Is inquiry with another student significantly more effective than inquiry while alone?

 Usually, but in time we might be able to develop our alone inquiry greatly. Inquiry with others is usually more effective, but doing it alone is ultimately what makes the difference, because we have all the time alone. To do it continually means we have to be able to do it alone. It is the sustained inquiry, whether alone or with others, that will ultimately transform our lives, not the occasional highs of inquiry we do in sessions and with others.

How can daily practice support inquiry?

Hameed: Daily practice supports inquiry, by providing it with the skills of concentration, mindful awareness, steadfast focus and so on. Inquiry is not a daily practice but a continual one. We can do it as a daily practice but we need to be always ready to engage it, even within our daily activities. In time it happens spontaneously whenever we are aware of an area of no clarity or understanding. It is then the function of the transparent clarity and guidance of true nature.

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 Why is sensing our physical bodies the easiest way to understand our soul?

Our soul is our sensitivity, the expression of our innate awareness. How can we become awake to this sensitivity if we are not sensitive in our bodies!  The sensitivity of our body is the expression of the soul’s consciousness, and hence by sensing we awaken and deepen this consciousness. Also, by sensitizing the body we can live our realization in an embodied way, instead of having it as an isolated and dissociated experience.

The Reclamation of Basic Trust

I have very much enjoyed reading Facets of Unity. I am very curious, however, about a relevant issue that I have not been able to discern within its pages. My understanding is that the loss of basic trust in the child results from the child’s perception of a loss of holding in the environment. The enlightened soul, however, is one in which basic trust predominates. External events that most of us would call terrible do not jeopardize or diminish the experience of basic trust of the enlightened soul.  In the midst of these circumstances, the enlightened soul does not experience itself as helpless or choice-less.

Yet, the perspective offered in your book, along with my own observations of children, suggests that they do start out with a predominance of basic trust...but it is eventually lost. This suggests that there is some aspect in the enlightened soul that is either not present, or not as developed, in the soul of the child. In our common understanding we would say that the child simply does not have understanding and maturity.  Yet, we might then ask: what is it that enables this understanding and maturity in enlightened soul?  So, it appears that there needs to be some aspect that not only enables the development of understanding and maturity, but also allows for its retention...some kind of constituting factor.  My questions, therefore, are:

1)    Am I correct that there is a constituting factor present in the enlightened soul that is either not present or not as developed in the child soul?

2)    If so, what does the Diamond Approach perspective explain this constituting factor to be, how does it arise and develop, and how does its presence enable the retention of basic trust in the enlightened soul?

The enlightened soul definitely includes an important factor not so present in childhood. This is the capacity for discrimination, the discerning knowingness. It exists in childhood in a very rudimentary manner. The infant is not dissociated from true nature but it does not have the discriminating and self reflective capacity to know this true nature and to recognize that it is its nature.

The lack of dissociation is the reason behind basic trust, for basic trust is fundamentally the implicit confidence that expresses the fact that we have a timeless true nature. Through ego development we become dissociated from our true nature, with a resulting limitation in our basic trust, yet this development is a stage necessary for the development of our discriminating capacity.

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The Libidinal Soul as the Primary Barrier to Spiritual Development

In Spacecruiser Inquiry you refer to the libidinal soul as "the primary barrier to spiritual development."  The spiritual traditions I have studied offer very little practical teaching about this critical barrier, and the consequences can be disastrous. Can you say more about the actual process of transforming the animal soul? More specifically, how do we confront our most primal and powerful drives, which are usually distorted and damaged by inner and outer coercion, and hold the ground of truth? What are the dynamics of this transformation? How is this different from sublimation?

 Actually, the ancient traditions deal with the animal soul in a major way, but within their own cultures and contexts. It is usually done through renunciation, ascetism, moral discipline and monastic rules of conduct. Also, through the relationship between teacher and student.  When these traditional teachings are taught in our modern culture the cultural norms and contexts are not present, and hence there is no good way to deal with such deep and central obstacle to realization.

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Working with the Animal Soul

In Spacecruiser Inquiry you refer to the libidinal soul as "the primary barrier to spiritual development."  The spiritual traditions I have studied offer very little practical teaching about this critical barrier, and the consequences can be disastrous. Can you say more about the actual process of transforming the animal soul? More specifically, how do we confront our most primal and powerful drives, which are usually distorted and damaged by inner and outer coercion, and hold the ground of truth? What are the dynamics of this transformation? How is this different from sublimation?

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The Question of Suffering is a Question of Understanding

Does the Diamond approach say anything about the meaning of the pain, loss and death that surrounds us in the world, some of which we cause to others in order to exist?
 
Is it not a major self indulgence (and a deflection) for me, a well-off western WASP to be searching for my essence, when, on my behalf, other people in the world are being killed to protect my wealth and life-style? Am I bringing peace to the world by this work and if so, how?

  Finally, while my own pain and loss might be something I can be curious about, often it is just painful. Is there any purpose to be found in it? Ultimately, doesn't death render life meaningless, brutish and short for the tortured dissident, the war victim or even the chronic depressive? 

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Savoring the Fruit of the Path: Spiritual Maturity

Jack Kornfield and A.H. Almaas will be speaking on October 17th in San Francisco.

Click here for flyer and to order tickets

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More Pictures from Asilomar 2009

6am on the computer

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The Paradox of the Fulcrum

Students of the Diamond Approach to Self-Realization talk about their experiences with The Fulcrum. The Fulcrum is the topic of this year's Ridhwan summer retreat.

The Fulcrum is a place of paradox where the dual and non-dual meet; where practice is realization and realization is practice; where non-doing and dynamism meet.

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