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#4166 - Wednesday, February
16, 2011 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
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The Boomerang Inquiry
by Scott Kiloby
http://www.kiloby.com/writings.php?offset=0&writingid=288
I've been looking into more innovative ways of helping people see
through separation. You can read about the Unfindable
Object Inquiry (the one-two punch) on this Writings page.
I've also developed something I call the Boomerang Inquiry that
works with respect to relationships (i.e., seeing through the
sense of separation in relationships).
Through the years, I've met many people (teachers, students,
seekers of all kinds) who experience awareness as a stabilized
recognition yet still buy into separation in one form or
another.. This separation often shows up in
relationships. Repeatedly, I kept meeting with people who
had a nondual recognition, but who still bought into conflict and
other old ego patterns in relationship (e.g., control,
resentment, victimization, family relationship conflict,
defend/attack energy, marriage troubles).
Certainly, non-duality is not a self-improvement plan.
However, the root of suffering and conflict in relationships is
the belief in separation. Therefore, the seeing through of that
belief obviously releases some of these deeply rooted
patterns. This release naturally harmonizes
relationships.
Meeting with people who were still struggling in the belief in
separation prompted me to go deeper into inquiry with them.
Recognizing awareness as the "background" to one's
experience certainly goes a long way, but it doesn't always help
one see through separation entirely. I kept noticing that
people were reporting the recognition of presence but still
experiencing this oscillation, or movement, between the
recognition of freedom and the sense of separation. This is
a drawback or backlash from some of the modern approaches to
non-duality that focus on "being present" but that do
not go far enough to reveal an absence of separation.
Non-duality, after all, means "not two." It
doesn't mean "be present."
Perhaps the most important thing any of us can do while on this
earth is see through the belief in separation. When we do
this for ourselves, we do it for humanity. We do it for
every relationship on earth. Yet, if we only
intellectualize non-duality and stick only to catchy phrases like
"There is only Oneness," or "be present," we
are not actually looking deeply into our experience. We are
leaving it in the head only. And so we end up with
something less than a full, experiential recognition of
non-duality. We may talk of experiencing freedom or even seeing
there is "no self," yet we may find ourselves very much
locked into old patterns of conflict and separation in
relationship.
In the last few years, I've seen a sort of fast food
"nonduality" where one experiences non-conceptual
awareness and "presto" liberation is supposedly
realized. I've been guilty of it myself, in my message.
It's great if you have realized that when there are no thoughts,
there is no separation. There is only simple
presence. It is great if you have realized that "all
there is, is what is happening right now." But we can
utter catchy nondual phrases millions of times and still believe
in separation. If one is still buying into separation in
any way is that nonduality? Non-duality means "not
two." It means seeing through separation wherever that
appears, in any and every relationship. It means seeing
that there is no separation whether you are thinking or not
thinking.
Relationship is really where the rubber meets the road in
spirituality. One can talk of being realized or enlightened
while still acting out old egoic patterns in relationships.
The true test, in my view, is this: how do you move and act
in relationship? That reveals everything about how deeply
the belief in separation has been seen through. Merely
saying there is "no self" doesn't cut it, not if you
have reduced that to a mental conclusion.. It's just a
fancy one-liner in that case. It won't bring you one bit
closer to real freedom. "No self" has to be
realized, through and through. And that includes seeing
that there is no separate other in relationship.
The Boomerang Inquiry uses the mind to go beyond the mind, so to
speak. It doesn't ask you to withdraw from concepts. It
invites you to see through your belief in them. It invites you to
look specifically at a relationship in which there is a strong
sense of separation or conflict (e.g., with a boss, co-worker,
spouse, boyfriend, friend, family member). It then invites
you to see that we, as people, only exist in relationship.
This means that each object you see mirrors back to you, in some
way, who you think you are. The point of the inquiry is to
see that you do not see others objectively. You do not see
separate others at all. You see whatever your thoughts
reveal..
We do not experience each other the way we really are. We
experience objects, or others, through a conceptual and emotional
filter. Thought and emotion actually create the objects (people,
etc) we see.
For example, you cannot see your mother the way she really
is. You see her only through your own thoughts and
emotions. The grocery store clerk does not see the same
object when she looks at your mother. Your father does not
see the same object when he sees your mother. Your mothers'
friends do not see the same object that you see when they look at
your mother.
We suffer in relationships because we falsely believe that we see
each other objectively. This lie of objectivity is exactly
what the Boomerang Inquiry helps us see through.
Here are a few notes about what the Boomerang Inquiry is and what
it is not
What the Boomerang Inquiry Is Not
1. The Boomerang Inquiry is not a method to change yourself
or others in relationship. It is not a self-improvement
plan.
2. It is not an inquiry designed to help you get a romantic
partner or win friends.
3. It is not a way to avoid conflict (in fact, it invites
you to use conflict to "wake up" out of the sense of
being a separate self in relationship to a separate other).
4. It is not a method to improve your relationship (or, at
least, that is not its goal; the goal of the inquiry is to see
through the sense of separation in relationship; coincidentally
relationships do improve but not through actively trying to
change the relationship).
What the Boomerang Inquiry Is
The Boomerang Inquiry is a set of questions that Scott takes you
through. He firsts asks you to get a real sense of the
separation between you and an other in relationship. The
"other" can be a person, place, or other thing.
It can be the court system, a disease, your father, an object of
obsession. It can be any object whatsoever. Scott then asks
you to find the other through looking a individual arisings of
thought, emotion, and sensation. In not finding the other, the
other appears "empty" or lacking a separate
nature. The other is seen to be thought, emotion, and
sensation arising inseparably within awareness. Scott also
asks you to look at the particular self that gets created in this
relationship with the other. For example, if the other is a
victimizer, the self is a victim. Once the self that is
created in this relationship is identified, Scott invites you to
find that self by looking at individual arisings of thought,
emotion, and sensation. In not finding the self, the sense
of separation between self and other falls away, leaving non-dual
awareness.
We believe we see others the way they really are. We fail
to see the filter of thought and emotion through which we view
others. Seeing this filter for what it is is helpful in
seeing through the sense of separation in our relationships.
This is why the Boomerang Inquiry has been so powerful in
one-on-one sessions with people. The inquiry is
content-specific. In other words, it is not a dry, one-size
fits all teaching that has no relevance to your
relationships. Its strength lies in the fact that it is
directed precisely towards the relationships in your own
life. It starts out with the assumption that there are two
separate individuals—you and an other. It asks you to
picture and characterize the "other" in your
life. And through picturing that other, the inquiry invites
you to see who you think you are in relationship to the
other. And then the inquiry cuts through the belief in
objectivity (the idea that you see the other objectively).
It cuts through the notion of separation itself, the belief that
you are looking at a separate object.
The inquiry cuts both ways. This is what Buddha meant when
he said "emptiness is none other than form and form is none
other than emptiness." The emptiness of all forms
(including self and other) is one of highest Sutras in
Buddhism. The Boomerang Inquiry reveals that there is no
separation there in the relationship in either direction (subject
or object). It reveals that love is already here in every
relationship, under the false belief in separation and under the
lie of objectivity. This is when we take "no
self" into its real depths, instead of leaving it as a
catchy spiritual one-liner. At the end of the inquiry, you
are still able to use labels like self and other,
conventionally. This means that you see that self and other
are conceptual only. This allows you to use the labels,
without believing in separation any longer.
If you are interested in doing this Boomerang Inquiry, email me
at Scottkiloby@aol.com . I also highly recommend you read the
Living Realization text at www.livingrealization.org before meeting with me. That text helps
tremendously in giving you context for the Boomerang
Inquiry. You can also join the Living Realization online
meetings, coming soon, to enjoy the inquiry in a small group
setting