Seven Steps to Solving Any Problem

Seven Steps to Solving Any Problem

I've been returning to the power of the pause recently.

It reminded me of a sunny afternoon in London many years ago, spent with my Sifu at Middle Temple Hall. I'd always been fascinated by the history of the Knights Templar, so there was something rather special about spending an afternoon practising Zen on those ancient grounds.

There were around ten of us gathered together in one of the rooms when, during one conversation, Sifu smiled and said that he could solve any problem in seven steps.

My mind immediately became curious.

What were these seven steps?

Seven principles? Seven stages? Some ancient Zen teaching I hadn't yet come across?

Someone offered him a problem. Sifu listened quietly, stood up from his chair and began to walk. One step. Then another. Until he had taken seven. He stopped, turned, and answered the question.

I remember smiling to myself. The seven steps weren't symbolic at all. They were simply seven steps across the room.

For years I remembered that afternoon because it made me laugh. It had that wonderful quality Zen sometimes has of exposing how quickly the mind rushes ahead, looking for meaning somewhere other than where it already is. I had been so busy wondering what the seven steps meant that I'd almost missed the seven actual steps.

It wasn't until this week's Qigong classes that the memory returned with a different flavour.

We found ourselves exploring the pauses within practice. As people shared their experiences afterwards, it struck me that many of us naturally pause in retrospect. Something happens, then we stop. We look back. We reflect. We begin to understand. There's great value in that, and perhaps it's how many of us begin to learn.

But what if we paused first?

That simple question has stayed with me.

In Qigong, this is what Wuji, and Entering a Qigong State of Mind, quietly invite us into. Before the first movement. Before trying to do anything well. Before deciding what should happen next. We simply arrive.

For some years now, I've found myself returning to a simple question. I wonder whether the quality of what follows relates to where we are coming from.

Not as a conclusion.

Just as something I've found myself returning to.

Perhaps that's why the pauses have been catching my attention recently. Not because they are empty, or because pausing is somehow relaxing, but because they offer an opportunity to notice what is here before something else is added. What am I bringing into this moment? What is already here? What has already begun before I've even taken the first step?

Looking back now, I wonder if that's what I was really being shown all those years ago.

Not seven steps to solving any problem.

Simply a pause before responding.

Long enough for the mind to stop searching quite so hard.

Long enough for something else to emerge.

Perhaps that's all those seven steps ever were.

Or perhaps, after all these years, that's simply what they've become for me.