Integral Inquiry: Short Practice

1. Sit upright and breathe naturally.
2. Rest in the present moment, releasing attention into the suchness or openness in which everything is arising. Relax into what is.
3. If thoughts arise or attention wanders, ask “Avoiding?,” “Contracting?,” or “Who am I?”
4. Let the question simply open you to a deeper awareness, rather than try to answer it. Don’t engage a mental story about your avoidance or contraction. Just notice what’s happening and return to being present.
5. Rest in pure presence. Notice when you get distracted and check for any shadow elements, such as recurring, emotionally charged thoughts around a specific person or situation. If this is the case, do a quick 3-2-1 Process on the distraction, and then return to pure presence. Notice the double relaxation of releasing your relative shadow-knot, as well as abiding in pure presence, prior to any shadow activity.
6. After a few minutes, or when your available time is over, complete your module and continue about your day.

Integral Inquiry: Full Practice

There are 3 stages to Integral Inquiry. Stages 1 and 2 are done while sitting in meditation, and can be practiced for any amount of time, from just 1 minute (i.e., the Short Practice version) to an hour or longer. Stage 3 invites you to take the Inquiry beyond the cushion, into your everyday life.

Stage 1: Becoming Grounded in Pure Presence

Begin by sitting upright and breathing naturally. Invoke the non-seeking mind. When you’re ready to begin, simply count your breaths. On inhalation, count, “one,” on exhalation, “two,” on the next inhalation, “three,” on the next exhalation, “four,” all the way up to “ten.” Then, return to “one.” If you get distracted and lose count, go back to “one” and start again.

Note that every breath takes place in the present moment, the very location of Suchness, Consciousness, and Divinity. Thus, each breath—each “one,” each “two,” each “three”—brings you here, now, to the mysterious, open present.

Pay particular attention to the still points between breaths, with lungs empty or full, continually releasing attention to the openness, simplicity and limitless depth of pure presence.

When you can sustain 5 minutes of stability during meditation (and it can often take six months to do that!), you can stop counting, and simply follow the breath with your attention. The breath remains an anchor for the present moment, helping us in releasing or going beyond the thinking mind and resting in pure presence, opening into our most natural condition of formless awareness.

Then notice when the mind contracts from this simplicity, becoming distracted by thoughts, sensations, or emotions.

The mind chronically contracts again and again. When you notice this happening, inquire and relax. Choose a simple question, such as “Avoiding?” or “Contracting?” or “Who am I?”* And ask it, in the same way that you might return attention to the breath and to the count, or go back to one when counting the breaths. Use the question to return to full, free, present awareness, opening and relaxing back into what is. (Other variations include “What am I?” “Who am I kidding?” and “Avoiding Relationship?” The noun-based forms of inquiry allow attention to illuminate the habitual and mechanical presumption of the separate self. The verb-based forms of inquiry allow attention to illuminate the same thing, which is at root, not an entity, but a present activity.)

The inquiry is not meant to stimulate analysis of why your mind wandered, “What was I avoiding? Why?,” but simply to bring awareness to what is actually taking place through the mind’s wandering—while simultaneously naturally returning attention to the breath.

Another meaning of the question is, “What am I doing instead of being present as free attention? What is there to notice?” One answer given by sages is, “Vast emptiness, and automatic contracting of the mind.”

As this process deepens, let the whole exercise arise in Emptiness, in Big Mind. Then, allow thoughts to self-liberate spontaneously.

Stage 2: Bringing Integral to Bear on Your Inquiry

After you have become proficient in the first stage of Integral Inquiry, so that the process of Inquiry is natural and real, you can move on to stage 2, bringing the Integral Framework to bear more explicitly on your meditation.

Begin to notice the pattern of what is distracting you from pure presence. Most often, the root will be a shadow issue. So, for example, if a particular person or situation with an emotional charge keeps arising in meditation, you can Face it, Talk to it, and Be it, using the 3-2-1 Shadow-work Process.

You can also use specific aspects of the Integral framework to pinpoint where in your awareness the disturbance is arising. Does it relate to an “I,” a “we,” or an “its” issue? Does it have anything to do with a line of development where you might need to do some work? Is it in one of your 3 bodies? A gross body discomfort? A subtle energy block? Use the Framework to help clarify what’s really going on.

Don’t get lost in thought—you’re still meditating. Simply make a mental note, and then return to sitting in pure presence.

Stage 3: Practicing Integral Inquiry In Your Everyday Life

The next natural progression of your Integral Inquiry is to use it not just when you are sitting in formal meditation, but in any moment of life.

This begins to bring meditation into the rest of your waking life, breaking down the artificial division between meditation and life. As you bring free Integral consciousness more and more fully into your waking state, you get closer to the point where it can naturally appear in your dream and deep sleep states also.

This is a fully flexible, fully Integral discipline. You are free to use whatever Integral tool seems best fitted to freeing up your attention and energy.

You might do a quick 3-2-1 Shadow Process on a situation that is bothering you.

You might simply restore your AQAL sensibilities, by purposefully noticing the four quadrants of your present experience.

You might simply ask the question “Avoiding?” or “Contracting?” or “Who am I?”

You might remember God in the 2nd-person perspective, simply speaking “Thou” interiorly.

You might even inquire directly in a way that takes no outward form at all, just the restoration of free awareness.

Whatever you choose to do, the point is simply to do it with full awareness, and then to freely go about your day—hopefully lighter and more fully present.