The sangha is gathered together at the New Hamlet on August 10, 2000, for a question and answer session.

We begin with a few questions from the children:

1. What can I do if I have the tendency to tease someone, and what should I do once I realize I have hurt somebody with my teasing?
2. What do you do when you see and hear a mosquito, and when it starts to bite you?
3. How many times do you meditate a day?

Followed by questions from teenagers, young adults, and adults:

1. How can I embrace my parents’ positive aspects when I have never experienced them, accept them into my life, and reestablish links with a biological mother who abandoned, tortured, and threatened to kill me, and a father I have never known?
2. How can we help someone who has locked up all their suffering in the store consciousness, closed all the doors, and is afraid that if she opens one, she will be overwhelmed by the suffering?
3. How can I live through moments where emotions are very strong, like an earthquake, and I cannot come back to myself or practice conscious breathing?
4. When you were a novice in the beginning, how were you taught, what was the schedule of the day, did you have a lot of sitting meditation, and what kind of teachings did you learn?
5. What importance do we have to give to our night dreams, and can sitting meditation enable us with time to understand them?
6. How many hours do you usually sleep in the night?
7. Are there moments in your life when you would like to do something else than what you are doing, or being somebody else, or thoughts of rather being a novice or a monk and not have responsibility?
8. Can there be a right moment to leave a relationship, or will it always feel like running away?
9. How do I practice with a yearning toward becoming a nun when I am married with a husband and a two-year-old child?
10. What is there in order to recognize anger and to embrace anger, or is there just the energy of anger that makes us a victim where expressing it does more harm than good?
11. How do I practice when I often experience resistance to practice and do not enjoy my breathing?
12. What is right effort?
13. Could you please speak about the practice of non-violent action in the resolution of conflict, and how to overcome the suffering and hatred in Basque Country?
14. Does working with local police, helping them in difficult situations including when they have taken a life as part of their duty, affect the ability to practice the First Mindfulness Training?
15. What should a mother and daughter do when the daughter has left her husband because he beats her, and he does not accept their help?