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Questioning (2 of 5): Inquiry as Support

Good morning, hello.

So to build on the guided meditation, we can use this expression, this inquiry, this questioning: "What is this?" as a way to bring us to our experience, to kind of get a little more connected if we're not quite connected to our experience. But it might be that when we are inquiring "What is this?", we see that we're unsettled, distracted, or restless. Or maybe we see that we're having the same experiences over and over again, like, "Oh, I'm doing that story again." "Oh, there's that story again." Or maybe we are obsessing, or getting lost in, or really tied up and tangled up with a bodily experience. Maybe there's an uncomfortable experience in the knee, or the back, or whatever it might be. Or maybe this expression that Jack Kornfield sometimes uses, "the unfinished business of the heart," comes up—some of the wounds, some of the difficulties. When we're asking, "What is this?", we might feel like we're noticing that we're stuck, or not connected, or lost in a loop. Of course, this isn't so uncommon; this is quite a common experience. But then we can use inquiry as a tool, as a way to help us get unstuck, as a way to support our practice.

Asking the question, "What is this?"—could it be a practice? Some Buddhist traditions do have that as a key component of their practice, to keep on asking, asking, asking in an open way. Not in an obsessive, tight, "got to figure it out" kind of way, but in an open, relaxed way. Or maybe you can do mindfulness in the conventional—I'm using the word "conventional" as commonly taught—to rest the awareness on the sensations of breathing. And then to bring inquiry in as a tool is to add it into the toolkit for ways that we might work with difficulties. So in this way, we can investigate these forces of distraction, or agitation, or stuckness, as a way to understand them more fully, and as a way to help bring some balance in. Of course, it's easier to find freedom, to find ease from something when we understand it better. Inquiry can be a way in which we can understand it better.

Many of you know that there's a story that happens a number of times in the early Buddhist discourses where Mara^[1]—the personification of distractions, or agitation, or temptations, or all those forces that get in the way of our mind getting settled and finding our way towards more and more freedom—shows up to the Buddha in all kinds of different guises. And then the Buddha just says, "I see you, Mara." And then Mara skulks away. This is a kind of metaphor pointing to when we see clearly, when we understand something, often—not always, but often—it can be resolved, or diminish, or just go away.

So having these forces of distraction, or agitation, or unfinished business operate in everyone is not a personal failing; we don't have to take it personally. Instead, we could use it as a cue to look a little bit closer, as a mindfulness bell maybe, is to really get curious about what's happening here. And to not look necessarily for quick fixes with the expectation that as soon as we look at it, it's going to go away. Sometimes that happens, but often it doesn't. It's just the beginning of a gentle, warm-hearted inquiry to look carefully and to open to them, for example, by asking, "What else is here?"

If we're having a repeated difficulty, it most often predominantly arises in one area of our felt experience: the body, or the mind, or maybe it shows up as a pressure or some kind of vague way. For example, there's a lot of sensual desire. Maybe it is experienced physically as a leaning forward, or oftentimes the chin goes up, or maybe there's a tightening in the solar plexus with some desire. Maybe energetically, if I can use this vague word, it means like this rush of restlessness, or maybe that gets felt as this upwelling of vitality. Or there might be a pressure to do something, there's this kind of vague sense that I have to go get this thing. Or maybe strong desire shows up emotionally, as an excitement, as an eagerness. Or maybe it shows up as storytelling: "It's going to be so great when I finally get to that thing, and then I'm going to be satisfied, and then I'll be happy as soon as I get that."

This is just an example of how strong desire can show up physically, energetically, emotionally, and cognitively. But often if there's a feeling of stuckness, we may just be paying attention to one aspect of our experience. So inquiry can open up or make us aware of some other aspects, some other areas to the same experience. And the inquiry could be to say, "What is this?" which might start with, "Maybe I'm noticing the posture is going forward." And then we ask again, "What is this?" Maybe still noticing the posture is going forward. And then we ask again, and then we might notice, "Oh yeah, there's this wish to achieve, get, attain, have, obtain something." So maybe by just asking "What is this?" repeatedly, the other areas or other aspects of our experience open up, or we notice them or become available.

Maybe there might be a wound that shows up. I'll use this word "wound"; we could use all kinds of different words. Maybe it's a repeated story that comes up. For example, maybe our parents getting divorced when we were young, and this story about what happened to which child, and so we get lost in this story repeatedly. Maybe we could open it up to say, "Well, how does that story feel in the body?" Maybe there's a lump in the throat or tightness in the chest. And then maybe we can notice like, "Oh yeah, there's real sadness underneath the story." By asking or staying with it with a little bit of inquiry, we might become aware of just layers that are underneath what's happening, and then maybe a deeper layer. Often if we find that we're stuck with something, what's going to help it get unstuck is noticing a different aspect or maybe a deeper layer. We often can't get unstuck at that one particular layer, but underneath or more broad.

And if we find ourselves stuck in a story, we could ask ourselves, "Is this true?" It's a little bit awkward to ask that question because, of course, we're thinking it, so it feels true. But is it? Just to ask ourselves, "Is this true?" with some openness and ease. Is this story that I'm telling myself over and over again completely true?

Asking "What else is here?" is a way in which we can discover different aspects to one particular experience. But it also can help us if we find that we're really stuck and getting into overwhelm, and we don't want to get into overwhelm. Certainly our capacities are diminished; our best wisdom isn't available to us when we are in overwhelm. So asking "What else is here?" could be a way in which to bring our attention to something neutral, something less emotionally charged, less challenging, less sticky. "What else is here?" can bring our attention to neutral, mundane experiences of feeling the chair cushion against our body, hearing the sounds. A good one, of course, is feeling our feet on the ground. And just to remind ourselves that there's always a collection, always a myriad of things, a whole host of things that are happening at any moment, and we're choosing to focus on a subset. So can we open up our awareness, maybe receive other experiences, some neutral ones? There might even be areas of our experience that are pleasant. Maybe it feels good to finally sit down and meditate after running around doing lots of other things.

In this way, inquiry and questioning can be used as part of our toolkit, just to help us discover what's underneath our experience, especially if we have some insistent visitors, some repeat customers, so to speak. Some stories, the "top ten hits," right, that we say over and over again. To help us see what's underneath, what's fueling them. If we ask, "Is this true?" towards a story, maybe we undermine them, take some of the power out of them. But we could also ask, "What else is here?" as a way to broaden our experience, so that sometimes we don't collapse around difficulties or struggles. "What else is here?" is a way to broaden and to notice there's a visual field, there are sounds, there are pressures in the body. Inquiry is a toolkit.

So today, as you go about your day, you might just in a nice, relaxed way ask yourself, "What else is here?" It's a way to kind of open up our experience. What else is here? And I hope that when you ask, "What else is here?", that you find some gentleness, some warmth. Maybe have some warm-heartedness for yourself, recognizing that practicing in this way is a way to care for yourself. And from that place, can we help support others? Can "What else is here?" be a way that can help us to show up for others in an open, relaxed way, so that our practice can be a benefit not only for ourselves but for others, and ripples out from there.

Thank you.