Question

At your level of practice, do questions still arise? How/with whom do you resolve them?

Answer

Of course they do! I've not yet reached the ultimate understanding, and I still have more to do until I'm fully enlightened. Often I will make questions arise in order to get to a deeper level of understanding. So I'll continue to ask questions.

Steve and I act as each other's Kalyanamittas, especially in the sense that we have a different personality to each other and we tend to balance each other in many areas. Sometimes they are resolved by going into retreat for a longer time and practicing the techniques without responsibilities.

So, we resolve questions internally using Yonisomanasikara and applying Appamada, (Heedfulness) to our lives or externally by having a Kalyanamitta. That's how a lot of questions are resolved, and, if we have the opportunity to meet with teachers, we ask a lot of questions.

That's one of the reasons remembering the scriptures helped me a great deal in the beginning, because I was quite shy, having a liking for obscurity. So coming and asking questions of the teachers was rather challenging. However, I always had in the back of my mind, the Buddha's teaching of Kamma, "If you go to your teachers and don't ask questions, you will be reborn stupid". That's one thing I don't want to be reborn, is stupid.

Bringing Suttas to mind can often help resolve questions. Also, when I'm in retreat, because I'm doing a self-retreat, sometimes when I understand something I'll just jot it down. Sometimes, when I have questions later, and I've forgotten this, I will consult what I noted and, "Ah! There it is." So this is often how we can resolve questions.

But, the biggest way Steve and I resolve questions is by debating with each other. We will take a subject of Dhamma and debate sides, and go deeper and deeper into a particular subject. Sometimes the results are quite amazing.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.