Look at something. Concentrate on the visual experience you’re having. Silently ask yourself, “What is this experience?” Hold the question in mind and look more deeply into the experience. Many thoughts may arise. You may feel perplexed and uneasy. If you get distracted, start over. If you get too fatigued or disturbed, take a break. Eventually, you may experience a shift to a state of greater insight: the question fades away and you begin to perceive the experience more clearly; your intellect lets go, your body relaxes, your breathing deepens, and you feel energized. Now, let go of the question. Rest in the shift that you’ve experienced and let concentration and insight merge.
We’re often so focused on understanding what we experience that we completely ignore experience itself. The paragraph above shows how you can focus your attention directly on subjective experience and use inquiry (a process of questioning) to investigate its nature. I’ve found this to be a powerful practice for transcending conceptual understanding and cultivating insight. In this article, I describe this practice in depth.
Practice Outline
Here’s an outline of the practice:
- Concentrate on an experience.
- Use a question to observe the experience more deeply.
- If you fall into dullness or distraction, start over.
- If you get fatigued or disturbed, take a break.
- If you experience a shift to a state of greater insight, proceed.
- Let concentration and insight merge.
- Let go of the question.
- Rest in the shift you’ve experienced.
I describe each of these steps in more detail in the “Basic Instructions” section, below. Then, in the “Beyond the Basics” section, I show how you can vary and intensify the practice.
Basic Instructions
For best results, use these practice instructions within my framework for insight practice.
Concentrate on an Experience
Choose a current subjective experience to work with. Any experience that you can concentrate on will work—but to start with, choose an experience that’s not too fleeting; it should be ongoing (or at least recurring), and it should be easy for you to concentrate on. I suggest you start with the visual experience of something you see in front of you with your eyes open; for instance, the visual experience of a stone on the floor in front of you.
Rest your attention on the experience that you’ve chosen. Do some concentration meditation, using the experience that you’ve chosen as your object of attention. If you don’t have much experience with this practice, for best results, don’t move on until you are in a state of at least intermediate concentration (that is, at least at the fifth milestone—the higher your level of concentration, the better). (After you gain some familiarity with this practice, it can be effective at lower levels of concentration, as well.)
Use a Question to Observe the Experience More Deeply
Choose a question to help you observe the experience. There are many possible questions you could work with; I suggest you start with the question, “What is this experience?”
As you continue to concentrate on the experience, silently ask the question you’ve chosen. Let the question direct your attention more deeply into the experience. Continue to concentrate on the experience as you hold the question and mindfully attend to what arises in response.
Allow thoughts, emotions, and body sensations to arise; don’t try to stop them, but don’t get distracted by them, either. Eventually, you may reach a state in which no more words arise. That’s fine; continue to hold the question and observe the experience more deeply.
Eventually (usually within seconds or minutes) one of the following things is likely to happen:
- You may fall into dullness or distraction. If you’re not too fatigued or disturbed, return to the previous step (concentrating on an experience without asking any questions) to restore your concentration—then proceed on to this step (using a question to observe the experience) and try again. (You can choose a different experience and/or a different question to work with, if you want.)
- You may get fatigued. If so, it’s time to take a break from insight practice and restore your vitality. This practice is best approached in brief sessions of high intensity—not marathon sessions.
- You may feel disturbed and overwhelmed. If so, it’s time to take a break. See the section “Insight Can Be Disturbing” in my introductory article on insight.
- You may experience a shift to a state of greater insight. The question fades away and you begin to perceive the experience more clearly. Your intellect lets go, your body relaxes, your breathing deepens, and you feel energized. It may take a while before this shift occurs, but when it does, it occurs fairly suddenly. This shift may be subtle—especially at first—so don’t necessarily expect fireworks.
Let Concentration and Insight Merge
After you experience a shift to a state of greater insight, let go of the question you’ve been asking. Rest in the shift that you’ve experienced and let concentration and insight merge. Aim for a stable, clear state of mind in which you can rest in an awareness of your subjective experience—without depending on conceptual understanding for your peace of mind. (If you want, you can return your focus to concentration practice at this point; you may find that insight makes concentration practice easier.)
When insight and/or concentration fade, you can start this practice over again (possibly choosing a different experience and/or a different question to work with). When you’re ready to end your practice session, set an intention to carry the benefits of the practice into your daily life.
Notes
- This is a mindfulness practice, in that it can help increase your capacity to attend to subjective experience. It’s also an insight practice, in that it can help free you from the compulsion to make sense of experience.
- Observe the experience itself. For instance, let’s say you’ve chosen to observe the visual experience of a stone on the floor in front of you. The goal here isn’t to observe the stone; it’s to observe your visual experience of the stone. Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be; if you’ve chosen an ongoing experience that’s easy for you to concentrate on, the experience will be obvious and glaring—right there. You can’t miss it.
- Simply observe—don’t seek explanations or rational understanding. This practice isn’t a scientific or philosophical endeavor. For instance, investigating correlations between the experience and other phenomena (like neural activity) may be interesting and may have useful applications, but it’s not a part of this practice. Simply allow the question you’re asking to draw your attention more deeply into the experience.
- One reason you may need at least an intermediate level of concentration to do this practice is that at lower levels of concentration, your attention is likely to be carried away into involuntary thinking when you start holding the question in mind.
- Don’t expect to get a clear, comfortable answer to your question—even when you experience a shift to a state of greater insight. (Changes in conceptual understanding may accompany insight, but insight is distinct from conceptual understanding.)
Beyond the Basics
You can vary the basic practice above by choosing different questions to use in your investigation and by choosing different types of experiences to investigate. The fact that there are so many possible combinations of questions and experiences can make this an exceptionally rich and varied practice.
Choosing and Asking Questions
When choosing a question, any question that helps you observe the experience more deeply can work. Here are some of my favorites:
- “What is this experience?”
- “Where is this experience?”
- “How big is this experience?”
- “What shape is this experience?”
- “What color is this experience?”
- “Where was this experience before I experienced it?”
- “Where does this experience go after I experience it?”
- “Can this experience be damaged?”
It’s fine to make up your own questions. Ask questions the help you observe the experience itself. (For instance, if you’re observing the visual experience of a stone, your questions should be about the visual experience—not about the stone. Asking “What kind of stone is it?” won’t help you cultivate insight.)
It’s okay to ask a variety of questions about a given experience, but spend some time with each question. Don’t move on to another question just because an answer arose. In particular, be suspicious of any answer that you feel especially certain of. Continue to hold the question and observe more deeply.
Some questions may seem to have simple answers, while some may not seem to have any answer. Some questions may seem very confusing. All of this is okay; the point is to let the question lead you to a deeper appreciation of the experience. (If the question you’re working with isn’t doing that, it’s time to move on to another question.)
Don’t try to stop answers from arising; answers aren’t harmful, as long as you don’t get distracted by them. But keep in mind that insight is your goal, not answers—and the answers aren’t the insight.
Building Range and Expansiveness
After you get used to doing this practice with a visual experience, branch out and explore what this practice is like with as many other types of experiences as possible. Work with a variety of other sensory experiences, including sounds (like the sound of recorded music playing), tactile and body sensations, smells, and tastes. Try working with the kinesthetic and energetic experiences of breathing and with the sign). Try working with something you imagine or remember. It’s much easier to work with nonconceptual experiences, so start there—but, with enough mindfulness and concentration, you can do this practice with conceptual experiences, too.
Regardless of the experience you choose, note that you must be able to concentrate on it with at least an intermediate level of concentration before you can use it as a basis for this practice—so having a wide attentional range is helpful for this practice. Before you try this insight practice with an unfamiliar type of experience, do some concentration meditation in which you take that type of experience as your object of attention.
After you can do this practice with a wide range of experiences, start doing it with successively more expansive fields of experience. You might start this process by working with two sensory modalities simultaneously. Later, try working with your entire field of subjective experience. You can even try working with the referent of the concept “everything you ever have experienced or will experience!” In my experience, this practice becomes more powerful as you choose more expansive fields of experience to work with.
Sources
These instructions have been informed by personal experience gained through practice, by the published work of Buddhist teacher Ken McLeod, by my experiences with Buddhist teacher Lama Yeshe Gyamtso, and by my experiences with the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to meditation instructor Kenneth Folk for providing helpful feedback on the first version of this article.
How to Use Inquiry to Investigate the Nature of Experience https://t.co/gNm7P09Mk2
— Kenneth Folk (@KennethFolk) March 9, 2016
Revision History
- February 21, 2016: Initial publication
- March 7, 2016: Added opening summary paragraph, added practice outline, factored practice details into “Notes” section.
Photo Veiled chameleon, Chamaeleo calyptratus by Colin Frankland is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.