From Krista Tippet's recent interview with the physicist and contemplative Arthur Zajonc:
Yes, um, so here's my take on that word. Number one, mystery can sometimes be used as a way of deflecting real inquiry. To say, well, we just have to resign ourselves to the mystery. . .
It's a mystery. We should leave it be. We should just let it go. Now, the scientist in me says no, that something is not right with that, that interpretation of mystery. It's too easy. Rather, what I think we need to do is to recognize that no matter how deeply we engage the world, no matter how far we manage to penetrate into the mystery, there will always be more mystery.
It's always deeper, it's always bigger, it's always wider than our possible imagination at any given moment. But it's always an invitation. Mystery is kind of an invitation in. It's not a wall before which we have to give up, but rather, a kind of find the door. Where is that little chink that allows you to peer through and then gradually to open up and find resources and capacities in yourself to take a little step or to put the horizon a little further away?
You know, it's like when you have a horizon around you; it's given by how high up you are on the earth. I think the contemplative dimensions of life help us do that, to say there are capacities or points of view or places we can put ourselves that allow us to engage the world more broadly, more widely, see further. And it doesn't take anything away from the world because there's always another horizon. There's always a further distance.
Full transcript here.
