How To Ask Questions To A Meditation Teacher?

The following question was recently addressed to the teachers in the Sangha Live community forum:

Do you have any advice about how best to interact directly with a teacher, e.g. in one-on-one meetings during a retreat or even in the question period during daily practice? When I'm given the chance to meet with a teacher, I sometimes feel awkward and don't know what to say. It seems important not to miss the opportunity. How should students be thinking about questions for the teacher?

This is a wonderful question that is very relevant to everyone's meditation practice. In this post, I've laid out a few important guidelines that address the spirit and context of the question.

The guidelines below will help you approach a meditation teacher with your practice questions. They are by no means exhaustive, but are meant to be a starting point that can help optimize the teacher-student relationship.

One important caveat: these guidelines refer to an ideal situation within a teacher-student relationship that has healthy ethical boundaries. Actual teacher-student relationships are dynamic interactions and should also be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Formal Context

Keeping the relationship formal will allow for the most effectiveness, regardless of whether the Dharma context is traditional, modern, or post-modern. A mature teacher is a transmitter of Dharma, and as such, formal relationships are usually the most effective vehicle.

There are teachers who may relate with you informally at times. However, your empowerment comes from holding the relationship formally.

Types Of Questions

There are three types of questions for Dharma teachers:

1. Theoretical questions

2. Practice-related questions

3. Life-application questions

When you are sincerely and diligently practicing mindfulness and/or concentration, at any given time your practice will put you at your developmental edge in one or more of these three domains.

You are at your developmental edge when you have one foot in what you know and the other foot in completely unknown territory. There are always questions arising at this developmental frontier. These are the best and most effective questions to bring to your teacher.

1-On-1 Interviews On Retreat

Retreats are precious opportunities to develop your insight in ways that are almost impossible in daily life. As such, I recommend that you limit the one-on-one interview to meditation practice-related questions. In other words, prioritize insight.

Rather than going to the interview with a question, go prepared to report what is going on phenomenologically with the objects of meditation in your practice: breath, sensations, thoughts, and so on.

This will allow the teacher to understand what's happening inside your practice and then guide you accordingly.

In this context, it is the teacher who will usually have some leading questions for you that will help you get clarity on how to practice at your leading edge.

Burning Dharma Questions

Keep your questions to the most relevant thing that is currently arising in your practice.

Before asking, do the work of trying to understand the question by yourself first. In other words, don't expect to be spoon-fed answers by the teacher. This is not very empowering.

"Wrestle" with the question yourself first. This will help you get as clear as possible on the fundamental issue, which will lead to a more effective and satisfying exchange.

Approach the teacher in a "Dharma Discussion" context, usually a live Q&A session. This brings a fullness of energetic attention to the relationship as well as to the room of practitioners. It allows the question to have its biggest benefit for the greatest number of people.

When You Have No Questions

Accept that there are times of plateau in your practice.

Engagement with your teacher isn't always a back-and-forth. Being in a formal space with a teacher alone can be very impactful under the right conditions.

If there are no burning questions, then just be with what is. Watch the breath, open your mind, open your heart, listen to others' questions, listen to the silence, receive the teachings, allow your consciousness to be penetrated, and see the impact it has on your mind-body.

If you are available for insight to naturally unfold... it will.

Finally, if you are wondering what a "burning question" is, just look at the very question that prompted this article. It is a wonderful example of a burning question that came right out of the leading edge of a person's meditation practice.

Authentic. To the point. Effective. And satisfying.

Thank you to the person who posted it.