I offer this for whatever purposes you wish to make of it.

If I only could be this or that, get this or that, change this or that, all would be well. All of us have entertained such thoughts, and most of us know, from experience, that the fix does not work. We continually move from one answer to another in search for the final answer. Doesn't it then make sense to stop looking long enough to turn and see what the problem is? Instead of seeking peace of mind in this or that, let's uncover and remove the disturbance. If we do, we may find that the problem is one of being caught up in our thought process, and that the answer is one of untangling ourselves from it. It is a practical problem with a practical answer. The Way of Inquiry is a guide toward that end.

The way of inquiry is something I stumbled into. Perhaps the only thing I bought to it was a natural curiosity about the why's and wherefore's of things. Somewhere around the age of forty, I reached what might be called burnout. I had moved from cause to cause, relationship to relationship, job to job, from answer to answer, in the attempt to find The Answer; but to no avail. The last move I made was to sell all that would not fit into a backpack and take off for the promised land; Europe. The old life was to be put behind me and the new life was to begin. In transition, I sat on the stern of the ship and saw its wake as the umbilical cord to be cut when I disembarked. The new me was to be. I had brought the dream of the final answer into full living color.

On the day I landed in Lisbon, I found myself on the ramparts of the castle that overlooks both the city and the sea. I saw the sun settling into the sea as the period that would bring my old life sentence to an end. So strong and so ideal was my dream of a new beginning that when I saw pigeons gathering at my feet, my first thought was one of disbelief; they were part of the old, not the new.

The feeling, which came upon me as I awoke from the dream, was one of absolute emptiness; and with it came the realization that it was myself I was trying to escape, and that such an escape was not possible. Resigned to my fate, I wandered Europe for two very memorable years. From a distance that seemed to be a mixture of resignation and curiosity, I watched myself recreate old patterns of action against a new background. It was thus that I came upon what I will call release insights and the Way of Inquiry. The way of resignation is not necessary; it can be replaced by the look of inquiry, a sharper and more direct approach to the release insights. It is a fact that to see through and understand the turmoil that is oneself, one must look from a quiet center. The guide was written as a practical, hands-on solution to the problem of oneself.

There is a group of problems that beset us whose solution comes down to the idea that something needs changing. On the next to bottom line, it is something other than ourselves that we think needs changing; our job, the other person, the world, where we live, and so on. On the bottom line, it is ourselves that we think needs changing; whether we see that change as one of acquiring a new self-image, raising our self-esteem, finding our true self, being assertive, becoming enlightened, and so on.

The point of this guide is that what we have assumed to be the bottom line, that it is our "self" which needs changing, is a confusion that results from being caught up in thought. It is a fact that we need to change, but that change must be from one of being caught up in thought to one of not being caught up in thought.

However it came about, we have the power to reason. We can look at what is, imagine what should be, and come up with a way of making the change. In using thought, we have a guide to action. A very powerful tool, this; the ability to change what is into what should be. Unfortunately, it came without instructions on how and when to use it. If it is true that the problem we have been trying to change solve by means of self-change is one of being caught up in thought, then maybe all we have been doing is playing with the notion of change, and not solving anything. The bottom line is then a practical problem that requires a practical solution.

There is a problem, which by the nature of its solution we may call the psychological problem. Its solution begins when we move ourselves into a state of attention by means of an awareness of our inattention, and through that, attention to the way we react to what is going on. In doing so, we move ourselves from an "after the fact" awareness of our reactions to a "with the fact" awareness" of them. Here, through insights, we begin to fall out of the problem state, and in doing so, acquire a feel for what the problem is. Again, we move from "after the fact" to "with the fact," and to a recognition of the problem state while we are of it. With that recognition, we step out of it, and, as the recognition clarifies, the less and less we find we are of it.

The whole of the solution is of a learn-by-do nature, like learning to ride a bicycle, and may be described as a psychological movement whose end is to put us in the position to both recognize the problem state and have the ability to step out of it. There are difficulties in coming to recognize the problem state, but its recognition becomes intuitive. The understanding of what the problem is, is silent in that it is recognized without description. Yet, there is the desire to describe what it is one recognizes, almost as if one must find the words, and develop the language, to complete that other way of knowing it.

One such description could be: Following an insight into the problem, there is an awareness of having been caught up in something. The more one observes that something, the more it looks and feels like the thought of "what is" and "what should be" creating motions and emotions. It is the act of judgment and comparison creating problems on one hand and solving problems on the other hand. It is being caught up in it on one hand and not being caught up in it on the other hand. The problem easily generalizes as one of not only being caught up in our thought process, but also suffering for that fact until the insight process provides the means to solve it.

The clarity with which we can see things sometimes depends upon where we are standing. If something blocks our view, we can move. In the psychological world, the move we must make, if we are to bring clarity to our thought process, is the one that allows us to slip out of the net of thought. This Guide is written toward that end. I suggest you reads it through until you get a feel for the sense of it, then let that sense start you in the Way of Inquiry. It may well be that you have already started, that all you need is a guide. It may also be that you have a better way of describing the process.

The psychological movement to the solution of the psychological problem is powered by the inquiry, "Let's see what is going on." The inquiry sets the condition for the movement both to begin and to be maintained. In a sense we do nothing about the problem except observe it. It is the state of observation itself that allows us to move from "after the fact" to "with the fact" of it, where a solution is then possible. This approach to the problem seems passive when compared to the usual way of seeking out what we think are the solutions to the problem, but necessary if the movement is to take place.

Let me illustrate the resistance to entering the Way of Inquiry that derives from its seemingly passive approach. Suppose you come to me and say there is another way to solve my problem. Since I have had no experience with the passive approach, I will assume your way is just another way, among ways. I have tried many of them, and just maybe yours will be the one that finally works. As long as I can fit what you are saying into an active framework, something I can seek, there is no resistance, but when you get to the passive part, I will resist. "You are telling me to stop trying and just look at myself? No way! Get out of here with your negative ideas. I might as well be dead. I'd be stuck. Besides, I don't have time to just watch. There are more important things to do." If you finally do convince me that there is an active part, the setting of the condition, I will again react. "But to what end? Where does all this doing nothing lead?"

The way around this resistance is practical. The first step of the clarification process has a practical end. When we think we are fully awake, yet still are startled by that unexpected noise, it shows that we are that little bit asleep. Moving to the state of attention not only removes that bit of sleep from our eyes, but also shows us that the movement of clarification does occur.

The first step is to move to the state of attention. The active way is to "pay attention." There are two difficulties with that approach, aside from the fact that it does not work; one is the fact that we will soon forget to pay attention, and the other is the fact that when we are trying to pay attention, our attention is tied up in the trying. The passive way is to turn our attention toward the problem, towards inattention itself. If we want to bring inattention to an end, what better way than to give it attention? A good example of inattention is when we are lost in our thoughts and unaware of what is going on in the world around us. We have lost our place, as it were. We are no longer aware of what our senses are presenting us.

The first fact to notice about your loss of place is that you are aware of it only after the fact. The rules of awareness are such that you can be aware that you were unaware, but you can not be aware that you are unaware. Being aware that you were not aware, you can look back into that space of inattention and see what goes on in it.

When you turn your attention toward inattention, you will find that either you were absorbed in thought or lost in fantasy. Distinguish between the two and see if you can remember, or be aware of, the shift into fantasy from thought. As you drift out of inattention, be aware of what seems like a between state, where you have returned to your senses, yet are unfocused. Experiment with that unfocused awareness by letting your eyes move over the surface of things and letting sounds come to you. You will find that between state develops into a place where you can come to rest in your senses. Another may think you are off in thought, where in fact you are simply aware of what your senses are presenting you. This is a quiet time you can take anywhere.

As you move into the study of your inattention, you will find signs that you are moving into a state of attention. One sign of inattention is the startle when you are suddenly awakened from being caught up in thought or fantasy. When the state of attention is, you will notice you are no longer startled by unexpected noises. It is as if noise passes through without touching anything. When you do startle, the noise feels like a wave, or impulse, as it passes through.

Inattention begins with absorption in thought, and can continue with a drift into fantasy. In the move to attention, you will find that thought no longer absorbs you. In other words, you can think and not lose the world your senses present you. You will discover that in order to be lost in fantasy, you first must be absorbed by thought, and since you have awakened to your thoughts, you have moved into a state of attention. It is still possible for you to lose your place, but this will occur very rarely.

With this step, we have moved into a state of attention by being aware of our inattention. In the next step, we will move into the solution by being aware of the problem.

As we begin, our only access to the problem is through the way we react to what is going on, so that means we begin by observing our reactions to what is going on. The stance of observation we set to begin the movement becomes both the means to step out of the problem and the means to clarify the recognition of the problem. We will consider the setting of the stance from three aspects; the in-common aspect, the self-aspect, and the inquiry aspect.

The common-aspect is based upon the fact that when we are caught up in out thought process, we are all in the same boat. We can use this fact to good effect in that in that it can be used as a mirror in which to see our individual faces. For instance, say that you are observing inattention, or defensiveness, or the ways we seek to be the center of attention. Watch the way of it in others, then turn the common-aspect mirror on yourself. It is a fact that we do have the talent to see things in others before, if ever, we see those things in ourselves. Also, as it becomes clear to you that we are indeed in a common boat, the poor-me of the problem loses much of its sting.

The self-aspect relates to the fact that when we are observing ourselves, we are both the observer and the observed. There must be some self-interest involved, if for no other reason than our desire to understand the problem. The self-interest to be set aside is the one of self-judgement. Simply becoming aware that a particular self-judgement is operant will suffice here. In other words, when we catch it in the act, we are with the fact of it, and in the spirit of the movement. For example, suppose you have turned your attention toward the reaction that is anger. You are observing it and catch yourself thinking, while angry, that you should not be angry. Awareness of the secondary reaction will stop the chain of reaction that might have gone on. You could have gone on to get angry at yourself for getting angry, and even more angry at what got you angry for getting you angry in the first place. This firestorm of anger keeps feeding on itself, and even after the storm is over, all it takes is one thought to set it off again. This catching and setting aside of judgments is something you learn by doing. Notice that the should and should-not's of judgement have a feeling to them that comes to an end when you set them aside.

The inquiry aspect pulls the stance together in a singular way of observing reactions. We will call it the Way of Inquiry. At this point in the guide, we are setting the condition for the movement to the solution, so let's look ahead and allow the way we will be moved by the inquiry to help define the condition for the inquiry-aspect. We began with an "after the fact" recognition of inattention, and moved to a "with the fact" attention. We continue with an "after the fact' recognition of reaction and move to a "with the fact' recognition. Being "with the fact" of our reactions, which means an awareness of them as they arise, we come upon an insight process that both reveals the problem and releases us from the problem. Insight is something that comes to us. This means that we will not know what we will see until we see it, and that means we have another reaction to set aside; namely, conclusions. Again, just be aware that you are reaching conclusions, and any secondary reaction that you should not reach conclusions, and you will be in the spirit of the movement.

The Way of Inquiry is the means, and the movement is a sharpening of the means to the point of being the solution. It begins with the intent to understand, through observation, what is going on in the relationship between you and yourself and you and the world. It is a state of observation whose goal is to see what is going on, as it is going on, and that means an observation unclouded by judgements and conclusions, which means being aware of them also. If, at this point, you have the sense of not knowing what to make of all of this, you have the spirit of the inquiry; your mind is not cluttered with ideas. In the next step, we will focus upon only one reaction, and clarify the task.

When we are not caught up in our thought process, thought acts as a guide to action. When an action requires thought, we think first, then act. The thinking about the doing and the doing are two separate matters. Just thinking about doing something does not get the doing done. On the other hand, when we are caught up in our thought process, thought does get into the act as the conditioned reaction. The reactions that rise out of the tangle will provide access to it. In effect, we will work our way into and through the symptoms of the tangle to the core of it, and there affect a cure.

In this step, we will turn our attention towards a reaction that is very accessible; namely, anger. Anger, whether it be a small annoyance or a full-blown rage, arises from the judgment that "what is" is not "what should be." Begin by watching the way of anger in others, then turn the common-aspect mirror upon yourself. Your key is to be aware of it whenever it arises. Two particular faces of anger, defensiveness and impatience, are a good pair to investigate. They each highlight a different aspect of anger.

As you begin the observation of your anger, your first awareness of it will be one of being caught up in it. Watch the way you react to being caught up in it. Start being aware of your thoughts as they rise in reaction to being caught up in it. At first, there may be a jumble of thoughts, but see if you can group them. Be especially aware of control thoughts. Set aside the judgement of whether you should, or should not, react in such a manner, and move to a recognition of the physical feel of anger as it rises. Here, you are moving to a with the fact recognition of anger. There may be times when the anger breaks as it rises, flooding your senses with energy. At other times, you may just step out of it.

The goal here is not one of trying to do away with anger, which is a symptom of the problem, but to get at the core of the problem. When we do get out of the act, we remove a self-centered quality from anger, giving it an altogether different quality. In all of this, you will find it very helpful to begin listening to your own voice, as you are speaking. This "with the fact" contact accelerates the movement, helps you to recognize hidden feelings by the feel and sound of your voice, and also allows you to clear your speech of unnecessary noises and phrases.

The move to "with the fact" of the reaction brings you into new territory, for it is here that the insight process begins. The emotional content of the reaction is contingent upon your being caught up in thought. When you move to a "with the fact" relationship with the reaction, the emotional content of it is removed. The following account, written by a friend, will be helpful here.

"There was difficulty in understanding the idea of having angry thoughts but no feeling of anger. I was told to watch my anger, be aware of it, understand it, and it changes. This translated to no longer react with anger. No anger under any circumstances? But surely some actions are anger provoking. How about the other side of the coin; no lows, no highs? Or always sitting on the sidelines with no involvement of any kind? Certainly, understanding yourself, and becoming aware of your reactions is productive, but let's stop before going too far is noninvolvement is part of it.

Watching – observing those around you. Listening and finding phrases that are repeated by the same person duplicated by others. If they all say and do the same things, can I be different? Watching my anger, hatred – then something happens. I hear myself saying the words of anger, but something is different this time. I hear the words, a listener probably does not know something has changed, but I am not feeling anger. Almost like an actor reciting a role because it was expected of me, but I was not deliberately doing it; it was being done to me. It even begins to feel like being fun! Like a game to say the angry words and laugh inside at the same time. Certainly possible, since the thoughts and feel of anger have no connecting wire. Could this possibly be what I mistook for deadness? I certainly do not feel dead, dull, noninvolved, or disinterested.

But of course, deadness to feelings is not the outcome. Descriptions of intangibles like thought, feelings, and emotions are very difficult, and understanding can only come with actual experience, not through another's teachings."

The first paragraph is a good example of the resistance thoughts you may have about moving with the Way of Inquiry. These self-concern thoughts naturally occur whenever we enter something new or different. We will cover this more fully when we get to the recognition of the problem as the problem way of being, i.e., a problem way of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Notice in the account how she began by watching the way of anger in others, then turned the mirror on herself. She then went on to describe her first experience of being "with the fact" of a reaction. The thought-conditioned action went on, but she was no longer of it. The sense of not being caught up in the reaction may be described several ways, depending upon how you care to interpret it. One way, usually the first way, is the sense of being taken for a ride, or just riding along with it. Another way, which may develop, is the sense of observing the reaction from a still center. Another way, which is self-reflective, has the sense of self-transformation about it. That last one could lead to a trap and will be discussed later.

When you reach this point in the movement, you will find that there are times when your usual reaction of anger is no longer present, times when you will react without the emotional content, and times when you can simply set the reaction aside. In this, the calm center, or silent observer, becomes your state of attention.

The last step put us in the position to turn our attention directly upon the ways we are caught up in our thought process, and more importantly, in the position for the insight process to occur. The next step comes upon the core of the problem. It begins as we come upon the insights that show us the way we are caught up in thought. Through this, we gain the ability to recognize the problem while we are of it, and it is this "with the fact" recognition that releases us from it. The more we learn of it, the sharper our recognition of it becomes. We come to recognize it in a general sense as a problem way of being, and we can recognize when we are being that way; there is a "me" sense about it that gives it away.

We begin this step by turning our attention to the reactions as feelings that center in our chest. At first, they may center in our stomach as knots or nausea. When it centers in the chest, it may be felt in different ways. It may feel like a hollow ache, or at times just an empty spot. It may feel like a band around the chest, or at times like a pressure. The only rule here, whether it appears in the stomach or chest, is to stay with the sensation when it comes upon you. Watch the ways you try to escape it and the thoughts that rise about it. When it breaks, you will discover that the feeling is a self-concern thought. When you are "with the fact" of it, the feeling will come and go as the thought of self-concern comes and goes, and provide the insight that thought creates it. You will come to recognize the unnecessary self-concern thoughts for what they are and step out of feelings they produce. During this step, develop an awareness of resistance, control, and self-judgement thoughts.

When you find yourself caught up in worry thoughts, don't try to turn your minds off; instead, let the thoughts go on and become the observer of them. Discover how this allows you to disengage from them, and how they will spin on their own for a time, then die out. When you stop feeding them, they starve and wither away.

Let's now look at the difficulties that may be created by the dual function of an insight into oneself. A good example of this dual function may be seen in the solution to any problem where confusion is the problem. Before the solution, there is only confusion, while with the solution, there is both a release from the confusion and a seeing of what the factor of confusion was. In the release from the problem way of being, and the insight into it, the experience of release may be taken as the whole point of the movement.

Release experiences are not all the same. Some are simply the feeling of having lost a burden, of coming to rest, while others may be so intoxicating that it is very easy to assume you have found IT. In the latter, the senses may come alive in such a way that there is no sense of separation present; all seems to be one. The notion that you have arrived, found your true self, been enlightened, and so on, not only resets the problem way of being, but also turns off the Way of Inquiry. If you have found it, whatever it you think you have found, there is no longer any need to look. There is the need, however, to defend your finding, for losing what you have found might uncover the same old problem again.

Somewhere in the insight process, it is likely that you will get caught up in the notion of having arrived. This will occur because, in a practical sense, there is an answer. In the psychological sense, you learn to throw the "finder" away, i.e., set the feeling of knowing the answer aside. There is something about the thought of "I know" that tags it as belonging to the problem way of being. This, of course, you must discover for yourself. The balance between knowing, in a practical sense, and not knowing, in a psychological sense, is something you learn by doing, and becomes an art.

Another difficulty arises from the fact that each release experience must come to an end. The energy caught up in the tangle must finally dissipate. Since each experience is, at the least, a sensation of being set free, the experience is naturally sought again; it felt good. The goal now becomes one of finding it again. The experience is the result of a release from a particular activity of conditioned thought, and if that activity then becomes one of seeking the release experience, the release will only occur when you step out of it. In other words, the only way you can get what you are looking for, in this case, is to stop looking for it. Then to get it again, you must start and stop again. It's like binding yourself to get the pleasure of the unbinding.

Since these two difficulties are created by taking the release as the important point, and thereby missing the insight provided, one way of keeping the release experience in perspective is to allow the experience to pass through as an experience. This is the practical way of viewing any experience; all that is kept of them is the lesson provided. Release experiences all have lessons within them, especially those where divisions created by thought, and thought to be real, come to an end. When we are caught up in thought, we keep an unnecessary part of the experience. Uncover for yourself that unnecessary sense of self you carry.

When we have moved to the point where we recognize the sense of self, or problem way of being, we have reached the goal of the movement, i.e., the means to solve the problem. We are in what might be called mental shape, and, just as with physical shape, if we don’t use it, we lose it.

Keeping in mental shape means keeping the release recognition sharp, and that means staying in the Way of Inquiry. The common-aspect of the inquiry, and the listening to of your own voice will be very helpful in this matter. The latter, once you get into the swing of it, becomes a natural part of your awareness and provides "with the fact" feedback. The common-aspect of the inquiry is a constant reminder that there is a problem that needs solving.

There is another way mental shape can be lost, even when the Way of Inquiry is doing its thing. Conditioned action is habitual action. A habitual way of being is a very deeply ingrained habit and will reset just out of habit. There will be times, when for no recognizable reason, you will feel caught up in the problem way of being. It might only be a sense of tension, a tightness across the chest, or a sense of confinement, but you will know that you are again of it. Do nothing but observe the way you are reacting to it. Ride with it, and, as the habit weakens, you will find that your are less and less visited by it.

Let's step back and look, at the process that begins and ends with the Way of Inquiry. The key thing to notice is that the solution to the problem is a condition, a state of inquiry, and that it is both the goal and the means. Set the solution state and a problem state is revealed. The problem state revealed may be described as a problem way of being; a way of thinking, feeling, and acting that has its roots in a misunderstanding, or confusion, within our thought process. Set the solution state and a problem state is revealed by the dissolution of the problem state; that which is now missing was the problem. It is the experience of the dissolution that makes the solution difficult until we come to an understanding of it. In the struggle with the seeing and not seeing of the problem way of being, where we bounce back and forth, a second seeing, as an understanding, is gained, namely, that the Way of Inquiry itself is the answer.

Somehow, when we fall asleep to the inquiry, the problem way of being takes on substance. My guess is that when we identify with the problem way of being, we give it life, which is the same identity that the process of the Way of Inquiry both negates and reveals through the negation. The solution to the problem way of being can then be seen to be the same solution to the problem of inattention. Let's follow this parallel and equate the problem way of being to a second level inattention, where instead of being lost in thought, we are tangled up in a thought identity. In both cases, we do not try not to be either, or escape the situation, but simply observe the way of it. In each case, we move from "after the fact" to "with the fact." The only difference is in awareness. While we can not be aware of not being aware, we can be aware, or come to be aware, of our identity problem, as it were. Throughout the process, it is one movement working on different aspects of the problem.

Let's end the guide with a look at self-change in light of what we have exposed of it. Conditioned action is patterned action and some conditioning is necessary if we are to make our way around this complicated world. The conditioning the Way of Inquiry exposes is the unnecessary conditioning whose only end seems to be one of making our lives miserable enough to send us on the search for peace of mind. The fact that conditioning is patterned allows us to come to see the unnecessary patterns and set them aside. Since the pattern of search is a very broad pattern, let's open it up for inspection.

The search may be thought of in terms of its experience of fulfillment. If this would happen, all would be well. If I could get this, or reach this, or be this, or change this, all would be well. There are two ways to satisfy that thought; imagine it satisfied or actively seek its fulfillment through the experience of it. When it does come about, there is the experience of satisfaction, and all is deemed well, even if the actualization did not live up to its imagined one. This movement of want moves from one goal to another in the search for the final goal, each getting old in its time. There are the problems of getting and the problems of keeping. There are the problems of more and not enough. Then there may be burnout and/or depression when the never-ending circular way of it is seen; for it goes nowhere.

If you find that is the way of it, why not stop looking for the answer in the future long enough to turn and look directly at the problem as it is? Wouldn't we be in a better position to solve it? Suppose all we have been doing is running away from a problem that must follow us wherever we go? If we were the problem it must follow every step we take in trying to get away from it.

This guide, as I have presented it, is drawn from the experience of only a few. The route needs more exploration, and the guide needs adding to by those explorations. I found it necessary to write this guide as a step by step affair in order to expose the movements within the process. In reality, it is a much more complex process of self-clarification within a single movement.