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Questioning as Practice - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 04, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Questioning as Practice

Good evening, welcome. It's nice to see you all.

Tonight, I'd like to start by setting a little scene that happens on the Buddha's deathbed. He knows he's going to die, so he asks for a special bed to be made for him between some trees on the outskirts of a town. Then, right before he's ready to die, just moments before, he asks a question. The quote is this: "If even a single monastic has any doubt or uncertainty concerning the Buddha, Dharma, or Sangha¹, or the path and the practice, ask. Do not afterwards feel remorse, thinking, 'The teacher was there before us, and we failed to ask him when we were in his presence.'"

Maybe he was thinking, "This is the real thing. I am going to die. This is your last chance. Do you have any questions?" There are so many things here that seem maybe mundane, but are special in some way. He's not saying, "Okay, I only want to talk to my little inner circle as I'm dying." He's not saying that. Later on, it talks about there being 500 people there—500 monastics—and he's asking if anybody out there has any questions. It doesn't matter if they're a newly ordained person or the most senior. He's asking if they have any questions.

But then he also qualifies it: "Do you have any questions about the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and the path and the practice?" I'll talk a little bit more about some of the questions that he didn't think were so suitable at this time. So he's confining it to, "Okay, do you have questions about what I've been teaching?" What all this teaching has really been about, we could say, is suffering and the ending of suffering. The Buddha said this on a number of occasions; all his teachings were oriented this way. We could say the Buddha, Dharma, the path, and practice are about suffering and the end of suffering.

The fact that he's saying this on his deathbed, moments before he dies, highlights that he wanted there to be clarity. He wanted people to understand. It wasn't like he was trying to be enigmatic or have secret teachings. It was more like, "Okay, I've offered what I've offered. Is it clear? Did you get it?"

In response to this question, the monastics say nothing. It's silent. Then he asks it a second time. It's still silent. Then he asks, "Perhaps you don't ask out of respect for the teacher. So let a friend tell a friend." I kind of like this, like, "I'm asking for a friend, is this blah, blah, blah?" This goes all the way back to the time of the Buddha. It also highlights something we talk about: having community and having friends in the Dharma. We often don't think about this, but maybe there's a way in which we have a question and we don't feel comfortable asking, but maybe one of our friends does, and they could ask. I appreciate this very much, the Buddha saying, "Okay, maybe you're embarrassed or for whatever reason, just tell somebody else and they can ask it." He really wants to make sure that people understand. He wants them to ask questions if there's anything that's not clear.

And they're still silent. Nobody asks a question.

Then Ananda, who was the Buddha's attendant, said, "Wow, it's amazing that nobody asked any questions." The Buddha says to Ananda, which for me is a little bit perplexing, but we won't get into that. The Buddha says to Ananda, "Well, that's because everybody of these 500 people have at least the first degree of Awakening, which means that they no longer have doubt." That means they have enough clarity about all the teachings that they don't feel like they need to ask questions. Then, in a subsequent teaching, I'll talk about the very last sentence he says and then dies, but I'm not going to talk about that one right now.

I want to stick with this idea that the Buddha was asking, "Okay, what are your questions?" He was supporting and encouraging this whole notion of asking questions. He's pointing to the idea that having some understanding of suffering and the ending of suffering is important for all of us to understand in our own way. And if we don't understand it, we should ask questions or investigate. This is in contrast to a teacher that might say, "Okay, here are these creeds, memorize them and you're good to go." You know, "Here's something, memorize it, and who cares if you understand it? You just have to memorize these things." No, he's saying you need to understand, and if you don't, ask.

This is so different than just passively receiving information and then just buying it wholeheartedly. And it's so different than just being told, "Okay, just memorize or believe these particular statements and that's sufficient." It's a really different way of a spiritual teaching. It's a really different way of engaging with one's spiritual life. Especially at this time in India, it was a radical idea to really discover for oneself and to engage with oneself.

In another sutta, the Buddha talks about communities where people don't ask questions and people who do. He says those communities in which they ask questions of each other are the foremost communities; they are the communities that are doing the best. He says, "They question and examine each other, asking, 'How is this? What is the meaning of this?' And they discuss what is obscure and elucidate what is unclear and dispel their perplexity about perplexing points." So if there's any confusion, there's this encouragement to ask one another, even if not asking the teacher.

As I was saying, having a question really points to some involvement, some engagement with the teachings. It's like rolling up our sleeves and really thinking about it, getting into it, as opposed to just hearing it. Well, just hearing things does often just touch our hearts too, but there are practices to be done, contemplations perhaps, and cultivations. So there's a certain amount of engagement, and questioning is part of it.

But also, even if you have a question, underlying that is this assumption that there is a logic behind it. "Why is that? What is this?" implies that there's an answer to those questions, as opposed to somebody saying, "Okay, well, this is just magic, believe it, and you're good to go." But if you're asking questions, there's this understanding like, "Okay, well, what's the reason for this? And what led to that? And what are the consequences of this going to be? And how do you know? And how can I know?" These are the types of things which I appreciate very much, of course. I'm trained as a scientist, so I love this kind of stuff. I like to understand things. I come from a family of scientists, so this is just the way that I was socialized, and so it feels comfortable and fun for me, and familiar. It doesn't have to be that way for everybody, but for me, it is.

But also, asking questions suggests that you're willing to hear an answer. That is, you're willing to learn something. You're willing to say, "I don't know." You're willing to be told something by somebody else. I've known a number of people, and perhaps you have too, who really don't want to learn anything from anybody. They already have it all figured out, and they're all happy to tell you all the answers, but they're not going to admit or even suggest, "You know, I'm not clear about this point here. I have perplexity about this point. Let's talk about it. Do you understand it? I'm not sure."

For me personally, a big part of my path of practice is that I had the great good fortune to meet a number of people when I was first starting on this path. We would sometimes go to Peet's Coffee right over here, and we would just be like, "Wow, what was that? Did you get it? What do you think?" And we would just talk about it. It was so much fun to just talk about these ideas. I know here on Sundays, I think they do that. I think it's done on Zoom and in person on some Sundays. I'll play around with maybe doing that here on some of these days, but sometimes it's just nice to talk with other people about some of these ideas. Because it's different when you hear yourself saying things out loud. When you have to create a sentence and put a group of thoughts together, you realize where some of the gaps in the knowledge are. It sometimes happens to me when I'm reading the suttas. I love reading the suttas, and sometimes I'll say to somebody else, "Oh, I discovered this new little teaching that has X, Y, and Z." It's often Gil I'm telling this to, and he'll say, "Oh, but what about A, B, and C?" And I'm like, "Oh, hmm, I didn't think about that." And then I just realize, oh yeah, I need to put it in context and add it on to some other teachings. It's a way in which we make the teachings our own and make them come alive, instead of just passively receiving information.

This whole idea of asking questions—maybe it's obvious, but I'll say it explicitly—it helps us with doubt, this hindrance of doubt². Doubt can show up as a hindrance when it shows up as this vacillation or this hesitation, like, "I don't know, I'm not sure, I don't know what to do." And we find ourselves kind of stuck. Some obvious examples are if you sit down to meditate and you have this idea, "Okay, I'm going to do mindfulness meditation." You do a little bit of mindfulness, and then you notice that you're actually pretty grumpy. And then you think, "Okay, well, I'll do some loving-kindness meditation." And then you do a little bit of loving-kindness, a few minutes, "Oh no, that doesn't seem to be working. Well, maybe I'll just do listening meditation, opening up to the sounds. Yeah, okay, I don't like the sound of that dog. Okay, maybe I'll come back to the breath." This way of kind of... this doubt is a way in which we hesitate and we don't know, and we often are just bouncing around. Whereas if we had a little bit more, I'll use this word, confidence, we would say, "Okay, yep, the mind is a little bit busy right now and I'm grumpy, and that's just how it is right now." And we would just hang in there. And then we would have the opportunity to see how the mind just settles on its own if we give it time. Sometimes we have to just give it time. But often we have this impatience or it's uncomfortable what we're experiencing, so we want to do something else. So that's one way that doubt shows up.

Another way that doubt shows up is like, "I'm not so sure about this lineage of Buddhism. It seems like they're having more fun over there. The Tibetan Buddhist people, they have colorful things and fun hats and different words and, you know, all this stuff. And the Zen, they have this beautiful aesthetic, right? With this kind of simplicity and this beauty." So there might be this real hesitation about even this particular lineage or this tradition. That could be doubt also.

There could be doubt in the teacher. "Does she really know what she's talking about?" Any teacher, Dharma books, me sitting here, whomever. There can also be doubt about oneself. Like, "Okay, it seems like this is a good tradition, seems like the teachers seem reasonable, and it makes sense to me, the teachings that I hear, but I don't think I can do it. I have to go find something easier or something else." That's another way that doubt shows up: in the teachings, the teacher, or in oneself.

So this doubt as a hindrance. But there can be doubt that's really healthy and helpful. And this kind of doubt could be this one of, "Hmm, I'm not sure." And then there's a thinking of, "Okay, what is this specific question? What is it that I'm not sure about?" And to kind of pinpoint the doubt, or make it more specific instead of just a hesitation or a vacillation. Like, "Do I have to believe in rebirth for this tradition? What do they mean when they talk about not-self? Or was the Buddha really awakened? Are there awakened people today?" I don't know, I'm just saying these questions that sometimes people have. But it can be helpful to really kind of even write down, "Okay, what are the questions that I have?" And then to go back and look at those questions and see, "Okay, which one of these questions, if I had an answer, would really support my practice?" Because some of the questions are maybe things that we would like to know, but whether we know the answer or don't know the answer may not impact us very much. It's more of a curiosity. But is there a question that really has an impact on your practice, on you, the way that you show up for yourself for this practice? Which one is the most significant for you personally?

I know for me, one that I had earlier on, I felt so touched by the teachings, and it really spoke to my heart and meant a lot to me. And when I started to read the suttas, most of the individuals—not all of them, but most of them—are monastics. And I really felt like, "Oh gee, okay, if I want to be serious about this, I guess I have to shave my head and give everything away and go live in a cave or something like this." I didn't really understand what monastics were, but this was a real concern of mine. Like, I didn't want to shave my head and become a nun and live in a monastic lifestyle somewhere far away. That just didn't really interest me. I have a family to take care of and, you know, these types of things. So I just asked, "Do I have to ordain? Is that how one becomes a serious practitioner here?" And the answer was a really resounding no. At the time of the Buddha, it wasn't possible to attend a daylong. There were no meditation centers where you could go and meditate. There weren't books that you could read. There weren't things that you could listen to. The only way that you could have the teachings is if you heard them from somebody. And if you were a monastic, you were more likely to actually hear them. If you weren't a monastic, you were most likely busy all during the day doing what one did in ancient India to survive. So it's just very different now. Now we have so much more leisure time, and we have a lifestyle that allows people to go on retreats or come to a meditation center in the evening. So just in case any of you had that question too about the need to ordain—some people feel really called and want to dedicate their life and want to ordain, and that's beautiful, but it certainly isn't required.

And maybe I'll just say also, as it happened for me, I ended up spending one year where I spent more time on retreat than off retreat. So this is something that I could do not as a monastic, right? Just as a lay person. I had the great good fortune that my life at that time allowed me to do that. So there's a way in which I think in modern times, if you want to dedicate your life to practice, there are many ways in which one can do that.

But it might be worthwhile to ask, "Well, in what way does doubt or questions or unresolved questions affect my practice?" Maybe it doesn't affect my practice, or maybe it does. Maybe there's a way in which it holds you back. This could be a question to ask oneself.

So then this whole notion of questioning is, we might say, part of investigation, Dhamma-vicaya³. Some of you will know that investigation is one of the factors of Awakening⁴. So one of the elements that is a part of the whole Awakening process, a necessary part, is this investigation. Again, it's the opposite of just passively receiving or just believing. It's instead actually being curious and being present for what's actually happening. And what is the meaning behind what's said? What is it? What's being pointed to with the words, with the sentences, with the stories? What's being pointed to? What is it that they're trying to convey? Not just the exact words, but what's the meaning?

Investigation is the second factor of Awakening. It comes after mindfulness. And so it helps lay the foundation that can lead to equanimity, which is the seventh of the seven factors of Awakening. I'm not going to go through the whole list here, but it's a big part of creating the conditions for these big Awakening experiences, a big shift in one's perspective, a shift in one's way of viewing the world and viewing oneself.

So there's a way in which investigation can be something like just asking in meditation or in everyday life, just dropping in the question, "What is this?" Seems like a simple question. Like, okay, it's a bowl, or it could be a hat, or it could be a bell, or it could be an ornament. It can be a weapon, you can throw it, right? It's all these things. But this idea just to ask, "Well, what is this?" And then there's a way to just drop in the question and then open up, and an answer might bubble up. It might not bubble up, but the point is to ask the question, not to find the answer. It's the being open and receptive that changes, we might say, the ecology in the mind and the heart. This willingness to learn something new, this willingness to have a new understanding, this willingness to let go of the idea of, "Okay, I got it all figured out. I just have to keep on doing this," or something like that.

To be sure, often we want to feel safe, and in order to feel safe, we want to feel like, "Okay, I know everything, I got it all figured out here. I know what it is." But there's a way in which we can be closing down or shutting ourselves off from maybe some surprises or some unexpected or some maybe subtle things that could be really helpful for us to understand about the world, understand about ourselves.

Or maybe another way investigation can show up is, "What's underneath this?" or "Why am I doing this?" Just again, not to find the answer, but just to open up to having some curiosity about what some of our patterns are. It could be like, "I don't know why I'm doing this. I always do it this way." Or it could be, "Well, now that I think about it, I guess I'm doing this because I really, really dislike it, and I'm hoping this is going to go away, this thing or this experience." So I'm bracing myself against it, or I'm yelling, or I don't know, whatever it might be. So just to have some curiosity about why we do some of the things that we do. So like asking this kind of question, "Why am I doing this?" Because there's a way in which our patterns—I mean, there's a reason why we have them—but we don't have to be stuck with them for our whole life. They can be undone or loosened up and softened, and that's part of what meditation practice allows. It allows us to let the mind get quiet and not be pushed around so much, and then we can start to see some of our patterns with more clarity. And then we can start to recognize, "Oh, it doesn't have to be that way. I don't have to respond with anger every time that I'm feeling uncomfortable, or I feel like I have to wait for something and my impatience makes me feel angry at whomever it is I perceive is causing me to wait," or something like this.

So there's this way that investigation is a factor of Awakening, and it can also be a hindrance in the sense that it's a way in which aversion can often hide. "What is this?" you know, there's this tone that's, "Okay, I got to figure this out so I can get rid of it." Or, "I'm only asking what is this so that it'll go away. And maybe if I ask it enough times, this thing will go away." I've done a lot of that in my practice, thinking, "Okay, I know what I'm supposed to do." And I was questioning or investigating, and I didn't even recognize how I had this little agenda. I think Joseph Goldstein told me this one time, and it was very impactful. He said, "Well, you're investigating with an 'in order to' mind. You're only asking in order to make it go away or in order to have a different experience. There isn't a completeness of just asking for asking's sake." So this is part of the way in which investigation can be just a way that aversion shows up, or maybe greed shows up. Maybe you're only asking because you want more of something else or something like this.

So there's this way, can we just ask or investigate again just for the act of asking, instead of always pursuing something where we feel like we have to find the answer, we have to solve a question, we have to fix a problem? There's a way in which just asking allows us to just kind of open up and be curious about what's happening.

And here's a quote from Michael Phelan, who actually, I don't know who this is because somebody else that I was reading quoted Michael Phelan, so whomever Michael Phelan is, I bow to you. But here's this quote: "Answers don't arrive if you are afraid of sitting in the empty, dark room of not knowing." So there's this way of sitting in the empty, dark room of not knowing that's when answers can arise. And sometimes this empty, dark room feels uncomfortable, but I think that's the invitation here is maybe to find the spaciousness and the beauty that's present in not knowing all the answers. Something different can arise, something new can arise.

Something else about investigation is that it can turn into what I sometimes like to call an "archaeological dig." Like, we're just trying to figure this out. "And maybe it's because of that thing that happened when I was eight years old, and then my mom did this, and my brother did that," or you know, there's this way in which we can really try to figure it out and do a kind of psychological dig. That has value and it has its place, but that's not what we're doing with meditation. Meditation is doing something really different. It's just asking, "What is this?" and it's allowing things to bubble up. It's not digging, trying to find them, because that's more rumination or contemplation or something that's very different than investigation. But because they're both questioning, maybe there's a way in which they can get conflated, and we can feel like, "Oh, that's what I should be doing while my eyes are closed and I'm quiet, is trying to figure this out." But I would say in this tradition, that's not what we do during our meditation. We're just creating the conditions for the answers to find us. We don't have to find them. And it's quite something how this happens. We all have this experience where, like, in the shower, "Oh, right," and you figure it out, or out for a walk or something like that. It's the same type of thing where the answers just arrive.

So maybe I'll also say that not all questioning is useful. Not all questioning is useful. In fact, there are these 10 questions that the Buddha didn't even bother to answer. He just didn't even think that they were worthwhile. And he didn't answer them because he thought, "You know, this has no bearing on supporting one's suffering and the lessening of suffering." If you want to understand suffering, your particular suffering, suffering in the world, and how to alleviate or diminish it, these questions wouldn't help with that. And not only would they not help with that, but they also had these assumptions underneath them that would lead a person the wrong way. They were coming from a point of view that would not be supportive. An example is something like this: "Do unicorns have green eyes or blue eyes?" Right? It doesn't help you with your suffering, and it just assumes that unicorns have eyes, that they exist, you know, all these kinds of things.

Sometimes when we hear these 10 questions that the Buddha didn't bother answering, we might not understand or appreciate some of the assumptions that underlie them. I won't go through all of these 10 questions; I have in some other talks, and maybe I will again at some time. But two of these questions are: "Is the world eternal?" and "Is the world infinite?" So, is the world eternal—talking about time, does it have a beginning, does it have an end? And then implicit in that question is that it only matters if there's a self or a soul or something that would last forever. Otherwise, it's a completely irrelevant question. So there's this assumption underneath it that there's some continuity of a being through time. And the same with infinite, it's the same idea with space too. That's only a relevant question if it assumes that an entity could go through all space or something like this.

So the Buddha was pointing to the fact that some questions just don't help with suffering. And not only that, but we could spend a lot of time worrying about them or thinking about them, trying to figure them out, and they're not answerable. And they might even be causing us more suffering. He really wanted to highlight that going down that road isn't the road that's going to help us with our life. And this is part of why with meditation practice, with this practice, we're really focusing on what's happening here and now, like what's knowable for ourselves here and now. That's the beauty and the power of this practice. It's really about what all of us as individuals can discover for ourselves, each of us for ourselves. It doesn't require some special teachings or some special... maybe it doesn't require anything special. It does require practice though, I will say that. It does require practice.

So this whole idea of questioning—the Buddha right on his deathbed was asking, "Does anybody have any questions?" And he talked about how communities that question one another and spiritual friends who support one another with questions are an important part of practice. And it's one of the factors of Awakening, this investigation, this questioning mind, this approach to not having the answers. But some questions are more worthwhile than others. So it might be worthwhile for us to see, are there some questions that we have, some doubt that we have, that is affecting our practice, is affecting our engagement with the practice? And if so, you can read a book, listen to Dharma talks, ask a teacher, ask other people with these questions, and find some answers that hopefully can support you in your practice.

So I'll end there and I'll open it up to see if there's some questions. Thank you.

Q&A

Questioner 1: Thank you for this talk. It definitely feels like an invitation to ask something that I've been wondering about for a while, but I haven't asked because I didn't want to be challenging or kind of come off the wrong way. I think something that has given me pause at times has been the conversations about desire and aversion. Because I came to the practice feeling very out of touch with myself at first, and found that as I meditated, I started to develop actually more awareness of my own desires and aversions, and the boundaries that I need to move in the world and things like that. And I find those things important to know, especially as a feminist and things like that. Where are those boundaries? What do I say yes to? And I guess to distill it into a simple question, maybe there's a part of me that's just like, what's wrong with those things? What's wrong with desire or aversion, or both?

Diana Clark: Do you have a sense, or does it seem like they're all good, or does it seem like there are any downsides?

Questioner 1: I mean, they can go too far. They can be obsessional or sort of compulsive. Some aversions I would say I definitely ruminate about, you know, my desire to avoid certain things. So maybe there's a line.

Diana Clark: Yeah, so what happens often is that we have an experience, and then we have a reaction to that experience, desire or aversion. And then we're often moving through this like desire and aversion, and we've completely lost contact with what the experience actually is. But instead, we're having a relationship with, "I like this, I want more of it, therefore I got to do something," and then in the future, "I got to remember to stop at this store and do this thing," or like, "Oh, I don't want to make this happen. Okay, so I got to make sure I got to do this and I got to do that." So there's this way in which desire and aversion kind of disconnect us from what's actually happening, can disconnect us from ourselves and kind of insulate us from what's happening in the world. Does that help?

Questioner 1: Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks.

Diana Clark: And then maybe I'll just say one thing about desire. There is a desire, you know, for greater freedom, less suffering, that's really healthy and helpful. And then there's desire to protect oneself and have boundaries, which is really healthy and helpful and stuff like that.

Questioner 2: Hi, I have a related question that I've been wondering about, which is, how do you let go of clinging or desire without any aversion toward it?

Diana Clark: Yeah, it gets a little complicated, doesn't it? No, well, it can. It's not letting go out of aversion, it's more letting go because of this recognition that this isn't going to be a source of lasting happiness. Just like, "Oh, yeah, this isn't..." I thought that my having this, I was going to have the best bell ever, and people were going to be so impressed, "Look at Diana, she's a great Dharma teacher because she has a good bell." So I better have this bell. But then when you realize, "Oh no, that's silly," then it's easier to let it down, to let it go. So there's a way in which our identities are often... I exaggerated it for that point, but our identities are often associated with objects, things, people. And so the letting go is more about not having our identities associated with them. Does that make sense?

Questioner 2: Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you.

Diana Clark: Maybe I should have left more time for questions if I gave a talk on questions. I didn't think about that. [Laughter]

Questioner 3: Thank you. I mean, it's an interesting talk, and so I have a question about questions. Okay. So, assuming that it very rarely happens that one asks a question and gets an answer and that's life-changing—it can happen—but as you pointed out in your talk, real answers sort of bubble up over time, probably with practice over several years. And suddenly, one question is answered, and two more years, and another question, something like that. However, questions seem to be valuable for practice. And there are other traditions where students question each other, or students and teachers question each other back, not so much to get an answer, but as practice. And I wonder, does IMC have something like this? I'm not familiar with the practices.

Diana Clark: Well, not so much in the mindfulness tradition, we don't as much. But there is... that would be more like talking about a topic, and then the teacher might say, "Well, during your meditation, drop in a question," and they'll suggest a question that would be a support for whatever topic they're teaching about specifically. So it's not often given as a practice itself, and certainly not like a practice... there isn't anything like that here. But so sometimes questions are, but it's more "drop them in" and then see if anything bubbles up kind of thing.

Questioner 4: Can you say a bit about what Buddha meant when he said those 500 have reached the first stage? Like, would there be any actual indicators? One is, you said, no doubt. No doubt about the... are there other specifics where one can say, "I have..." I have a similar question regarding also, like, they say, "Oh, entering the stream," right? At what point do you feel like, "I'm in the stream?" That kind of question.

Diana Clark: Yeah, so stream-enterer⁵ is the first stage. And the tradition holds that there's the ending of doubt, but what's most evident you can see is people's identity view has shifted. So their sense about themselves is really different in some kind of way, and that's noticeable. And the third way is no longer believing that rites and rituals alone will be sufficient for greater freedom. So that's the three marked changes that happen with that first shift.

Okay. Well, thank you all for your kind attention, and I wish you a lovely rest of the evening. Thank you.