We had started to look at this question earlier and we agreed it was best to open it up for wider discussion. There are so many problems to choose from when one looks around at the world in which we live: political problems, economic problems, humanitarian problems, practical problems as well as all the many problems of personal relationship. Therefore perhaps we ought to start with the perceiver of these problems, with the one who says, ‘This is the first problem we must all address,’ or, ‘This is the prime problem of living.’ Each perceiver will offer a different suggestion or answer to this question depending upon his geographical, cultural and psychological position. But is there perhaps something, somewhere, about which we can say with total certainty, ‘Yes, this is our greatest problem in life’? Then, if there are those who disagree with what we have seen, the onus is upon them to change the focus or to point us in the right direction. In other words, it is no longer our problem to persuade or change the view of anyone else. Instead, it is all about finding the spot where both of us are looking at the same thing together. Then the problem itself may speak to us quite separately from all the many words we have to say about it.
Looking at problems is what I do as I work. But they are only problems by definition, on reflection. It is a way of thinking. The actual work movement is something different. When I look clearly, I am moving along and attending to various things, just as you might be walking in a forest. So I might ask, why do I think about it as different things, different tasks? Why has it been labelled problems? Isn’t it because the mind, the mechanical, inventive mind, is a problem solver, and so it sees problems. But it is all in the mind.
So what is a problem? While I am walking in the forest there may be a sense of no concern, no pressure, but when I get back home to my wife and family and when I return to my job or lack of job, all sorts of demands are waiting for me, aren’t they? These demands and challenges are not in the mind; I have to meet them. This is my daily life.
It’s not my problem. It’s ours. If K thinks that - i should address only my problem - then he has no problem - then there wouldn’t be a K at all. We are psychologically one bro.