Meditation and Inquiry
Selection from a forthcoming book

Practice is not about having nice feelings, happy feelings. It's not about changing, or getting somewhere. That in itself is the basic fallacy. But observing this desire begins to clarify it. We begin to comprehend that our frantic desire to get better, to 'get somewhere,' is illusion itself, and the source of suffering. 



--Charlotte Joko Beck

I often say that in the beginning meditation is like opening the septic tank of a very large city.

--Anam Thubten

Treading the spiritual path is painful. It is a constant unmasking, peeling off layer after layer of masks. It involves insult after insult.

--Chogyam Trungpa

Meditation begins now, right here. It can’t begin someplace else or at some other time….In meditation we return to where we already are – this shifting, changing ever-present now.

--Steve Hagen

No matter what state dawns at this moment, can there be just that? Not a movement away, an escape into something that will provide what this state does not provide, or doesn't seem to provide: energy, zest, inspiration, joy, happiness, whatever. Just completely, unconditionally listening to what's here now, is that possible?

--Toni Packer

Stay without ambition, without the least desire, exposed, vulnerable, unprotected, uncertain and alone, completely open to and welcoming life as it happens, without the selfish conviction that all must yield you pleasure or profit, material or so-called spiritual.

--Nisargadatta Maharaj

One relaxes into an uncontrived, open spaciousness which is neither a state of self-conscious meditation nor an inattentive state of distraction.
 


--Steven Batchelor

Practice should be enjoyable and pleasant. It should be full of joy....It is not supposed to be hard labor.

--Thich Nhat Hanh

The true path must challenge the very core of our reality. It must challenge every concept about who we are and what our reality is. Meditating is like inviting fire into our consciousness. That is what true meditation is all about….In the realm of true meditation there is no such thing as a meditator or meditation. There is nothing to be done. The only thing that is happening is that we are no longer constructing illusions, so all illusions begin to wither away.

--Anam Thubten

It is the clinging to the false that makes the true so difficult to see. Once you understand that the false needs time and what needs time is false, you are nearer the Reality, which is timeless, ever in the now....If you need time to achieve something, it must be false. The real is always with you; you need not wait to be what you are. Only you must not allow your mind to go out of yourself in search.

--Nisargadatta Maharaj

When you come to see and understand the nature of "what is," its simplicity, its immediacy, its uniqueness, and its transience, then it is also understood that there is no point in formal meditation. You're sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and the thought comes, "I will go and meditate." Then you see that there is simply no point, because what you are is "what is." What is is, and so why go to find it upstairs? 



--Tony Parsons

As you walk the spiritual path, it widens, not narrows, until one day it broadens to a point where there is no path left at all.

--Wayne Liquorman

The beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is. 



--J. Krishnamurti

There is no way to become what we already are and what already is. If practices such as meditation have any usefulness, it is in exposing the illusion that something is lacking, or that there is time in which to attain something, or that there is somebody who needs to be transformed.

By their very nature, intentional practices cannot help but reinforce these illusions to some degree, so people have sometimes compared spiritual practices to fighting fire with fire or selling water by the banks of the river.


Words like "meditation" and "inquiry" are used in many different ways to mean many different things, and people take up meditation for many different reasons. Some view it as a technology for stress reduction, some are seeking enlightenment or Truth, many are looking for a way to end suffering. Many forms of meditation can be used (or mis-used) to enhance our self-image, to provide a false sense of comfort and security, or as a drug to get some kind of spiritual high. But meditation as I mean it is nothing more or less than being awake Here / Now, being aware, seeing what is, as it is. It is about exploring the nature of reality by giving open attention to actual direct experience Here and Now.


Listening openly to the sounds of this moment – the whooshing of traffic, the song of a bird, the faint sound of a television in another room. Seeing the shapes and colors of this moment – the rain drops hanging on a green leaf, the cigarette butt in the gutter, the clouds drifting across the blue sky. Smelling the fragrance of flowers, the exhaust fumes of the city bus, the rain-drenched air. Feeling the breathing and all the other sensations in the body -- the tightness in the chest or the belly, the spaciousness that permeates it all. Seeing the thoughts that pop up, seeing that they are only thoughts, that they don't need to be followed or believed, that they are not the objective reports on reality they claim to be. Seeing how these thoughts create mental movies and stories, beliefs and ideologies, and how seductive these stories are, how real they seem. Discovering how suffering is created and whether it is possible to wake up from suffering. Finding out if there is a way of meeting pain or painful circumstances without creating suffering. Discovering that love, joy, peace, freedom and enlightenment are not “out there” somewhere, but that they are Here / Now, in the very Heart of this moment. Becoming aware of this vast and boundless listening presence that is Here / Now, being and beholding everything. Discovering the fluidity and seamlessness of everything that is appearing, the dream-like nature of it all, and the exquisite beauty and perfection of everything, just as it is. This is meditation as I mean it.


This meditation may happen in a formal way or it may happen spontaneously in your kitchen while drinking a cup of coffee. However it happens is the only possible way that it can happen in this moment. If Zen practice shows up in your movie of waking life, then for you, Zen practice is apparently necessary, until (perhaps) it isn't. For another, the same insights that come to you through Zen practice might come while sitting on a park bench, or driving down the freeway, or being in prison, or raising a child. There is no one right path, and ultimately, there is no path at all. There is only Here / Now.

But that is a very tricky point. In fact, the great Zen Master Dogen's burning question as a young monk was: "If everything already has (or is) Buddha Nature, then why do we need to practice?" Many radical nondualists ask that same question today. But if you believe that there is no need to practice because everything is already the One Reality, you are conceptually removing yourself from the One Reality. As Dogen put it: "If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind." Our human activity is as much an act of nature as the wind and the tides and the rotation of the planets. If we are drawn to meditation, that is the movement of life. Meditation is an activity of the whole universe.

To simply adopt a belief that “All is One,” that there is "no self," and that no practice is needed because everything is already perfect as it is – to simply adopt all of those ideas as a philosophy probably won't resolve the fundamental unease and longing that prompts the spiritual quest in the first place. Belief is always shadowed by doubt and tends to crumble when the waters get rough. And so, as long as delusion and suffering continue to show up, practice in some form will probably continue to show up as well, whether it is the practice of drinking alcohol, or the practice of compulsive shopping, or the practice of meditation (formally or spontaneously), or the practice of going to hear nondual teachers who tell you there is no one to practice. It's one thing to believe that "All is One," but to quote the great Advaita sage Nisargadatta Maharaj: "Your begging bowl may be of pure gold, but as long as you do not know it, you are a pauper." Meditation is a way of seeing through illusions and realizing our True Nature.

But again, this gets very tricky and subtle. Because if we regard meditation as a kind of technology by which we hope to get rid of illusions and achieve our True Nature sometime in the future, we are immediately lost again in delusion and suffering. Meditation is not result-oriented. It goes nowhere. It is about seeing through the grasping mind. It is nothing more or less than being awake here now. As Dogen realized, practice is the expression of enlightenment, not the means by which we attain enlightenment in the future.

In my story, I went from formal Zen practice to being with Toni Packer, a former Zen teacher who left the tradition, hierarchy, rituals, ceremonies and dogmas of Zen behind. I lived and worked at Toni Packer's retreat center for five years. We still had silent retreats where we sat in meditation for long periods of time, but the schedule was always optional, we could sit in armchairs and recliners as well as on meditation cushions, we could walk through the woods or take a nap whenever we felt like it, and there was no "practice" in the usual sense -- no counting the breath or working on a koan -- we were simply invited to be aware of whatever was actually happening, to feel the breathing and hear the sounds of the rain, and to investigate the sense of a separate "me" and see if it was real. From there, I got involved in the Advaita satsang world and then with what I like to call radical nonduality, which points to the utter simplicity of what is and to the inescapable boundlessness that you cannot not be. Formal meditation fell away for the most part, although I continue to enjoy being silent and "doing nothing" whenever it invites me, but I no longer think of it as "meditation."


The only "meditation" that I ever suggest now, and it is only ever a suggestion, is the possibility of exploring the present moment with awareness as I described above. I don't mean by this any kind of deliberate "practice" in the sense of sitting in some special upright posture, or counting the breath, or repeating a mantra, or working on a koan, or trying very hard to "be present." I’m not against any of that if you’re drawn to it, but what I'm pointing to something much more open and spacious. Enjoying the present moment and exploring how entrancement in an imaginary world happens, how decisions and "choices" actually occur. Exploring what exactly is this "me" who seems to be authoring and doing and experiencing "my" life -- can it actually be found? I don't even like to call this meditation because it is in no way separate from the whole of life. It doesn't get you anywhere, but it may wake you up to the wonder of what is, and it may expose the mirage-like nature of the meditator, and it may shed light on how suffering happens.


In the absence of this kind of non-conceptual exploration, I've noticed that it is easy for people to get stuck in thinking about all of this and trying to resolve it intellectually through analytical thinking and philosophizing. Then we just end up with new beliefs and new dogmas -- the dogma of nonduality. But true nonduality has nothing to do with beliefs and dogmas.


Meditation as I mean it is not something you do for a future result. It is not something "you" do. It is simply awareness itself seeing through the thought-constructed movies and ideas that are so mesmerizing, including the desire for experiences, transformations and future results. It is seeing the false as false, deconstructing every ideology, erasing every answer. It is the wonder of not knowing, not the dead weight of dogma and belief. Meditation as I mean it is  always only about Here and Now, not some future benefit or attainment. Meditation is the aliveness of seeing, hearing, sensing, touching, awaring, being.  It is the absolute simplicity of what is, not methods or techniques designed to achieve results. It is an invitation to let all the answers and formulas go, to enjoy life as it is, to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, and perhaps to discover that there is no separate someone to be bound or free. Meditation is without repetition. It is this utterly new Here / Now that never comes, never goes, and never stays the same.


Meditation, like everything in life, happens by itself. There is no meditator who can make it happen or "do it right. " But right now, and only right now, stopping, looking, and listening can happen, if this interest arises. True meditation is a kind of invitation (from the universe to itself) to stop, look, and listen. To wake up.


That doesn't always feel good. It doesn't turn "you" into some Perfect Person. By nature, there are sunny days and cloudy days. Weeds come back. For as long as we're alive, no matter how many times we take out the garbage or do the laundry, more accumulates. One of the epigraphs at the beginning of my book Awake in the Heartland was from Suzuki Roshi: "For Zen students a weed is a treasure. " Realizing that is the beauty of true meditation.


People often take up meditation hoping that it will make us calmer and happier, and instead, we find ourselves more aware of upset and agitation. Instead of thinking less, we seem to be thinking more than ever before (or more likely, we are simply more aware of all this obsessive thinking than ever before). On top of that, what is revealed in the mirror of awareness is not the person we want to be or think we should be. It is not the person we have imagined ourselves to be.  To our horror, we see ourselves being manipulative, greedy, self-righteous, self-absorbed, mired in old habits, and even worse, unable to fix or control all of this. Initially, this can be humiliating and disappointing. The humiliation and disappointment come from taking it personally, and from having ideals of how "I" ought to be, and from the illusion of control (I "could" and "should" be doing better). But gradually it is seen more and more clearly that none of it is personal and that there is no "doer" who is doing any of it, neither the "good" stuff nor the "bad" stuff. It all happens. The "me" who tries to control the chaos is only a bunch of thoughts. And those thoughts arise unbidden, authored not by "me," but by the infinite conditions of nature and nurture. They are like meaningless secretions of the brain.


When it is realized that every moment is empty of self, then everything is allowed to happen in its own way, at its own speed, as it does anyway. The whole effort to "be here now" falls away along with the one who needs anything to be different from exactly how it is. We wake up to the luminous, vibrant aliveness that is manifesting as the sounds of rain and traffic, the taste of tea, the cool breeze, the green leaves sparkling in the sunlight and dancing in the wind, the white clouds blowing across the blue sky, the red fire truck streaking past, siren wailing. This is the extraordinary miracle of ordinary life. It is always available, but only ever here and now.


And this boundless being is equally present as dullness, boredom, depression, anxiety, restlessness, agitation, anger, worry, upset, addiction, and all other forms of overcast, cloudy, turbulent or stormy weather. Nothing is left out. Waking up is not a perpetually sunny day. But when there is a shift from being caught up in thought to being fully present as awareness, suffering ends. We begin to discover that our apparent problem, our suffering, can only be resolved now, not yesterday or tomorrow or once-and-for-all, but only now. This is the most essential discovery, that enlightenment is now or never.


I'll share with you a story about my experiences with meditation. Perhaps it will illustrate how paying attention to actual present moment experiencing can expose illusions and undo suffering.


I remember clearly the day when it was first seen that most all my thoughts were about the future. I was at the San Francisco Zen Center at my first all-day sitting. We were told to just sit there in silence, not moving and doing nothing, and see what happened. Suddenly, at some point during that day, as if a light had just been turned on in a previously darkened room, it was clearly seen that virtually every thought I was having was about the future: what I was going to do with the rest of my life, what I would do next week on my vacation, where I would look for a parking space tomorrow when I went to work, what I would do later that evening when I got home, what I would do on the break that was coming up soon – even planning how I could attend my next all-day sitting! It was a revelation. My God! 99.9% of my present waking life was taken up in daydreaming and planning for an imaginary future that never arrived, because -- like the mirage lake in the desert -- the closer I got to it, the farther it receded into the distance.


I'd undoubtedly been doing this for years, but without realizing it. Now the light of awareness had been turned on, and the pattern was being seen. But that seeing didn't mean that the habit fell away permanently right then and there, never to return. On the contrary, for the next decade and then some, it persisted. But now it was not happening in darkness; it was being exposed by the light. It was being seen: Oh, I just spent two hours thinking about my future and I feel very unsatisfied, hmmmm….Oh, I just had a long conversation with a friend about what I should do with my life, and it was very unsatisfying….Oh, that just happened again…..and so forth. The habit persisted, but the seeing was acting on it in invisible ways, eroding its believability and its allure. As Joko Beck once said, if you watch the same old movie a thousand times, eventually it will get boring.


I began to see more clearly the allure of this pattern of thought – what was pleasurable about it and what kinds of discomfort it was trying to allay. I noticed how addictive these thoughts about the future were. And I also began to see how unsatisfying this pattern of thought was, how it was a form of suffering. At the same time, I was discovering through meditation that real happiness and joy and peace are only found here and now in being fully awake to this moment. In the sounds of traffic and the sensations of breathing, I found that there was no story, no time, no future, no me, no suffering, no problem. Nothing was missing. And I discovered that this listening presence is always available. I found that it didn’t matter where I was or what the external scenery was like, the jewel was always right here.


One day, over a decade later, I was in Chicago talking on the phone to my old friend and teacher Toni Packer and she asked me what I was going to do after my mother died, where would I go. It dawned on me that I hadn’t been thinking about it!  Wow! How unlike me!  I realized that I wasn't obsessing about the future anymore. That whole preoccupation had fallen away and I hadn’t even noticed! There was no dramatic, line-in-the-sand moment when this habit fell away. It happened gradually, imperceptibly, over the space of a decade. It left so quietly and so gradually that I didn't even hear it going.


I rarely think about the future at all now except in the most practical and necessary ways, and almost never in that obsessive way that I once did. Yes, every now and then this old habit makes a brief re-appearance and the mind begins spinning a future scenario of some kind, but it doesn’t last long or take hold and occupy me in the way it used to.  I can't remember the last time I spent hours plotting out the rest of my life. The seeing that began that day at the SFZC revealed and slowly dissolved the habit pattern until finally it was essentially gone or at least so fully exposed and dis-armed that it was no longer a major preoccupation or source of suffering.


The same kind of gradual dissolving seems to have been happening slowly over many years to the sense of solidity, separation, independent agency, and selfhood. Sure, along the way there have been light bulb moments of exquisite clarity and insight, ahh-hha moments, “breakthroughs” of various kinds, profound experiences of oneness or non-separation, expanded experiences, but these all come and go, as do moments when the old conditioning fires up and takes over. But over time, and always right now, things seem to get simpler and simpler. The imaginary problem dissolves. Some people do report sudden, huge, momentous, permanent, line-in-the-sand transformations, but this has never been my experience, and I don’t think change usually happens in such a dramatic and final way. Certainly, it doesn’t have to happen that way. But because we hear those stories of sudden, final, permanent transformations, we often get hung up for a very long time on trying to duplicate them.


We want and expect instant, dramatic and permanent results. And usually, we are disappointed. It can happen that an old habit will dissolve instantly and permanently in one great flash of light, never to return ever again, but this is not very often the case. And even then, we never know when it might come back. Ultimately, we discover it doesn't really matter whether an old habit shows up again or not, including the habit of identifying as the bodymind and feeling encapsulated as the character. All such experiences are seen to be momentary, dream-like appearances arising in awareness, including the "me" who claims to be the owner of these experiences. There is less and less preoccupation with improving, fixing and perfecting this imaginary "me," who is seen to be only a mirage.


When we get caught up in seeking some “final” shift or transformation, it is always about this imaginary "me," and it is a set-up for disappointment. If we begin imagining that "I" have had a permanent shift, it is instant delusion, and a new self-image to protect and defend.


All states and experiences come and go. The ever-present boundlessness is not an experience, nor is it a state that “the person” enters, permanently or temporarily. “The person” is a momentary appearance that comes and goes within boundlessness. We are never really in the bondage we imagine ourselves to be trapped in. The problem we are trying so hard to solve is imaginary. Meditation is discovering that directly.


Many schools of meditation put great emphasis on posture. There is a mind-body connection, or more accurately, mindbody is one undivided process. Posture does have an effect. You can explore this for yourself by sitting erect, chest out and open, raising your arms  skyward, looking up, and saying, "I'm really depressed."  The depression isn't very convincing, is it?  It just doesn’t fit with that posture. Contrariwise, you can try slumping over, hanging your head, and then saying, "I'm really happy." Again, not too believable. The posture itself doesn't fit or support happiness. You can also compare Rodin’s famous statue “The thinker” with most any statue of the seated Buddha and it is at once obvious that these two postures embody totally different states of mind. “The Thinker” is living up in his head while the Buddha appears deeply grounded in something much more stable and quiet than thoughts. So, posture and mind-state are certainly related, and there is definitely something to be said for sitting in a way that is open, relaxed, stable and grounded – a way that allows the breath, the energy and the life-force to circulate freely through the body, a way that feels undefended and open. But awareness is here in every posture, and you don't need any particular posture. Meditation can happen on a recliner, in an armchair, on a meditation cushion, on a park bench, in an airplane, at the kitchen table, or anywhere at all. It can happen while sitting, lying down, standing up, walking or moving. You certainly don't need to be in some kind of cross-legged lotus position or bolt upright on the edge of a chair, and sometimes, these officially sanctioned postures can actually convey and enforce rigidity and tightness more than openness and stability. So experiment, find what is best for you.


Likewise, there is often great emphasis in some schools of meditation on not moving -- sitting motionless, often for hours and days at a time. There is frequently excruciating pain in the body after hours upon hours of motionless sitting, but you are encouraged to keep sitting and not move, unless you feel that you are seriously injuring yourself. Of course, there is no way to actually know whether you are causing serious or permanent injury by ignoring pain signals, and many Zen students have ended up with lifelong disabilities as a result of toughing it out, which is always a strong temptation in group settings, perhaps especially for men, who have often been conditioned to think they need to be tough, and for anyone with a bent toward perfectionism or a concern with their self-image. I did this kind of practice for many years, but I came to regard it as more harmful than helpful. However, I did learn something valuable from this kind of rigorous practice, and I can understand why many Buddhist teachers choose to keep perpetuating this practice. By sitting through whatever arises without moving away, you learn to stay with whatever is showing up, to not escape. You learn to sit through an itch without scratching it, and you discover that when you don't scratch, the itch goes away. Likewise, with pain, you discover that by resisting it, by tensing up against it, by thinking about it, by trying to move away from it, it gets worse and seems overwhelming, whereas when you can completely open to it and relax into it and explore the actuality of the sensations with awareness, you find that it is no longer overwhelming and may even become interesting. You discover, by observing it closely, that "pain" is not a solid thing, but rather, it is made up of ever-changing vibrations that come and go.


By sitting through whatever arises without moving away, you learn to stay present with unpleasant experiences -- pain, uneasiness, anxiety, depression, anger, sadness, fear. Instead of going with the habitual tendency to escape, which reinforces that tendency every time it is repeated, you learn instead to stay present, to not move, and to open up to and explore what is arising. The habitual tendency to escape may provide temporary relief, but as most of us discover, in the long run, our escape strategies usually serve to compound the problem. Anyone who has struggled with addiction knows what I mean very well. So I do think there is something very valuable to learn by staying present with whatever is arising and not moving away, and especially with those experiences you most want to avoid. I don't mean staying with the storyline, but rather, staying with the bare sensations. But you don't have to sleep on a bed of nails or be bolt upright and absolutely motionless in the lotus position atop a meditation cushion to do this. It can happen in an armchair in a very relaxed and natural way. It's also very important to recognize that sometimes we do run away or scratch the itch. It happens. It happens because of infinite causes and conditions and in that moment could not be otherwise. So meditation isn't about trying to be perfect and beating ourselves up when reality fails to measure up to our ideals. It is seeing through all of that.


Even though I have left formal practice behind, I can see that for some people, it may be the perfect way. Years ago, I studied karate. First I was with a teacher who was very informal -- there were no belt tests, no visible signs of rank, we didn't wear uniforms, and the style in the dojo was very casual and easy-going. Some years later, I studied with a different teacher who was very formal -- we had frequent belt tests, we always wore uniforms and belts, we bowed to the teacher and observed a strict and formal etiquette in the dojo. And guess what? It was in the second, stricter, more formal school, the one with the belt tests and the ranks and all the seemingly silly rules, where I really took off, broke through my barriers, and found my inner power and courage. Whereas in the first school, the one that was informal and unstructured, I never really broke out of deeply conditioned ideas of myself as disabled, weak, cowardly and unathletic. In the more formal school, in some way that was palpably facilitated by the form and structure, those ideas were shattered, and they were shattered in a very embodied and visceral way, as in Zen, where the practice is very down to earth.


In Zen, lots of attention is given to posture, breathing, how you clean the toilet, how you enter and exit the meditation hall, how you hold your rice bowl. To the newcomer who is avidly seeking enlightenment, this focus on the simplest details of ordinary existence seems completely beside the point and absurdly superficial and petty. But in fact, it is a way of pointing the student to this moment and undermining the habitual tendency to think about reality and get lost in abstractions and ideologies. It is a way of saying that enlightenment is now or never, that it’s right here – it’s not theoretical, philosophical, metaphysical or mystical – it’s utterly simple – it’s right here in this breath, this cup of coffee, this toilet bowl. So don’t miss it by looking somewhere else. As my first Zen teacher said to me, form is not sacred, but form allows the sacred to emerge.  I mention this not to promote formal practices or rituals, but simply because it speaks to the positive aspects of form, ritual, rank, discipline, meticulously observing seemingly silly little rules, and all those things that Toni Packer and radical nonduality and I have thrown out the window.


There is a place for everything. We don't need to make one way right and another way wrong. In the absolute sense, there is no advantage or disadvantage to any of it. Wherever you go, here you always are. The difference between one way and another is the difference between one dream and another dream.


When people first take up meditation, they usually imagine that it is about self-improvement and getting somewhere. True meditation is actually all about seeing through such ideas. Ultimately, it is about seeing that there is no "self" here who is meditating or making choices or thinking thoughts or acting in the world. There is no "me" who is going back and forth between clarity and confusion, between "getting it" and "losing it," between contraction and expansion, or between identification as boundless awareness and identification as the character. The boundary between "meditation" and "the rest of life" falls away. There is simply the boundlessness and immediacy of Here / Now -- just as it is.

Inquiry: What is It?

The penetration of this mystery requires that one not foreclose it by substituting an answer, be it a metaphysical proposition or a religious belief. One has to learn how to suspend the habit of reaching for a word or phrase with which to fill the emptiness opened by the question.

-- Steven Batchelor

When we start inquiring into what is holding us back from realizing the truth, we come to the realization that there is really nothing there. There are no obstacles. Nothing is holding us back from awakening....We are the one who imprisons and we are the one who liberates.

--Anam Thubten

Self-inquiry directly leads to Self-realization by removing the obstacles which make you think that the Self is not already realized.

--Ramana Maharshi

Who (or what) am I? What is this right here, right now?

When everything perceivable and conceivable disappears, what remains?

What was your face before your parents were born?

These questions are not asking for conceptual answers. The thinking mind is in the business of finding answers. That's its job. It's a survival function. And in a certain realm, it works beautifully. But when it comes to these ultimate questions, it doesn't work at all. Any answers we come up with are just dead words, dead ideas.


Grasping is one of our earliest and most primal survival reflexes. We grasp with our hands, with our gut, and with our minds. Our human conditioning reinforces the tendency to grasp for answers. In school, we are rewarded for having the right answers, and we feel stupid if we don't know. So, it may be very uncomfortable and unfamiliar at first to not reach for an answer.


The questions posed in spiritual inquiry are of a different nature than the questions posed to us in school. These meditative questions are not looking for answers, although we can easily supply answers with the thinking mind. After all, if we've been around the spiritual scene for any time at all, we probably know all the "correct" answers to these questions. What am I? "Pure Consciousness," we might think. Or (if we haven't read very many spiritual books yet), we might say, "me," or give our name. Or (another "advanced" answer) we might say, "Nothing at all." Or, "empty space." Or, "The One Self." If we look at our computer and ask, What is it? We might say, "My computer," or we might be more sophisticated and say, "energy," or "consciousness," or "Oneness," or "emptiness." But notice right now that these are all words. Labels. They may be pointing to something that is not a word and not a concept. But the words themselves are not that to which they point.


It's relatively easy to learn the right answers, the right words -- to talk the talk. But these questions are inviting something else entirely. They are inviting us to fall into the open space of not knowing, to "suspend the habit of reaching for a word or phrase with which to fill the emptiness opened by the question." These questions invite us to discover what can never really be put into words or concepts, although words can certainly be used to describe or point to it.


Inquiry can also mean living with a question that interests us. For example, Is there free will? Or, Who makes choices? Or, How does a decision actually happen?


Instead of looking to see what others have said about this subject and then giving the "correct" answer, whatever we think that might be, inquiry invites us to look and listen and see for ourselves. So we might begin to actually watch, very closely, as decisions and choices get made. It could be little ones like whether to get up after you've been sitting down for awhile, or big ones like whether to get married or take a new job. Really watch closely and carefully as the process unfolds. Notice the thoughts that arise, investigate where these thoughts come from, and who controls them. Investigate this not by thinking about it, but by giving it careful attention. Look and see. Where do impulses, thoughts, intentions, and ideas arise from? Are you in control of the thoughts that arise? Even if you seem to be "choosing" to think positive thoughts, from where does the urge and the intention and the ability to do this arise? Does it always work? How does a decision unfold? Watch it very closely. Can you find the one in control?


This is a meditative inquiry that can go on over many days or weeks or years. It's not something you do with a quick look and then you confirm the answer you already believe to be true. It begins with letting all your answers and beliefs go, and not knowing what you'll find. Starting fresh. Always being open to the possibility of seeing something entirely new and unexpected.

Inquiry can also be a way of questioning thoughts and beliefs. When we are angry or upset or hurt about something, we might notice the thoughts that accompany and perpetuate these emotions, thoughts such as “he shouldn’t have done that,” or “she’s an insensitive jerk,” or “I’ve ruined my whole life.” We might ask of any such thought: Is it true? Can I really absolutely know that this is true? How do I feel when this thought is believed? What would it feel like if this thought were not believed? Don't look for the answers by thinking, but rather, feel into these questions deeply with the whole body and mind. See what reveals itself.

This kind of meditative inquiry is not a form of seeking, which is result-oriented and rooted in a sense of dissatisfaction and incompleteness. Inquiry is rather a kind of exploration and discovery rooted in curiosity, interest and love. Much as a lover explores the beloved, this kind of inquiry is an act of love. Much as a child explores the world with open curiosity and wonder, this kind of inquiry is a form of play and self-discovery. It is not something you finish doing. Seeking can fall away (if you're lucky). But inquiry is a life-long exploration and discovery that is never finished. It is a way of being. In fact, it is the very nature of life itself.


Turning to Face the Tiger

Imagine a man who is dreaming that he's being chased by a tiger. He knows it's a dream, but the terror and anguish he experiences are horribly real. He keeps telling himself, "Wake up! Wake up!" but it has no effect.

Question: How can the man wake himself from the dream and the suffering it entails?

Answer: Stop running. Turn and embrace the tiger.

--found on the website of Zen teacher Diane Rizzetto

Meditation or meditative inquiry is about turning to embrace the imaginary tiger. Only by doing this can we fully know in our bones that the tiger isn't real. As long as we keep running away, even if we're telling ourselves it's all a dream, we're still in fact taking it for real. We're still in the grip of fear. That's suffering. Meditation or meditative inquiry is about exploring what seems to be in the way of freedom and peace and happiness, what seems scary and dreadful and unbearable. It is about stopping our desperate efforts to escape what we fear, and stopping our desperate search for what we think we need. It's about turning to meet the tiger. It's a willingness to die, to let go of everything, to risk being devoured. Of course, nothing real gets devoured by an imaginary tiger, so it's about as risky as stepping off the edge of the flat earth, or picking up the rope that you've mistaken for a snake. But you have to find that out for yourself. Meditation or meditative inquiry is a hands-on kind of approach. It's not mental or abstract. It's direct. It's one thing to believe that the tiger is a mirage, and it's another thing entirely to actually turn around and embrace the tiger and find out for sure.


This embracing is not something you do once and then it's done. It's something you do whenever a tiger shows up. Some people have more tigers showing up than others. Comparing yourself to others or wondering when you'll finally be done with your last tiger is delusion. What matters is always only this moment right now, as it is – this tiger. And you can only do what you can do. Sometimes you don't turn and embrace the tiger – sometimes fear overwhelms you, old habits take over, and you run away instead. You flee into addiction or belief or whatever it is that offers comfort and escape. And that's okay. This isn't about being perfect. Perfectionism is just another imaginary tiger. So if running away happens, if you wake up with a hangover, full of despair, then you start here, where you are, right now. You turn to meet the hangover and the despair. That's your new tiger.


Here / Now isn't always blissful. It can be anything but blissful. But paradoxically, it is through allowing it all to be as it is in this moment and not moving away that we begin to discover where bliss (or joy, or peace, or love, or freedom) truly resides, and what gets in the way. We begin to realize that bliss is right here in the heart of this moment. And that suffering is running away or seeking it elsewhere – “out there” somewhere -- in the future, someplace else. Meditation is all about stopping the chase, and fully opening to what is.


The mind always tends toward fixation and reification. Meditation is about waking up from our stories and ideas and beliefs about how it is, our descriptions and labels. Meditation is a pathless path going now/here. There is nothing to attain, and nothing to fear.


And when it looks otherwise, then simply turn to embrace the tiger, and see for yourself.

---copyright Joan Tollifson 2011----

This is an excerpt from a forthcoming book to be published by Non-duality Press. You are welcome to link to this site or to quote brief passages as fair use, but please do not re-post whole articles from this web site on other sites or blogs without permission. Thank you!

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