Do You Love Me? That is the Question!

We sat at the back of the class watching the hands go up and hearing the questions and Master Chia’s endlessly patient answers.
“He knows that already,” I said to Richard next to me when a certain man kept asking the same question in different ways, showing off knowledge rather than seeking information.
“Perhaps he’s lonely,” said Richard.

When I’d finished the Instructor Training and was teaching my own sessions I discovered what it felt like to be asked questions to which the asker already knew the answer. Sometimes it was indeed to show off knowledge. Other times I thought I detected deliberate traps, you know the kind of thing, what is one and one, answer two, then a triumphant flourish of the book “But look, see, it says here on page hundred and eleven that it is eleven! I’m confused. What is the answer?”
Should I say ‘Are you lonely?”

But is not that the question? How often have I asked a question simply to draw attention to myself, to my knowledge, skill, resourcefulness, superior experience? How often have I known the answer, or asked with the best of intentions – to elicit more information for the benefit of those who I felt in my wisdom might not have understood – because they are still and also asking questions.

My next meeting with Master Chia was about business. I was about to take over sponsoring his London visits. We talked about promotions, venues and what-have-you. Later over tea I said, “Where do get the patience to answer all those questions, again and again?”
“Every question,” he answered, “means Do you love me. Every answer, when you give one, means Yes, I love you.”

That is a Taoist Master.