Basic Questions are the fundamental inquiries used on the path of knowledge to investigate the nature of any object, concept, or aspect of experience. They form the primary tool of analysis and are used systematically to extract knowledge and destroy ignorance.

The questions

The basic questions are:

• What is it? The essential nature, the definition. What is the thing we are studying? What category does it belong to?

• How many? Is it one or many? Is it unique or does it repeat?

• When? Does it have a beginning in time? Does it end? Is it eternal, timeless?

• Where? Does it exist in a place? Is it local or non-local?

• Why? What is its cause? What produced it? What is its purpose?

• How? What process brought it into being? What mechanism sustains it?

• Who? Is there a person or entity behind it? Is it personal or impersonal?

How they are used

These questions are applied to every fundamental concept on the path: the existence, the experiencer, the experience, the mind, the self, consciousness, and so on. When applied rigorously using direct experience and logic, they reveal the true nature of whatever is being studied.

For example, when we interrogate the experiencer using these basic questions, we discover that it cannot be experienced (answering what), that there is only one of it (answering how many), that it has no beginning or end (answering when), that it is non-local (answering where), that it has no cause (answering why), that no process brought it about (answering how), and that it is not a person (answering who).

The power of questioning

The way of the agnostic person the one who has gone all the way on the path is asking questions, not telling answers. As soon as an agnostic person asks a question, a ton of ignorance drops like bricks. Total devastation happens in the mind because of one question that the teacher or the agnostic person has asked.

If such a person is kind enough, they will ask you to look at your own beliefs, assumptions, and delusions. They will ask exactly the kind of question that will bring the house of cards down.

The seeker must learn to ask these questions of themselves not waiting for answers from outside, but turning the inquiry inward. The basic questions are not about gathering information; they are about destroying assumptions.

See also: analysis, inquiry, logic, direct experience, means of knowledge, experiencer, experience, existence.