THERE WERE THREE FRIENDS DISCUSSING LIFE.
ONE SAID:
"CAN MEN LIVE TOGETHER AND KNOW NOTHING OF IT,
WORK TOGETHER AND PRODUCE NOTHING?
CAN THEY FLY AROUND IN SPACE
AND FORGET TO EXIST, WORLD WITHOUT END?"

THE THREE FRIENDS LOOKED AT EACH OTHER
AND BURST OUT LAUGHING.
THEY HAD NO EXPLANATION,
THUS THEY WERE BETTER FRIENDS THAN BEFORE. THEN ONE FRIEND DIED.
CONFUCIUS SENT A DISCIPLE
TO HELP THE OTHER TWO CHANT HIS OBSEQUIES.

THE DISCIPLE FOUND
THAT ONE FRIEND HAD COMPOSED A SONG
WHILE THE OTHER PLAYED THE LUTE.

THEY SANG:
"HEY, SUNG HU, WHERE'D YOU GO?
HEY, SUNG HU, WHERE'D YOU GO?
YOU HAVE GONE WHERE YOU REALLY WERE,
AND WE ARE HERE -- DAMN IT, WE ARE HERE!"
THEN THE DISCIPLE OF CONFUCIUS
BURST IN ON THEM AND EXCLAIMED:
"MAY I INQUIRE WHERE YOU FOUND THIS
IN THE RUBRICS FOR OBSEQUIES,
THIS FRIVOLOUS CAROLING
IN THE PRESENCE OF THE DEPARTED?"

THE TWO FRIENDS LOOKED AT EACH OTHER
AND LAUGHED:
"POOR FELLOW,
HE DOESN'T KNOW THE NEW LITURGY!"

The three friends looked at each other
and burst out laughing.

The fact, the question, the penetration of it, the depth, the reality, the fact of it, showed plainly that no answer was needed. Any answer would have been foolish, any answer would have been superficial.
It is said about Buddha that millions of times people used to ask him questions and he would not answer. If the question demanded a superficial answer, he would not answer; if somebody asked, "Is there a God?" he remained silent. And people are foolish. They began to think that he didn't believe in God, otherwise he would say yes; or they thought he was ignorant, he didn't know, otherwise he would say either yes or no!
When you ask a question such as, "Does God exist?" you don't know what you are asking. Do you think this is a question to be answered? Then you are stupid. Can such vital questions be answered? Then you don't know the depth of it; then this is curiosity, not inquiry.
If the man who was asking Buddha was an authentic seeker, then he would have remained with Buddha's silence -- because the silence was the answer. In that silence he would have felt the question, in that silence the question would have asserted itself strongly. Against the background of the silence it would have become clearer. A clarity would have come to him.
Whenever you ask a deep question, no answer is required. All that is required is to remain with the question. Don't move here and there, remain with the question and wait. The very question will become the answer. The question, if you go deep into it, will lead to the very source from where the answer also flows. It is in you.
Buddha has not answered any real question -- and remember that about taoism also, because no real question can be answered, it is not an intellectual thing. Only from heart to heart the transmission happens, not from head to head.