Gregg Krech - Question Your Life: Naikan Self-Reflection and the Transformation of our Stories

Question Your Life

Naikan Self-Reflection and the Transformation of Our Stories

Edited by
Gregg Krech

Published by:

ToDo Institute Books

P.O. Box 50

Monkton, VT 05469

http://www.todoinstitute.org

http://www.thirtythousanddays.org

Copyright 2017 by Gregg Krech

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

No part of this bookother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewsmay be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Interior design: Gerald Sprankel

Cover image: Ookawaphoto

Cover Design: Amanda Coyle

The Library of Congress catalogs this title as follows:

Krech, Gregg.

Question Your Life: Naikan Self-Reflection and the Transformation of our Stories. Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947889

Portions of this book originally appeared in different form in the quarterly journal, Thirty Thousand Days: A Journal for Living on Purpose

To the three women who have shaped me more than anyone else in the past 25 years: My wife, Linda. And my daughters, Chani and Bi. Thank you for being my family.

Question Your Life

While we cant change the past, we can change our attitude towards it, and thereby change our future. Building on his previous book, Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection, Krech provides readers with stories and prompts for inner development, gradually leading them through the stages of Naikan reflection. Readers will finish this book with new insights into their life, an enriched gratitude, and a deeper personal understanding of the keys to happiness.

Chikako Ozawa-de Silva, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Emory University

Question Your Life is perhaps my favorite of Gregg Krechs books, and Ive loved all of them. It is at once inspiring, practical, powerful, and so very important. If you want to lead a more honest, humble life with greater integrity, and in the process receive the fruits of joy, gratitude, and a diminishment of regret, read this book. If you want your relationships with others to be more authentic and healthy, answer this books simple but profound questions. If you want to be a force for good in the world, allow this books wisdom to set you on the right path. Question Your Life is a gift.

Zoe Weil, Author of The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries

When we finally tire of our dusty old stories of how we have been wronged, of who is to blame, or of what we have been denied, we will be ready to take up Greggs book. Question Your Life offers a way to appreciate our life and to help us move beyond the small world of our resentments. As we go beyond our habitual way of understanding our past, we can begin to see the gifts of our life that we may have been blind to. This book opens a process of illumination and transformation: as we realize that we are more than our old stories, we can let go of the weight of our pain and allow space for a deep sense of gratitude to emerge. This is not easy work, but those who are willing and ready to take it up will find Question Your Life a trustworthy and valuable guide.

Ron Hogen Green, SenseiZen Center of New York City

Question Your Life is a blessing. A balm to the soul for allowing us not only to see with new eyes and be inspired, but more importantly it offers us a simple way to gently change our course. Through a variety of voices, we hear and are moved to consider a doable and kind way to reduce suffering in the world our own and others.

Trudy Boyle, Chairperson, North American Naikan Council

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart

and to try to love the questions themselves

like locked rooms and like books that are written

in a very foreign tongue.

Do not now seek the answers,

which cannot be given you

because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Introduction

S uppose you arrive at a party. The host greets you at the door and says there is someone hed like you to meet. You follow him into the next room and the person he introduces you to is you! Thats right, he introduces you to yourself. What would your experience be? You know this person better than anyone, dont you? After all, you have the same history, the same parents, youre the same height and weight.

But something about this person seems different in a strange sort of way. She doesnt look exactly like you. She has some mannerisms and ways of speaking that you dont have at least you dont think you have them. As you talk, you discover things about the person that you didnt know or perhaps you just forgot. This person isnt an exact copy shes not quite the person you thought she would be. You find yourself both curious and confused. Uneasy, yet somehow relieved. How fascinating! Youve actually encountered yourself! Extraordinary!

A young man approaches you from the right. He offers to refill your glass with more wine. You hesitate, but then consent to just a bit more. You watch as he pours the wine carefully into your glass and stop him politely when he reaches the halfway point.

When you turn your head, the person you met you is no longer there. Shes vanished.

How well do you know yourself? If youre like most people, you think you know yourself pretty well. But take a moment and examine yourself. Lets start with your physical body. Examine your body as thoroughly as possible. Youll quickly realize there are large areas of your body you cant see. You cant see your back. You cant see much of your butt. You cant see the back, or front, of your neck. And you cant see your head at all (well, maybe a bit of your nose). Your head is the part of you that is most exposed, because there are no clothes covering it up. Its the part of your body that houses your brain and displays all your facial expressions. It is where your eyes reside, the part of you that sees the faces and heads of those around you. Yet you have no idea what your head looks like, do you?

Well, of course you do, because youve looked in a mirror. A mirror gives you a way to see yourself. You probably use one regularly perhaps even several times each day. But a mirror, though useful, has significant limitations. Youre only able to see your physical appearance and thats a very superficial representation of a person. It doesnt reveal the inner landscape of a human being. It doesnt reveal whether the person is healthy or ill. It doesnt reveal ones intelligence. It doesnt reveal the degree to which a person may be selfish or generous. It doesnt reveal thoughts, dreams and fantasies. And it doesnt reveal the essence, the true nature, of who that person really is.

For us to truly understand ourselves, we have to use a tool that allows us to go beyond the capabilities of a mirror. Way beyond.

To be perfectly honest, youre a bit freaked out after meeting yourself. You suspect that someone slipped some kind of strange drug in your drink. Or maybe in the other persons drink the person that is also you. Anyway, you dont really buy this idea of knowing yourself and self-awareness. Too much like psychotherapy or meditation or something from the 60s. No thanks. You have things to do and places to go. No need for introspection. No point in gazing at ones navel. People should just set goals, work hard, and move forward. Lets just get on with it.