Questions to Ask During Meditation
Questions to ask during meditation, for people who sit on their own or follow a recording and want a question to rest their attention on. The list runs in the order of a sit: settling in, body and breath, feelings, self-inquiry, larger open questions for once the mind has quieted, and closing questions for the last minute before you stand up. One or two per sit is plenty, asked once and then left alone.
Want questions from the whole vault instead? Try the random question generator.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Settling in
What am I bringing into this sit?
Why ask it
Take a quick inventory before the timer starts: the argument at breakfast, the deadline, the good mood. Nothing has to be cleared out. You are only noting what is in the room, so it surprises you less when it turns up at minute six.
What is my intention for this meditation?
Why ask it
Keep it to a few words you could still recall halfway through, such as "stay with the breath" or "be kind about wandering." An intention is a direction and not a target, so there is nothing to grade when the bell rings.
What is here right now?
Why ask it
The widest question on the page. Ask it and wait: a sound, pressure in the legs, a mood, a stray thought. Whatever shows up first is the answer, and asked again a minute later the answer will have changed.
Where is my breath easiest to feel?
Why ask it
Nostrils, chest and belly are the usual candidates, and the clearest one shifts from day to day. Choose it and treat it as home base for this sit. If the spot goes faint later, ask again.
Can I feel where my body meets the chair or the floor?
Why ask it
A yes-or-no question that the body answers faster than the mind can. Go through the contact points one at a time, feet, seat, hands, and by the third your attention has usually come down out of the day's planning.
Am I already trying to get this sit right?
Why ask it
Effort shows up as a held jaw, a rigid back or a running commentary on how it is going. Spotting the trying is the whole job here. Loosen one thing and carry on.
What can I hear, from nearest to farthest?
Why ask it
Made for a noisy room. Start with your own breathing, then the room, then the street, then whatever is past that. A lawnmower stops being an interruption once it is one of the things you are listening to.
Am I sleepy, restless or somewhere between?
Why ask it
The answer tells you how to sit today. Sleepy: eyes a little open, back straighter. Restless: lengthen the exhale or count breaths to ten. One honest reading at the start saves ten minutes of fighting the wrong problem.
What can I set down for the length of this sit?
Why ask it
Pick one item, the report or the worry about your mother, and tell it you will pick it up again at the bell. It will come back anyway. Each return is one more chance to set it down, and that repetition is most of what a sit consists of.
What would it be like to have nowhere else to be until the bell?
Why ask it
There is no answer to find. Drop the question in and feel what the body does with it, which is often a drop in the shoulders. If it replies with a list of places you ought to be, you have learned something about the day.
Body and breath
Which part of my body is asking for attention first?
Why ask it
An itch, a stiff knee, a cold foot. Go to it on purpose before it drags you there, rest your attention on it for three breaths, and see whether it changes. Then move on to the next loudest place.
Where am I gripping without needing to?
Why ask it
Check the hands, the jaw, the forehead, the belly, and the tongue pressed against the roof of the mouth. Don't order anything to relax. Being noticed often lets a grip go by half, and half is plenty.
What does this one breath feel like from start to finish?
Why ask it
One breath only: the first pull of the inhale, the turn at the top, the long slide out, the pause. When you have drifted, this is the question that brings you back, because it can only be answered in the present.
Is this sensation steady, or is it shifting as I watch?
Why ask it
For an ache or an itch you would like to be rid of. Watched closely, most of them pulse, travel or thin out. If the pain is sharp or getting worse, stop watching it and change position.
Is the air cooler coming in than going out?
Why ask it
A small question with a real answer, usually felt at the rim of the nostrils. Keep it for days when the mind is too busy for an open question and needs one precise thing to look for.
What is pleasant in my body right now, even slightly?
Why ask it
Attention goes to discomfort by default, so this takes a deliberate look: warm hands, a steady seat, the ease at the end of an exhale. You can rest on that spot for as long as it lasts, and it gives a restless mind a reason to stay.
Do I need to move, or do I only want to?
Why ask it
Wait three breaths before deciding. A want generally fades in that time. A need, a numb foot or a knee that is complaining sharply, gets louder, and then you move slowly and on purpose, feeling the shift the way you were feeling the breath.
What happens in my body just before I drift into thought?
Why ask it
Ask it right after you catch yourself wandering, and look back a few seconds. Some people find a slump, a shallower breath, the eyes moving behind the lids. Most days you will catch nothing, and the looking still sharpens the next ten breaths.
Feelings
What am I feeling right now?
Why ask it
Label it quietly, the way you would label a jar: restless, sad, flat, content. "Not sure" is an accurate answer too. Say the word once and go back to the breath instead of explaining the feeling to yourself.
Where does this feeling sit in my body?
Why ask it
Scan the stomach, the throat, the chest, the hands and the jaw. Wherever it turns up, finding the place turns a story into a sensation with edges, and a sensation is easier to stay beside.
If this feeling had a size, a shape or a weight, what would they be?
Why ask it
A fist-sized knot, a tight band, a wet coat on the shoulders. Describing keeps you looking at the feeling instead of out through it. Check again after a minute and compare, because the description rarely holds.
Can I let this be here for three more breaths?
Why ask it
Much smaller than asking whether you accept it, and that is why it works. When the three breaths are up, renew the deal or go back to your anchor. If the honest answer is no, open your eyes and feel your feet. Stopping there is a sound choice.
Is this pleasant, unpleasant or neither?
Why ask it
An old sorting from Buddhist mindfulness teaching, usually called feeling tone. Neither is the bin most people skip. Counting how much of a sit is simply neutral takes some of the drama out of the other two.
What is this feeling asking for?
Why ask it
The reply is often plain: rest, food, a phone call, a cry. Make a note of it and decide after the bell. If the reply is a five-step plan, you have slipped into thinking, so go back to where the feeling sits in the body.
Am I upset about being upset?
Why ask it
The first feeling arrived without asking you. The second is commentary on it, and commentary can sometimes be dropped when the feeling itself cannot. Naming both layers, "anxious, and annoyed about it," is usually enough to separate them.
What is under the boredom?
Why ask it
Only for a sit that has gone gray. Boredom on the cushion is often restlessness, sleepiness or a wish not to feel something else. Look at it as a sensation for a few breaths and see which of the three it turns into.
Can I offer myself the kindness I would offer a friend who felt this?
Why ask it
Try one silent sentence, such as "this is hard, and I am here," with a hand on the chest if that helps. If it sounds false, note that as well. On a bad day the willingness counts for more than any warmth you manage to feel.
Self-inquiry
Where did my mind just go?
Why ask it
Ask it at the moment you realize you have been gone. Answer in one word, planning, replaying, rehearsing or worrying, and come back to the breath. Keep a loose tally and within a few sits you will know which of them is your regular.
Who am I?
Why ask it
The best-known inquiry question, and some teachers give a student nothing else to work with. Every answer that comes, a name, a job, somebody's parent, is something you are aware of, so set it aside and ask again. When the answers thin out, stay in that quiet for a few breaths.
Who is noticing this?
Why ask it
Use it in the middle of a sound or an itch, when there is something definite being noticed. Turn your attention back toward whatever is doing the noticing and rest for a few seconds in not finding much. If you feel strained or lightheaded, return to the breath and try again another day.
What will my next thought be?
Why ask it
Ask it, then wait the way you would watch a doorway for someone who is due any second. There is usually a short gap before anything arrives, and that gap is the reason for asking. Don't try to hold it open.
Is this a thought, a sensation or a sound?
Why ask it
A sorting question for busy days. Drop whatever grabs you into one of the three bins and leave it there, with no further comment. The sort is quick enough that it never becomes a train of thought itself.
Is this thought true, or only familiar?
Why ask it
For the one that keeps circling: "I'm behind," "I'm no good at this." No argument is needed in the sit. Seeing that it is a rerun loosens it a little, and a proper examination belongs in a notebook afterward.
What am I resisting right now?
Why ask it
It might be a noise, an ache, the length of the sit, or a feeling you would prefer not to have. Resistance tends to be physical, a bracing or a leaning away, so find where the bracing is. You do not have to stop it. Naming it is enough.
What stays the same while everything else changes?
Why ask it
Sounds come and go, so does the breath, so does the mood. Ask, then look for what was present through all of it. Traditions give different answers and you do not have to choose among them. Let the question hang.
What is left when I stop trying to change anything?
Why ask it
Drop the project of improving the moment for ten seconds. What is left tends to be ordinary: the room, the breathing, a hum from the fridge. Ordinary is the right answer, so don't go looking for a better one.
Am I meditating, or thinking about meditating?
Why ask it
Catches the narrator: planning how you will describe this sit, grading it, drafting your next question. No scolding. Take one full breath as though it were the first of the sitting and start from there.
What do I not know right now, and can I rest there?
Why ask it
Zen has a name for this, don't-know mind. Use it when you notice yourself pressing for a verdict on something. For the length of the sit, not knowing can be a place to rest. The decision will still be there at the bell.
Is this question helping, or is it one more distraction?
Why ask it
The test for every other question on this page. If you are three sentences into a reply, it has turned into thinking. Let it go, feel one breath, and either ask again more lightly or sit without a question.
Open questions
What do I need right now?
Why ask it
Ask once, return to the breath, and see what surfaces unbidden over the next minute. A single word or a picture, sleep, your sister, outdoors, deserves more weight than a paragraph you reasoned your way to.
What do I really want?
Why ask it
The first replies are usually errands and purchases. Let them go by and ask again on the next exhale. Whatever is still there on the third asking, rest, a person, a change you keep postponing, is the one to write down after the bell.
What am I grateful for right now?
Why ask it
Keep it within reach of the cushion: a quiet house, a body that works, ten minutes nobody else claimed. Stay with one item for a few breaths and notice what it does in the chest or the face. One thing you can feel does more than twenty you recite.
What matters most to me today?
Why ask it
The word today keeps it answerable. If what comes is an item from your to-do list, ask what that item is for. One layer down there is nearly always a person or something you care about, and that is the real reply.
What is my purpose?
Why ask it
Too large to settle in twenty minutes, so do not try. Ask it once and watch for what stirs: a face, a kind of work, a place. If nothing comes, shrink it to what this one day is for and hold that version.
What am I avoiding by staying busy?
Why ask it
A sit is one of the few times the busyness stops, so the thing you have been outrunning is often right at the surface. Seeing it is all that is asked. If it is heavy, come back to the breath and take it to someone you trust afterward.
What do I already know about this decision?
Why ask it
Choose the decision and say it in one sentence before you sit. Then do no deliberating: ask, and listen for three or four breaths. Silence is a reply as well, and it generally means the decision is not ripe.
What would enough look like today?
Why ask it
For the person who sits down already behind. Let a picture form instead of a number: the one conversation, the walk, dinner at the table. It is nearly always smaller than the list you carried in.
What am I ready to let go of?
Why ask it
Name one thing only: a grudge, a plan that is not working, an old picture of how this year would go. In a sit, letting go means loosening your hold for a single breath and feeling what that is like, with no promise attached. Leave this one for another week if the subject is still raw.
What question am I really asking?
Why ask it
When a question produces only noise, it may be standing in for another. "Should I leave this job" is sometimes "what am I afraid of" in work clothes. Ask this, wait, and take whichever question arrives into tomorrow's sit.
Closing
What did I notice during this sit?
Why ask it
One thing is enough: a tight shoulder, sadness under the hurry, birds outside. Sits you would have filed under "nothing happened" nearly always give something up when asked this directly.
How do I feel now compared with when I started?
Why ask it
Set it against the inventory you took at the beginning. The result is not always calmer. Sometimes it is more tired, or more aware of a mood you had been outpacing. Read it the way you would read a thermometer, with no grade attached.
What kept pulling me away, and does it need something from me?
Why ask it
Deal with the repeat offender now. A task goes on paper, a worry gets a time later today, a person may be owed a message. Whatever is written down after the bell has much less reason to interrupt tomorrow.
What is one thing from this sit I want to take with me?
Why ask it
Tie it to a moment that will definitely happen: one breath before answering the phone, feeling your feet while the kettle boils. A quality with no cue attached, "be more present," is gone by mid-morning.
What will I do in the first minute after I stand up?
Why ask it
Many sits end with a hand already on the phone. Deciding on that first minute ahead of time, a glass of water, a look out the window, lets the quiet reach a little way into the day before the screen takes over.
Who could use some of this patience today?
Why ask it
Think of a name. A coworker, a child, yourself at four in the afternoon. Picture the moment you will meet them and how you would like to arrive. A sit makes the most sense when it is pointed at somebody.
Is there a question from today that I want to bring back tomorrow?
Why ask it
Staying with one question for a week tends to go further than a new one every morning. If something opened today, write the question down. If nothing did, try tomorrow's sit with no question at all.
When will I sit next?
Why ask it
Give it a time and a place, not "tomorrow." The reasons to sit are clearest in the half minute after the bell, so settle it then. A two-minute sit that you keep is worth more than the half hour you had planned.
Holding a question without thinking it over
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to hold a question
Ask once, then listen
Say the question silently one time, slowly, and go back to the breath. Think of dropping a pebble into a pond and watching the rings, not of fishing. If a reply comes, note it in a word or two. If none comes, the listening was the meditation.
Let the body go first
Most of these questions are answered by a sensation before they are answered by a sentence: a loosening, a tightening, a lump in the throat. Give that a few breaths before any words. When words arrive early and in bulk, treat them as thinking and let them pass.
One or two a sit
This page is a menu. A common pattern is one settling question in the first minute and one question from the middle groups for the rest of the sit, with a closing question at the bell. Working down the page in a single sitting turns a meditation into a quiz.
Keep the wording short
A question you have to reconstruct mid-sit is too long. Trim it to a few words you can say on one exhale, "what is here," "who notices," "what is needed," and use the same wording each time so that the question itself stops drawing attention.
With a guided recording
If a teacher's voice is already asking questions, use theirs and leave this page for another day. Two sets of prompts compete. The silent stretches of a recording, or the minute after it ends, are the natural place for one question of your own.
Matching the question to the part of the sit
The first two minutes
Settling questions are concrete on purpose: contact with the chair, sounds, energy level, an intention in a few words. They give a scattered mind something simple to do. Skip the large questions here. Asked of an unsettled mind, they mostly produce planning.
The middle
Body and breath, Feelings and Self-inquiry are the working part. Choose by what is loudest. A sore back calls for a body question, a mood for a feelings question, and a racing or self-critical mind for one of the inquiry questions that looks at thought itself.
Once things are quiet
The Open questions about need, wanting, gratitude and decisions do best late in a sit, after several minutes of plain attention. The quieter the mind, the more likely the reply is a word or an image and not a debate. On an agitated day, leave them out.
The last minute
Closing questions point the sit at the hours that come after it. Keep the eyes closed for the question and open them for the answer if you want to write it down. A notebook within reach of the cushion means nothing has to be remembered during the sit.
A ten-minute example
Minute one: what am I bringing in, and where is the breath easiest to feel. Minutes two to eight: follow the breath, ask where your mind just went each time you catch it gone, and when a feeling insists, ask where it sits in the body. Minute nine: what do I need right now, asked once. At the bell: one thing to take with you, tied to a moment that will happen.
When a question has become a distraction
You are composing an answer
Full sentences, arguments on both sides, a plan with steps: that is deliberation, and it is useful somewhere else. Label it "thinking," feel one breath all the way through, and decide whether to ask again more lightly or to drop the question for today.
You keep switching questions
Trading one question for another every thirty seconds is restlessness, however thoughtful it looks from the inside. Pick one, stay with it for the whole sit, and let it be dull if dull is what it is.
The asking has turned harsh
"What am I feeling" can slide into "what is wrong with me." Listen to the tone you ask in. If it sounds like a cross-examination, switch to a body question or to the kindness question in the Feelings group, and come back to inquiry another day.
The question is a way out
Sometimes a question shows up exactly when the sit gets uncomfortable or boring, as a more respectable thing to do than staying. A fair check: would you still want to ask it if the last minute had been pleasant? If not, stay with the discomfort a little longer first.
Nothing ever comes
Weeks of asking with no reply does not mean you are doing it wrong. Some people's attention simply settles better on the breath, a phrase or sound than on a question. Sitting with no question is a complete practice, and the last question in the Self-inquiry group is there to tell you when to return to it.
If a sit turns heavy
You can stop
Open your eyes, look around the room, press your feet into the floor, name five things you can see. Ending a sit early is a choice you are allowed to make at any point, and coming back tomorrow with a body question is a perfectly good next step.
Hard material is not a test
Questions about feelings and avoidance can bring up grief, old memories or panic. Staying with something mildly uncomfortable is part of the practice. Forcing yourself to stay with something overwhelming is not, and no question on this page is worth that.
Who to take it to
If the same difficult material keeps arriving, or sitting leaves you feeling worse over time, talk to a meditation teacher who knows your practice or to a mental health professional. Ask them how they would adjust the practice for you, since that depends on your history and is not something a list of questions can settle.