About
What Is Living Inquiry?
Living Inquiry is a form of inquiry that has evolved into a beautiful practice of living in deep awareness that includes everything — both dual and nondual — clear seeing. After decades of practicing many treasured forms of inquiry, I’ve recognized that the inquiry isn’t about an answer to a question. It’s not about an intellectual understanding. It’s really about noticing “what’s happening” in Life in the moment. What I’ve found different with this form of inquiry is the capacity to be present in a way where attention is focused on what’s happening now — whatever’s unfolding right here, right now. And I’m not doing it. I’m not someone paying attention. The act of paying attention is happening and I’m not separate from that happening. Instead of inquiring to find out an answer or to prove that we already know something, we are meeting Life as it’s happening. There’s no separation, no subject, no object — simply verbing!
Frequently Asked Questions
There is always one question: what’s happening now?
The practice is to ask that question then notice what you notice. Don’t look for the answer. What’s happening now is not a concept. Then ask the question again and again in each different moment.
Instead of wondering why something is the way it is or why someone is acting a certain way or why the world around us seems so chaotic, our consciousness can expand to include a more succinct wholeness by the fundamental question: what’s happening now?
Experiment. Play with it. See what happens for you.
Typically, the mind interprets the verb “to inquire” to mean “to seek” as in finding an answer. It seems the etymology has more to do with asking and investigation. Curiosity is the key. And the lock is the Unknown.
I don’t know that we’re ever actually preparing for what “is” going to happen next, but there are plenty of actions we do to prepare for what we know from experience could be useful. One example, I put appointments, birthdays, and other reminders, on my calendar but I don’t expect that that calendar schedule is fixed. Stuff happens out of the blue and that’s when I have to be present to what’s happening in that now.
There are a number of ways to explore this question. From one perspective, this has been referred to as dual awareness which refers to the integrated awareness of our external and internal environments and how they affect each other. To me this feels like a mind-reflective label and explanation, which is fine, because that’s just what it is to me. I can see that when this perception is recognized a certain detachment can also be noticed where feelings and thoughts are observed without being identified with them and this allows for a choice as a response rather than a habitual reaction.
I want to include here another perspective from an experience where, as awareness, there’s simply whatever is happening without the identification of this being this and that being that. Here the familiar mind is not labeling dual and nondual. After all that’s said, nondual includes everything. And yet, those are all words that mean nothing until you experience what’s being pointed to. Once you experience this yourself, you may have clearer words than mine.
This is one of the hardest questions to answer with words. Language does not do justice to what’s obvious in the happening while it’s happening. In my experience, there is no familiar self that is experiencing what’s happening. There is only the happening that’s happening; and I am that. The simplest way I’ve found to describe this is that in those moments I am the “I am” and the “I am” is the verbing”.