12/06/2018 “Knowing How to Ask the Right Question” with Diane Wilde

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The Buddha taught that how we frame our questions is equally, and usually, more important then the answer. In other words, the Buddha wasn’t content simply to provide answers to people’s questions. He also wanted to show them how unskillful questions can be recognized through testing, and how skillful questions—conducive to the end of suffering—can be framed and tested in their place. These skills are applicable to our meditation practice as well as in daily life. For example, we might begin to see when we or others are asking a question not for an answer, but to enhance a particular self-identity. If we do not know how to frame our questions skillfully, we can find ourselves mired in an untenable situation of our own making. As Voltaire noted, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”