“During Korean Zen Buddhist Meditation, the master often abruptly interrupts the meditation and asks to his discipline a seemingly irrelevant question. A good discipline gives an equally irrelevant answer. This way they understand each other, with a knowing smile.”*

All questions have an answer in them and all answers have more questions in them. That’s the nature of reality and the way to find the truth. Zen teaches us to find the truth by questioning and by not questioning which is materialised in the Zen paradoxical stories. It’s like welcoming the paradox and randomness, it’s about living life as an exercise and a path. Both are possible and necessary in Buddhist practice and as a way of life.

Here is some examples:

Question: What do you think of my new shoes?

Answer: I had fish and chips for lunch.

Question: When are you planning to go on holiday?

Answer: Middle name is Rebecca, it was given to me by my grandfather.

Question: Tell me why you have decided to quit your last job?

Answer: Because I was shopping yesterday at the supermarket and I forgot to buy a lipstick.

Question: How old are you?

Answer: The Church bell doesn’t ring anymore, I wonder what happened to the priest.

It helps of the questions and answers are specific. The questions and answers are of course all made up. More creative you are with the questions and answers more fun it is. This game will help you with thinking on your feet, spontaneity and help you to develop your storytelling skills. We are meaning making machines, the game is often harder than it appears.

You can play this game in a group with the next person giving an answer and asking a question to the following person. You can also play in pairs, alternating questions and answers. The game can also be played on the stage as part of a performance, one person asks a random question and another person gives a random answer.

Zen Curveball game resolves the problems of asking too many questions in scenes or starting the scene with a question. Questions are alright as you can give any random answer. Your random answer is an offer and can move the scene forward.

In Korean Zen Buddhist practices there is the tradition of radical questioning during meditation. Martine Barchelor, who was a Korean Buddhist nun, explains that: “the questioning helps with the energy and the directness. And the listening, for example, anchors it in a wide-open experiential space”. Here is further reading on this practice http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/martine-batchelor-meditation/

*I came across to this practice in ‘The Square’ by Choi In-Hun, Page 32, Library of Korean Literature, 2014.

Nat Tsolak