Inquiry Meditation

Inquiry is a way of seeking spirit, reality, awake awareness, or true nature as simply and directly as possible. In this practice "we’ll explore a form of inquiry in which we intentionally and directly turn awareness around to find that awareness is the source of mind and our ground of being." From Loch Kelly's book, Shift Into Freedom.

Transcript

So this is an introductory to inquiry.

Inquiry is a way of discovering who we are,

Of making a transition from mental way of knowing to a way of knowing directly who we are.

Who we are as formless,

Awakeness,

And who we are as this form.

So it's like a scientific experiment.

There's a set of instructions,

A hypothesis,

And then a method.

So let's look at the method.

The assumption,

Or the hypothesis,

Is that awareness can know itself directly.

So let's begin with finding this awareness as it is here now.

You can begin to just simply bring your awareness or your attention to your left foot.

And notice how there's a focusing.

How your perception,

Your attention,

Can be brought formlessly to the form.

And you can notice that that awareness can move up your calf,

Your shin,

To your left knee.

And then the awareness can move to your right hand.

You can just jump so that your foreground focus,

Like a flashlight,

Is in your right hand.

The sensations there,

The particular feeling of pressure,

Warmth,

Coolness.

And then that awareness can move up to your shoulder.

And then even as it begins to move down your body,

You can notice that it can be wide,

Including your whole torso.

Or it can narrow to just the left side or the middle.

Now let's bring that awareness from the body to the sense of hearing.

You can notice that awareness can go outside to the sound that you're hearing,

Whether it's the sound of my voice on this tape or another sound in the room.

It's like it can travel out to the place where the sound is being made.

And then awareness can come back to the ear to focus on hearing the vibration in the ear.

Go out to the sound,

Come back to hearing.

And now notice how awareness that goes out to the sound and comes back to hearing can go and rest as that which is aware of hearing.

So it can merge with awareness that notices hearing and the herd.

So you can notice how awareness can go out to the herd and then move back to hearing.

And then it can also just rest back as that which is aware of hearing.

So it's like it merges with this awareness in a 360-degree view.

And notice how it can focus again to your hand,

Your left hand.

And now awareness can move to thought,

To the question,

Who am I?

And when awareness identifies or is interested with thought,

There's a feeling that's very particular.

Who am I?

Just understanding the words at first,

Then noticing that if awareness stays with this thought and looks in the mind,

It goes to memory and looks in categories and concepts and can come up with answers that are mental or historical or physical.

And now just see what it's like because you've seen how awareness can unhook and focus.

What it's like if awareness moves from the question,

Who am I?

And then unhooks and looks back,

Takes a half step back behind the head as if it begins to move to the mind and then lets go and awareness looks behind the mind,

Almost physically a half step back into space.

What's there?

What's that like when awareness looks in space,

Notices that awareness is knowing itself?

And as that space,

See what it's like.

Notice how it includes everything,

That the other senses are naturally present.

And even that half step back,

Feel what it's like to take a step down,

So it feels like you're aware behind the heart,

Within the heart.

So you're including the senses unhooking from the head.

What am I as the space that includes everything else?

Without narrowing the focus of awareness to thought,

Without looking through thought,

Without looking through the mind,

Just notice what's here,

From this open,

Spacious sense of being,

What it's like.

And just let be.

Notice the natural wakefulness that's always here.

And you can even feel how identification could happen by habit,

As awareness may begin to merge again with thought,

The usual,

Normal way that we've learned to know ourselves.

As soon as this awareness merges with thought and the thinker,

It creates a sense of identity that's limited,

That looks within the mind and within the world to know who we are.

It's almost like there's a loss of this global awareness.

And so knowing how to inquire,

Knowing how this local awareness can move to find itself,

To unhook from thought and the mind in a simple,

Easy way,

And then just to rest with no center,

The center that's everywhere and here,

We can return to the natural wakefulness of being.

And we may lose this sense through habit,

But we can always return with these small glimpses through this easy inquiry,

Which isn't conceptual or mental,

But knows how to unhook or let go and find itself,

Find ourselves,

As we've always been,

As we are now,

Free and open,

Spacious and natural.

And this awakeness will learn how to rest as itself,

Until it appears without any inquiry.

And then we'll feel like we're home again.

Reviews

Thank you for this Introduction to awareness. It Broughton me clarity, calm, and a sense of balanced senses.

A beautiful and contemplative practice. I always enjoy Loch Kelly’s work. Thank you 🪷

A wonderful insight or glimpse into the potential for how awareness can benefit me. Will return to this often 🙏🙏🙏

It would have been good to allow some space and silence to ‘be’ in that place, but really good clear instructions, thank you 🙏🏻

I wish you’d come back to the scientific inquiry theme w null and alternate hypothesis, seems like there is good stuff there

Appreciate Loch’s distinctive approach to Nondual meditation

This was really helpful! Thanks so much for this - I bought the book so the pre-taped enquires are helpful!

Its a deeper awareness and i was able to unhook and go into that place of divine light but the question of who I am can bring anxiety in my chest. i’ll keep coming back 🙏🏻

Loved this meditation on developing a higher awareness to step out of myself. I will return to it periodically because I feel that time will deepen the experience. Thank you 🙏🏽😊

I originally sat down to this near the beginning of my meditation journey, and in hindsight, didn't really get it.
I've just revisited it a year later, and it blew me away. A wonderful introduction to the realm of non-dual awareness ... this is a peek behind the veil and opens up access to a 6th Sense. Thanks Loch 🙏

Very profound! Experientially opens up another dimension of awarenes.

A very helpful way to step outside of "mental awareness" to see the natural state of awareness untethered from thinking. It was very clear and gently showed me a glimpse of what I had not knowingly witnessed in likely a long long while.

Fascinating meditation on the nature of the mind and nonduality.

Non dual awareness is the most important realization in humanity...I am. Thanks loch!

Very clear instructions, but it ends abruptly.

Challenging, interesting and soothing at the same time. I think this will help me deepen my meditation practice. Will come back to this one.

So enlightening. Wonderful. Thanks 🙏

Always expansive. Thank you so much

Wow!

Despite the repeated insistence that this is an "easy" technique, I found the exercise almost maddeningly difficult on my first two attempts to do it—and I don't mean that as a bad thing at all. It's very abstract and challenging, but I love a good challenge (and the abstraction reminds me of contemporary experimental poetry and academic philosophy/phenomenonology/critical theory—which I *don't* love, but I'm open to it if & when it takes me somewhere interesting, which this does).

I would not recommend this recording to newcomers to meditation, but after you feel comfortable with the basic terrain, this might be a fascinating next step for certain kinds of people. Only you will know if it floats your boat. I just know I am eager to go deeper in this direction myself.