Mindfulness
Mindfulness supports our ability to turn within and stay with whatever is happening in our experience and around us. Mindfulness practice develops our capacity to be with whatever arises in our experience.
Mindfulness builds our concentration, helps us understand ourselves, and develops our kindness and compassion towards ourselves and others. The foundation of mindfulness is a profound and rich teaching to guide our lives.
Inquiry
“The way of inquiry is the way of true freedom. If our inquiry is alive and unfolding, we are free . . . . ” A. H. Almaas
Inquiry is an open and dynamic exploration. It is guided by our desire to understand our experience more deeply and our openness to not knowing what we’ll find. Mindfulness supports and fuels our ability to inquire.
In our session on September 18, we will dive into the process of inquiry, and discriminate between mindfulness practice and the practice of inquiry. They are good partners in our spiritual development. Mindfulness and inquiry work together, but they are distinct practices with different approaches to spiritual development.
Embracing not knowing
Inquiry brings investigative curiosity with active engagement into our practice. Through inquiry, we turn toward the truth of our experience and explore it. We let go of our preconceptions about our state, and without knowing what we will find, we inquire into our experience. Whatever is going on in the present moment is exactly what we need for our development. It may be anger or happiness; it may be clarity or obscuration. We think we know what’s happening, but don’t really know what is going on within us. Turning toward our experience with unknowingness and openness we find unexpected connections and discoveries. This is the process of inquiry.
Turning toward the truth of our experience
We turn toward the truth of our experience, exploring body and mind, with curiosity and without trying to change our experience. There may be challenging experiences that bring the past fully present; there may be a sweet sensation of champagne moving through our bodies. We acknowledge that we don’t know what our experience is revealing, and openly explore our inner world as it changes. We want to know the truth of our experience, and we learn to trust the process of inquiry.
Inquiry requires an unknowingness, an openness to not knowing what our experience really is. We need to recognize that there is something in our experience that we don’t understand. We are open to allowing our experience to reveal itself more and more as we inquire. We don’t have an agenda nor an outcome we’re seeking; we open ourselves to the limitless possibilities that can arise as we inquire.
The present is luminous with energy and dynamism
There is a luminosity that is here in the present moment, within every experience, within us and all things. As we turn toward this luminosity, or true nature, there is a guidance that supports our unfoldment. True nature includes our nature and the nature of all things, and it is a simple, profound, and beautiful force.
We will explore the process and practice of inquiry in the final session of September. We will discriminate between mindfulness practice and the practice of inquiry. Inquiry is a dynamic process of not knowing and exploring the truth of our experience. Inquiry relies on mindfulness to enable us to follow the thread of our experience. Inquiry can be fun and exciting, challenging and surprising.