that measurement and comparison play in our daily lives. We just do it as a matter of habit, because that’s how we have learnt to exist from our childhood. We don’t really pause and look how this shapes us and our lives. Let us then try to inquire into the meaning and the implication of measurements and comparisons in our […] - [Individual and Collective](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1274): To inquire into the relationship between an individual and the collective, let us begin by examining the individual. What is it that an individual is made of? An individual is not just a biological being. An individual is defined by the layers of abstractions that give them their identities, frameworks, templates, norms and expectations for ways of living and acting, belief systems, ideologies etc. to understand the world they live in etc. A child is born into these collective abstractions, is shaped by and made of them. All the desires of the individual to be and act in the world spring […] - [On Complexity and Abstractions](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1231): When a child is born, its initial experience and interaction with the world is direct and immediate. The root meaning of the word immediate is that which is without mediation, i.e. there is nothing between the child and the experience, they are both one. The child’s actuality- i.e. its moment-to-moment life is rooted in reality. The child doesn’t hold any explicit knowledge of this reality. This reality is the unknown. The child’s actuality and reality are one and the same – in the unknown. In that sense, its life and experience of life are simple, with the root meaning of the […] - [On Striving](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1188): UPDATED ON FEB 3, 2025 Why is it important to ask these questions? If one wants to understand themselves and their act of living, then perhaps one of the first places to begin would be to understand one’s pursuits in life and the forces or the motivations that shape/guide these pursuits. Seeking the sustenance of the physical organism is probably the most fundamental force that drives our actions. Anything that threatens our physical existence must be avoided/overcome. But once that question is resolved i.e., one’s physical survival is not under any immediate threat, what after that? A certain striving underpins all […] - [Inquiries](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1147) - [Suffering and Inquiring](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1083): Inquiry, as we saw in our inquiry into the meaning of inquiry on the previous page, involves a capacity to stay with the unknown and watch it as it unfolds. What does it mean in our day to day life? Our daily life stands on the bedrock of knowledge and experience, either gained by us through personal experiences, or passed on to us through society, books etc. It is from this bedrock that our daily conversations with those who we love dearly and those who we don’t emerge. How do we receive their words, their actions, their gestures, and how do […] - [The Difficulty of Inquiring](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=1090): Having looked into what it means to inquire and how it involves staying with and understanding one’s suffering, it is quite clear that inquiring is a difficult process. What happens when one is feeling miserable? Doesn’t the mind come in and start looking for ways to be less miserable?  It could happen in many forms- random thoughts, daydreams, extensive plans for the future, seeking pleasure in countless activities – profession, religion, reading, ceaseless chattering, gossiping, TV, movies, social media, sex, alcohol, drugs etc. The mind resists suffering. And it is from this resistance that all the escapes in the world have […] - [World and I](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=969) - [Reflections](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=967) - [What is Inquiry?](https://inquiringtogether.com/?page_id=965): Why inquire? Does one inquire to attain something? Does one inquire to become something? Or does one inquire because one is suffering? How does one learn to inquire? One of the difficulties with language is that a word could have many conflicting interpretations. So, we must proceed with great caution and be very clear what we mean when using the word inquiry, as this word is used in a wide variety of ways in different contexts, such as: It is acknowledged that many of these different ways of understanding inquiry may have their uses in particular fields of knowledge or action, […] ## Optional - [Agent (MCP protocol)](websites-agents.hostinger.com/inquiringtogether.com/mcp) [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)