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May 2019

Mandala-gold1

WHAT IS THE PRACTICE OF “INQUIRING DEEPLY?”

May 10, 2019

 ‘Inquiry’ can be defined as the process of intentionally living in the question of something:  consciously engaging our experience in a way which invites it to unfold.  We can “inquire deeply” about any problem or concern at the leading edge of experience.   This method is useful when we want to amplify our awareness of a challenging situation, a particular emotion, or a difficult relationship.  We approach our experience with the attitude of delving into it, feeling whatever it is more fully, and inviting it to reveal itself. 

Posing an inquiry question is a powerful act unto itself;  the question frames and constructs an intentional matrix of meaning around experience.  I think of the process of as a kind of psychospiritual exoskeleton which supports growth and the emergence of new experience.  The path of inquiry unfolds in its own way and as a function of our intuitive wisdom.  Explicit inquiry frames the intention to grow with and from our awareness of emotional life.   

The practice of inquiry rests on the existential premise (beautifully articulated by the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl) that one of the most important things humans beings can do, regardless of their circumstances,  is to consciously find— create— meaning in what is happening.  In the spirit of this intention,  engaging the process of inquiry constructs an explicit frame of meaning around our experience.  It is a method for exercising conscious ownership of psychological growth and transformation. 

In the words of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke:     “Live the questions now,  and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along someday into the answers”.  ….Rilke

 

 

 

The Need To Know

May 1, 2019

The Need To Know

“We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re certain it wasn’t a fish”

…. John Culkin

Patterns of thinking are held in place, in part, by the need to know.

In the face of any negative experience—when we are anxious or threatened or in pain— we instinctively try to think our way out of the situation.  For many people, this becomes a basic strategy for solving problems: “figure out” what to do.  Over time, we become reliant on this effort to know. This strategy solidifies into an unconsciously held and deep belief that knowing is essential to safety (or at least the illusion of safety).  We cling to knowing as a primary source of security.  It allows us to feel more in control.

Alongside this attachment to knowing, we can also observe the tendency to defend what we know (or what we believe we know).  We can notice that we cling to what we believe, and that we attempt to prove to ourselves that our views are right.   At deeper levels, we can also see the extent to which particular views and beliefs come to be invested with a sense of self.

At a yet more fundamental level, we can see how we identify with the faculty of knowing: we become the knower, never noticing, much less questioning, the assumption that who I am is the one who knows.  Indeed, the function of knowing is a basic aspect of the conscious mind, integrally involved in giving rise to the sense of self.  So, whatever it is I take my self to be, the ability to know is at the core of it.

This kind of self-identity rests on several false assumptions.  Self-as-knower is based on what we have come to know in our lives along with all of its associated beliefs and assumptions.  It may readily become a closed circuit that limits our thinking, our relating, and our way of being in the world.  When we inquire deeply about what we know, we can begin to see that what we think we know keeps us from seeing what we don’t know, which is nearly everything[1].

When, in contrast, we are able to let go of needing to know and can relax into not having all the answers, we can begin to access a domain of deeper awareness that is based not in what we know but in the simple experience of being.  Such open and authentic experience of the present moment allows the emergence of insight and creativity.   As we learn to locate ourselves in the experience of not knowing, we can begin to transcend limiting identifications with the self as knower.

Not-knowing is the hallmark not just of this inquiry, but of any true inquiry.

As Socrates said, true wisdom comes to us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

“Thinking we know costs us

everything we don’t know —

which is nearly everything”.

…Gregory Kramer[i]

[i] Kramer, Gregory (2007)  Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path To Freedom.  Shambhala Press, Boston

 

 

 

 

[1] Quote from Gregory Kramer, 2007   Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path To Freedom.   Shambhala Press, Boston.