[Author's note: This originally was a reply to heyelsa's Bodhichitta Begins at Home but took on a life of it's own. Please read the original post, not for context, but because it is thought-provoking and well-formed.]

In my admittedly meandering spiritual journey, I've found a few acts most beneficial.

The least of the most is self-study, sad to say. This is just me, but I am not prone to remembering what I read. I've found this evident trying to critique my peers' short stories, or in re-reading published works and extracting 'new' story lines. They were there all along, I just didn't see them, didn't remember them, until the re-read.

Next is to be taught in lecture format. If you teach me to do something, side by side, or do it in front of me once, then watch me attempt it, that is different and far more effective. This is the mother-to-child talk about why not this or why do that. All talk.

As aforementioned, more effective still is doing, being mentored. Not having done for me, not having someone guide my every finger, figurative or literal. The latter would develop only the essential 'muscle memory' (again, figurative or literal) to repeat the task, but not the understanding of why this way. No, to do with; to ask and answer questions, no matter how inane. That is the first step to mastery.

Most effective, and the next step to mastery, is to teach others. It could be in writing, even if others may find it as ineffective as I did. Oddly, one of my moments of enlightenment was in writing a horror story of an adult nature. To marshall my thoughts from the cloud in my mind to the line on my screen is to distill, to hone, to anneal them.

It could be lecturing, standing before a podium and holding forth. Ideally, with some measure of audience participation; at minimum, a question and answer session at the end. Still, the exchange is simple: I speak, you listen, we part ways without practicing the act itself.

Best interaction I found is, as aforementioned, for me to show you how to do it, explaining why all along, while you either prepare to, or do the act itself yourself under my guidance. This can be as simple as origami, to technology, to even seeing the ley lines of power dynamics between parties to an event or gathering. In teaching, I learn best.

How do you learn best?