Skillfull Investigative Questions
SnowFlower Sun – July & August 2018
From a talk by Cheri Maples
The first set of questions invites us to look where we are making our home from moment to
moment.
- What am I practicing in this moment?
- What is the quality of my heart right now?
Where is kindness right now? - Where is gentleness right now?
- What would be needed to be at peace in this moment?
The second set of questions may be called deep life questions.
Rilke said, “I… beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love
the questions themselves…Don’t search for answers which could not be given to you now
because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live everything; live the questions
now. Perhaps then…someday…you will…without even noticing it, live your way into the
answers.”
- When life is unjust, what is equanimity?
- What would make me enough?
- Is fear inside or outside?
- What do I want most?
The third set is made up of meditative questions. Asked in the service of wisdom, they point
beyond conditions to the “big picture”. They ask us to stay quiet and keep listening.
- What in this moment is truly lacking?
- Is there any other moment better than this one? (Initially, you might think there had better be!
But if you stay with it, you may see that it is not possible for another moment to be better
without going back into the past or forward into the future.) - What does love without attachment look like?
- Who is it that is angry? Who is it that is upset? Who is it that is happy? WHO AM I?