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Questioning (4 of 5): Questions

Good morning again, or good afternoon, or good evening. A warm welcome.

So this week I've been talking about questioning, and I've been offering during the guided meditation this question: "What is this?" And this is an open-ended question. There can be an untold number of answers. Having this kind of openness to what might be here, to what is arising, can be really supportive for our practice.

This sense of open-endedness is maybe like science or art. It's assumed that someday we will outgrow some of our scientific theories, right? There are always new things, better understandings, a little bit more accuracy, discovering new things. And the same with art, too. For example, we can think of a Picasso or a Monet. These are two considered masters. I can imagine Picasso when he was first doing his cubist art—the art that has all these different angles, which was a shock to the art world at the time. I can imagine that he was walking around his subject saying, "Oh, what is this?" Looking from a different angle, "What is this?" and then walking around to yet another angle, "What is this?" Walking around to one more angle, "What is this?" and then putting on canvas what he was seeing. In some ways, he was incorporating an element of time onto a two-dimensional painting. But just by asking "What is this?" and interpreting it in a particular way, and therefore pushing forward, it's onward leading. It's not that it has to be completely innovative, new, and shocking, but that there isn't a preconceived idea of what it should be or what it has to be. The same with Monet, right? Looking at light on different objects when he was doing his impressionist paintings, asking, "What is it? What is really being seen here?" So having a sense of the unknown, and having it be onward leading.

At the same time, there can be some yes-no questions that are helpful. We can have these open-ended, "What is this?" kind of questions that push the boundaries against what we're expecting or want to see, but at the same time, we can have some very simple yes-no questions. Many of you will be familiar with the story of the Kalamas^[1], this community of people who were in the midst of a spiritual marketplace, shall we say. They asked the Buddha, "There are all these different teachings. Whom should we believe? What should we do with all these teachings?"

This is my summary of the discourse: the Buddha's response emphasizes the importance of direct experience, that we're actually there, present for our experience. But at the same time, he recognized that there are different modes of authority. It might be our internal experience—the way in which something feels right or aligns with our views. Or there might be some external authority: what a teacher has said, what the scriptures say, what the discourses say. So there are these different modes of authority, some internal, some external. Some of them are reliable, and some of them are not so reliable. But how do we tell? How do we know which sources of authority are reliable and can lead us to greater and greater freedom, and can help us help others?

So one of the yes-no questions that the Buddha offered is this: "Is it skillful? Is it wholesome? Is it helpful?" We can answer these questions in terms of cause and effect in the laboratory of our actions—actions including mental actions, speech actions, and bodily actions. In the laboratory of our actions, we can see if the consequences of what we are thinking, saying, and doing lead to greater freedom. Does it lead to greater ease? Does it lead to greater happiness? Is it a support for greater ease and freedom? Whatever is unskillful, whatever leads to harm, whatever leads to ill will or to things that are not supportive—abandon those. And whatever is skillful, which leads to support and benefit—pursue those, develop those.

So there can be some yes-no questions that are helpful: "Is it wholesome? Is it skillful? Is it helpful?" We can use cause and effect to help us. But also, in the Kalama Sutta, there is a mention of taking into account: what do the wise people say? Would they criticize, or would they blame? So we do not have to reinvent the wheel and rediscover the Dharma with every moment. We can use as guidance what others have said, what we have learned for ourselves, what we read in the discourses, what we hear in Dharma talks, and what we read in Dharma books. But at the same time, we must not abandon our internal sense of authority, while still having to check out the external sense of authority, too.

There are some questions that are, in general, not helpful. I'm encouraging the stance of questioning, but not a blanket statement that all questions are helpful. For example, there might be some judgments disguised as questions. Something like, "Why do I always get angry when I'm in physical pain?" That has a tone of, "I shouldn't be angry," and probably anger isn't helpful, but can you see how there's a sense of self-condemnation in there? As opposed to: "What happens when I notice I have this pain in my knee?" You might notice that there's some tightness in the body, and maybe some blaming—blaming oneself. And then with the sense of blaming, ask, "Well, what is this?" It's like, "Oh yeah, maybe it's a sense of disappointment or regret." And then, "What is this?" "Oh yeah, underneath the regret is maybe some wish that things were different." And then, "What is this?" Underneath the wish that things were different is maybe some sadness. "What is this?" Maybe underneath the sadness, there's a sense of compassion, or a sense of wishing for oneself to have some ease and happiness, and for others to have some ease and happiness. So ask in a way in which deeper levels might make themselves known, not in a way in which we are condemning ourselves.

Some of you may be familiar with another story from the discourses with Maluṅkyaputta^[2], who was a monastic under the Buddha. One time he goes to the Buddha and says, "I'm going to disrobe. I'm going to leave the order unless you answer these particular questions." And the Buddha said to him, "Well, did I ever promise you I was going to answer those questions?" and he says, "Well, no." So the Buddha says, "Well then, why are you threatening to disrobe if I don't answer them? You silly man, are you really in a position to be abandoning the practice?" So he gets rebuked a little bit here by the Buddha.

Maluṅkyaputta wanted to ask questions like: "Is the world finite? Is the world infinite? Is the world eternal? Is it not eternal?" He was asking these existential questions about time and space that are really not so relevant to finding greater freedom and greater ease. How can we know? Usually, underneath these types of questions is: "Will I live forever in time? Will I live forever in space?" That is what's underneath these types of questions.

Instead, the Buddha, in response to Maluṅkyaputta, gave him some criteria to help determine which kinds of questions are helpful. And again, we come to this cause and effect, this laboratory of our actions. The Buddha says that questions that are helpful are beneficial and supportive. They are relevant to the spiritual life—that is, they help us with our direct experience and ways of how to be the best versions of ourselves, how to find more and more happiness, peace, and freedom. Importantly, helpful questions lead to a certain amount of disillusionment and dispassion. That is, disentangling ourselves from what we believe are sources of lasting happiness—acquiring more and more things, having higher and higher status—things that we might mistakenly think are sources of lasting happiness but actually aren't.

So, there are types of questions that help us to see that, that lead to some disillusionment and dispassion. "Passion" here kind of means getting tangled up in and filled up with something. Passion can be a good thing in that it brings some energy, but not if it obscures our clarity and diminishes our own wisdom. So we ask questions that lead to peace, insight, awakening, and Nibbana^[3]—enlightenment, complete freedom. Questions that lead to the end of suffering.

An integral part of our practice can be to question, but also to have some wisdom and discernment about the types of questions we ask. Are they supportive? Are they beneficial? Or are they a dead end in our practice in some way? Can they support us in finding greater and greater peace, ease, and freedom, all the way to complete awakening?

Thank you.