Questioning the Question

A student asked Nasreddin Hodja why he scattered breadcrumbs around his house. "To keep tigers away," he replied. When asked if there were tigers nearby, he smiled: "Works pretty well, doesn't it?" This exemplifies the tradition's core practice: interrogating assumptions embedded in questions themselves. Mountains provoke questions: Why climb? What are you seeking? How high is enough? Yet the examined joyful life requires first asking whether these questions actually matter or whether they're inherited anxieties. Perhaps you're climbing to escape something rather than reach something. Perhaps the real journey isn't altitude but attention. The Hodja teaches that answers often mislead; the wisdom lies in recognizing which questions rest on faulty foundations. On high places, this becomes visceral—your breath thins, effort intensifies, and unexamined motivations become obvious. This concept practices the discipline of questioning our questions, of playfully dismantling assumptions before building on them, creating space for authentic rather than prescribed mountain experience.