Transcription
I'd like to do an experiment tonight and see how it goes. What I'd like to do is a guided inquiry. And I'll explain what I mean. Just to set it up a little bit, you know, resting on a little bit of an assumption, which I don't think is too much of a stretch, you could say inside us (metaphorically) are lots of qualities, lots of beautiful qualities, a treasure store of qualities and gold, jewels, that sometimes we don't notice; sometimes we don't see, acknowledge; sometimes we're not in touch with; sometimes we don't access. And that's there for us, inside us. And at the very same time, there are beliefs and views and attitudes and feelings, habitual states of energy, assumptions, there for all kinds of reasons, based on all kinds of experiences or input or internal processes or whatever. And these beliefs, assumptions, views, feelings, etc., of all sorts are operating, sometimes consciously, sometimes below the radar of consciousness, and they have an effect or effects in our life. They can make us stuck in relationship to certain areas or certain openings or certain movements, or we can get contracted around them, or parts of our being can get contracted with them. They can limit us. They can freeze us in certain ways or freeze our unfoldment. They can close us down in certain ways. But both the jewels and the treasure waiting to be discovered and the difficulty there together.
When we say we're going to inquire, it's like, in a way, we're interested in discovering. I'm interested in discovering what might be operating and what might be available to me, what might be accessible. I want to have a look inside and find out, and see what that process of inquiry will reveal and unfurl, what I can discover, what I can uncover -- as if it's covered over and I uncover something -- so that my life can be not static in the areas that it might be static, or it might be static and I don't even realize that it's static in some areas, that I've kind of blocked my path in a certain way, my avenue in a certain way. So that through the inquiry, through this discovering and uncovering, there's more possibility coming into the life, and more possibility of unfoldment coming in.
So we certainly want to uncover this treasure chest of jewels, or some of that, at least, and to be able to incorporate some of that, some of that blessing, some of the blessing of that. And we also are interested in uncovering, discovering what might be operating that maybe is not so helpful, that maybe is imprisoning us in some ways. Not to judge it; not for that purpose at all. But for the sake of that freer unfolding. So that process of looking inside and seeing what's operating and uncovering/discovering, that process of inquiry is an art just as meditation is an art. In other words, it's something we can develop, we can practise, we can hone our ability to do over time. I can inquire into anything. I can inquire into absolutely anything -- my relationship with anything, my idea of anything, a certain situation, how I'm feeling. Could be absolutely anything. Everything in our existence is open to inquiry. A belief about something, whatever, something I'm experiencing. But it's not just an intellectual process to inquire. So yes, it will involve thoughts and concepts, but also it's very much -- we want to really have the body be involved in it and really be sensitive to what's happening in the body.
As I ask questions of myself, as I kind of dig a little bit deeper and try and uncover, what happens in the body? Do I notice what's maybe the responses that are going on in the body, the responses that are going on in the heart emotionally, the responses that may be going on energetically? So for example, just plucking an example -- like I said, you can inquire into anything, but let's just take an example. Could be that I'm in a situation with a particular person or with a group of people, and I notice that I keep feeling uncomfortable, or I've started to feel uncomfortable around this person or around that group of people or in this situation. So the inquiry begins, first of all just noticing: I just don't feel quite right here. I feel uncomfortable. I feel uneasy, on edge. And the inquiry pushes a little more. Why am I feeling that? What is this discomfort? And I might get a response, maybe immediately, maybe a little time. It says, because they want or they're expecting me or they're demanding me to be a certain way. They want me to be a certain way or they want me to say these kinds of things. These are the kind of things I'm supposed to say or do when I'm with them or in this situation. So I see that. Oh, that's interesting, that's why I'm uncomfortable. I might see that, and I start to see, actually that makes me angry. I feel a little bit or a lot of anger. Can I feel that anger? That's part of the inquiry. It's not just intellectual. Can I actually feel that anger? Feel that that doesn't feel okay? Why does that make me angry?
I'm just making this up: maybe I feel confined. I feel like because they're wanting me to do this, I feel like I'm put in a box and I have no room to kind of move and express myself. Can I then feel that feeling of feeling confined? What does it feel like to feel confined, to feel straitjacketed that way? That's going to feel a certain way in the body and in the emotionality. Maybe at the same time, or as I'm looking into that feeling of confinement, I notice that there's something else in me pushing, we could say, pushing inside against that confinement. Something else in me is kind of wanting to break through that confinement. Can I feel that? Can I be open to that? Where do I feel it in my body? How does that feel? And where does it take me when I stay with that other energy of this wanting to push through? What happens if I stay with that and let that, give that a little bit of space inside me? Where does that take me?
Or it might be that I begin to ask, I go back to the original assumption and I ask, do they really want me to be like this? Do they really want me to say this? Do I really have to fit in the way I think I have to fit in, or am I just assuming that? So this is using the intellectual mind a little bit. And that may unfold a question. Maybe from that comes something like, well, what if I wasn't like that? Maybe one lets oneself imagine: what if I wasn't like that? What does that do? How does that feel to let myself imagine not being like that with them in that situation? I don't know. Could be lots of things. Maybe fear comes up -- the idea of not being that way brings up fear. And again, can I feel that? Can I feel that? How does that feel? It might be that the fear is completely overwhelming. It might be that the fear is just okay. One actually notices, yeah, there's fear here, but it's not the whole story. There's more going on. So the inquiry has some spaciousness in it to notice it's not just fear going on. Usually there's more than one thing going on for us. So maybe there's something else going on. There's fear, ah, yeah, but there's also this other thing. The fear is not the only thing present.
Maybe, again, maybe there's some movement inside that wants to express myself more freely, more directly, without inhibition. And I can feel that. I can feel that desire. I can feel that movement in me. And what does that feel like? Maybe it's like a surge of energy coming up like that. Maybe I let myself feel that, and when I feel it I start to notice, oh, there's quite a lot of energy here in this movement to want to express myself more freely, and giving myself a little bit of permission even just to imagine that. Starts to feel like, whoa, what's this? I'm making all this up, but ... [laughter] Kinda! Maybe when I notice this, I haven't got completely sucked in to the fear, and I notice when I give myself permission a bit more to just imagine that and feel that push inside that wants to express more freely, maybe I start to feel this surge of energy come up. And maybe it's quite strong. Maybe it's running up the centre of my body. Maybe it makes my body feel different. Maybe my body feels somehow bigger as this energy is moving through. Maybe all that's very new. Maybe I'm afraid of that because it's unfamiliar. But maybe it's okay. Maybe it actually feels really good. Maybe that's put me in a different place in relationship to the whole situation and what I want to express and what I feel free to express, etc.
[11:40] Okay? [laughter] We can inquire into absolutely anything. There's no bounds to our inquiry. That was just an example. So, as you've noticed, you've got some paper and pens. This is not an exam, by the way. [laughter] If it's reminding you of your maths O-level and sending you into trauma, it's not that at all. It's actually not necessary to write anything at all. It's just there if you need it a little bit, and probably less writing is better than more. You don't need to write at all. If you write something, or whatever you come to in this process that we're going to do together, it's completely private. No one else needs to know anything about it whatsoever unless you decide that you want to tell someone. Okay? So the paper is yours, your internal process is yours. There's no overexposure in that way.
Now, sometimes -- if I just say a little more generally -- sometimes as we inquire, we discover something, maybe like in that example I gave, some of what's happening doesn't seem to even make sense to me. I have a thought that comes through or a feeling that comes through -- I'm feeling joy about this thing or grief about this thing -- and it doesn't even make sense to me. That's really okay, you know. I'm discovering something, and it's really okay if my response doesn't make sense in the moment.
But when we're inquiring into something, whatever it is, we also want to be noticing what the relationship is with the whole process of inquiry. In other words, am I judging the whole thing? "That doesn't make sense. I must be stupid." Or, "I'm having this emotion. It's because I'm da-da-da. It's terrible." So what's the whole energy that's around the inquiry? And noticing if judging creeps in that way or if I'm trying to justify myself to someone else or to myself or something. And there's no wrong or right. There's no wrong or right, okay? It's your process of discovering your relationship with what we're going to inquire into, without wrong or right. And it's what's the response right now, what's happening right now, what's the process right now, here and now. We're not so interested in this to repeat conclusions that I may have already come to. Maybe that's part of it. But what's happening right now, and is it possible to encourage it to be a very alive process, digging? So that as I said at the beginning we can discover and uncover, and that process can be, you know, beautiful, alive, dynamic, fruitful.
Okay. So because the body is quite important, you might want to be, for instance, not leaning against a wall -- there's a sense of aliveness in the body would be good. You don't have to be in a rigid meditation posture either. Just a sense that the body is open so that if things do move in the body you can feel them, there's space for them to move, it's alive, and you can be in touch with that. Yeah. So you may not need anything to write, but has everyone got one just in case? Okay.
So tonight I've just picked something which seems to me quite an important thing to inquire into, but like I said, you can inquire into anything. It's a particular theme. It's a particular theme that I'm interested in us inquiring into, in each person really inquiring into. And that theme is liberation or freedom. And particularly the relationship with that idea and that whole concept. So, you know, if you've been around insight meditation kind of circles, if you've read books by Dharma teachers of different Dharma traditions, or you've moved in different kind of retreat settings or other spiritual traditions, you will have heard words like 'liberation' and 'freedom.' You may have heard them quite a lot. You may have come across them quite a lot. It's interesting because they're words that get used in very different ways. Even the same person might use the words in different ways at different times. Sometimes they're used an awful lot. There's a lot of usage of those words. Other scenes or scenarios or settings or retreats or books or whatever, they're used very little.
So what I'm going to do is, we're going to go through this thing. I've got certain questions around this theme of liberation for you to inquire into with that very full process that I gave an example of. I've got some questions which -- it's a real experiment doing this in a group, so that's part of the big experiment. I will give you those questions for you to be with and reflect on and inquire into in this very full and full-bodied and open way. But it could be that as I'm giving these questions that you find that it triggers, or in your process of looking inside, it triggers a slightly different trajectory of questioning and that feels really important and alive. Well, you want to be sensitive to that if it evolves that way and really respect that. So if it seems to be taking you somewhere that's more significant right now, trust that and ignore what I'm saying. I'm not going to be talking that much from now on. So you can take what I say, or it might stimulate something else. The important thing is that it feels like you're following a thread that feels alive and important.
[18:58, guided inquiry begins]
Okay. So the first question -- and I'll give you a while with this one and then kind of feed a little bit more into the process. The first question is: what does liberation, what does this word 'liberation' or 'freedom' mean to you? What does it mean to you? In other words, what does it mean in your life? What does liberation, this concept, mean in your life? What's your concept of liberation or freedom?
So you might ask: how does this word, even, resonate inside me when I just say that word to myself? How does it resonate? I'll just say a little more in case you feel completely stumped by that. Maybe you use a concept like that or a similar concept, and maybe you don't. So if you do, you've got something to follow. If not, you might think, "Well, what now?" But if not, then you could ask, "Well, why not? Why is that concept a kind of non-concept for me?" To me, that's quite interesting. Because if it's a non-concept, that actually implies a relationship with the concept of liberation. I have a relationship to it just by virtue of kind of trying not to have a relationship with it or ignoring it. And what is that relationship?
If you hear the question and you feel, "I'm not interested in that," and sometimes people tell me, "I'm not interested," remember, there's no right and wrong. But to me, that's really interesting. "I'm not interested." That's really interesting. Why? Why am I not interested, if that's what happens?
If you find the question irritating, can you really feel that irritation, what's going on there, and explore the irritation? Or if you say, "Well, I just don't know what freedom and liberation means," then the question might be: is that not knowing alive? In other words, is it bringing a sense of discovery and opening? Or is it a kind of not knowing and one just kind of shrugs one's shoulders and the whole thing becomes a little bit dead, a little bit dull? In other words, is it a helpful not knowing, or an unhelpful not knowing?
Okay? So that's the first one. You can write or not write, or just a little bit. Whatever helps you trace this process inside yourself in as alive a way as possible. Let your whole being be involved, the body, the emotions, the thoughts. Really present to the present moment and how this unfolds for you, what it brings up.
No right and wrong at all. It's your process, your discovery, your life and what's alive for you. Everything that comes up is significant. Every thought, every reaction or emotional reaction to this is significant and worthy of caring attention. No right or wrong here. Just letting a process unfold. Everything is significant. Whatever you're feeling right now or thinking is part of it.
That means you can trust the process. So if something feels like you're blocked, trust that. If you hate it, trust that, follow that. There's absolutely no wrong move here other than persistently ignoring or discounting your experience.
[29:25] So I'm going to offer the second question. But remember to be sensitive to where your process is taking you, where your inquiry is taking you. So you may be using these questions, or it may be you're still with the first one, or you've already gone to a second one before me, or there's something else. But the second one, or moving to the second stage, if you like: what is the effect of that concept, whatever you've discovered your concept is? What is the effect of that concept on the way you live your life and the way that you practise?
Yogi: Are they two separate things?
Rob: Maybe. These are big questions, you know.
In other words, if I fill this out a little bit, particularly in what ways might you limit and constrain what liberation or freedom means or might mean for you? In what ways might you limit and constrain what that means or might even possibly mean for you? In other words, is the concept that I have of this, is the way that I'm thinking about this or not thinking about it, is it helpful, this way of conceiving, or not? And if it's not, what in particular is unhelpful about it? How is it unhelpful if it's unhelpful? So really probing a little bit deeply and asking those questions.
These are very open questions. They could go in a lot of different directions. There's no way they're supposed to go. So it could reveal all kinds of different dimensions or aspects.
Remember to include the body and the emotions. As far as the writing, it may be that less is more sometimes. Make it a whole-being process of inquiry as much as possible.
So really trusting whatever the truth is of the moment's experience, but with interest. So really interested in what the experience is. There's trust, but there's questioning and interest. And kindness, kindness.
So really try to include the emotionality, that it's not just a cerebral process of ideas. Every idea or movement of the mind will have with it perhaps some movement in the emotions, in the body.
The whole thing responds to the quality of attentiveness. Just like traditional meditation, the whole thing will respond to the quality of attentiveness that we bring. It's in some ways completely dependent on that.
Including whatever is going on for you right now. Whatever it is, it's part of the process, to be welcomed with kind interest and investigated and held.
[39:16] Okay, so the third question -- and again, remember to respect, really respect and be sensitive to your thread through this, your line of questioning, what's unfolding for you. So you might have moved on to this very organically in your own process already, but the third part is: how do you see yourself in relationship to liberation, in relationship to freedom? What, perhaps, are the conscious or unconscious definitions or ways that you may have defined yourself or are defining yourself in relationship to this idea or promise of liberation? Maybe it feels completely irrelevant for me, there's no chance for me. Or I'm just a steady plodder and I can't really expect much. Could be many things. What's the self-view there?
So really letting it unfold in a space of kindness and interest. If it doesn't feel alive right now, that's very interesting. What's happening that it doesn't feel alive, whatever's going on?
With that, with this third question, how does it feel to see these beliefs, to see these self-views? How does that feel, to see them? In body, emotion, how does it feel? And do they feel true? Do they feel true, these self-beliefs, these self-views? Are they unquestionable? Does it feel like there's any room to question them? Do they feel completely the end of the story? And again, are they helpful or unhelpful, these self-views? And if they're not helpful, how? How is it? How does that work?
Sometimes what moves in the being is quite subtle, quite delicate. The attention may need to be quite subtle and delicate to notice the movements, the responses, the reactions inside. Some of it's quite quiet sometimes. So let the awareness be quite subtle too. Subtle and broad to notice everything that's going on.
Last part of the last question. Is it possible to imagine letting go of being locked into any of those beliefs or assumptions? And if so, how does that feel? How does that feel? Is it possible to imagine letting go of being locked into some of those beliefs or assumptions, and if so, how does that feel? What does that do inside? How does it ripple out? Body is involved, emotions, mind is involved. And the attention is open and sensitive, accepting and interested.
[50:20, guided inquiry ends]
Okay. So wherever you are in your process right now, let's just perhaps round it off and wind it down, and maybe just come into some stillness together. So just sitting, present, in the present moment, in the body, in the being.
Now, settling into the posture. Or just some stillness. And it may be that you just want to let it all go now and just be very simple, simply present, and just still. Or it may be that there's something resonating inside -- perhaps something you saw or was moving or that you discovered or uncovered. And you want to sit holding that and allowing that and being with that. So whichever way feels helpful right now for you. Just a couple of minutes together in silence.
