The Practice of Inquiry

SnowFlower Sun – September & October 2018

From a talk by Suzanne Kilkus

Sitting meditation is a quest, an inquiry. Even when sitting quietly, gently, at the core of our sitting is the
activity of questioning. We all have something that brought us to the cushion, maybe something personal
to our lives or something of larger consideration that we’ve encountered in the world. That something is
a question. In Zen, a basic question is “Who am I?” another is “What is this?” a third is “What is the nature
of suffering and how can we bring an end to it?”

The practice of inquiry opens up the potential and possibility found in the Three Pure Precepts: 1. Avoid
evil or unwholesome activities 2. Do good or engage in wholesome activities 3. Purify your mind. We can
ask “beautiful questions” as the poet David Whyte calls them: Will this thought/action lead to health and
wholeness? Do the wise ones support it? Will this lead to liberation? Such questions as opposed to
“conditional questions” which come from criticism, fear, and judgment: What’s going on here? Why are
you the way you are? Who do you think you are?

A foundation practice in Zen, zazen or sitting meditation, hinges on the question, but not necessarily on
the answer. Rather on finding a space in which we may sustain uncertainty and remain present in the
midst of investigation. This attitude of sustained inquiry offers an entryway into deep restfulness and joy.
In the following description of the Buddha’s experience on the night of his awakening (from David Brazier
The Feeling Buddha) it is clear that the Buddha’s awakening arose from cultivated inquiry. “He meditated
all night and watched everything that arose in his mind. Many fantasies and emotions assailed him: some
violent, some lustful, some terrifying and some tempting…Not only did he experience all these emotions,
thoughts and fantasies flooding into his mind and body (as we all do – ordinary human experience), he
also realized how they arose and experienced how insubstantial and impermanent they were. He
recognized their relationship to the affliction which he sought to understand. This was a deeply cathartic
experience. He saw how the mind worked, how the body gets impelled into behavior by the mind, how a
person thus builds an inauthentic identity, and how the continuing defense of this identity enslaves and
hurts us.

He realized that the arising of such impulses could not be prevented. By seeing their true nature,
however, he could remain undefeated by them. He saw that each such impulse was like a seed which, if
encouraged to grow, could take over and blight one’s life. Although he could not prevent them from
arising, there was something he could do. By understanding their source and their effect he could change
their consequences. They could be converted.”
What occurred here, known through the centuries as the Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma, was
supported by the kindness, care, and compassion of a village girl, Sujata, who found Siddhartha near
death from his ascetic practices and brought him food for several days. We can say that this simple act of
engaged kindness and compassion…gives us a way today to engage the big questions of our personal
existence and of life.