Introducing INQUIRING DEEPLY NEWSLETTER
Inquiring Deeply Newsletter
May 2018
This newsletter is my first one. It is created out of my desire and intention to share my work. I begin with a question that underlies many others: WHAT IS INQUIRY? [see below]
Inquiry is the subject of my 2017 book “INQUIRING DEEPLY”. As the title suggests, the book is about the method of inquiry. ( “Inquiring Deeply” is actually an abbreviation of a longer and more ponderous title). It reflects, in part, the strategic use of awareness practice in the investigation of personal problems.
As a psychotherapeutic approach, Inquiring Deeply can be described as the use of mindfulness practice to unpack and amplify subjective experience. It is a therapeutic framework which blends relational psychoanalysis and Buddhist wisdom into a single coherent frame.
While INQUIRING DEEPLY is (I hope) a deep book with many interesting things to say, I recognize that not everyone wants to take the time nor do the ‘heavy lifting’ the book requires of its readers. So, more recently, I have been distilling the essence of what I have to say into a series of simple blog posts, and I will be sending out one each month to those who have signed up to receive them (free).
INQUIRING DEEPLY available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01N24V17T
WHAT IS INQUIRY??
“Inquiry” is an attitude of mind. It means to live in the question of something, to consciously engage our experience in a way which invites it to unfold. When we ‘inquire deeply’ into a problem or concern, we approach our experience with the attitude of delving into it, feeling whatever it is more fully, and inviting it to reveal itself. Through this practice of awareness, presence, and self-reflection, we become more Real; more fully who we are.
Looking Ahead:
On Tuesday May 2 and Thursday May 4, I will be giving a dharma talk on “Mindful Conversation”under the auspices of One Dharma Sangha. (Tuesday 6 p.m. at MacVeagh house, Museum of Nat’l History Santa Barbara; Thursday 6 p.m. at Sacred Space in Summerland).
On Saturday May 19th I will be presenting a workshop sponsored by LAISPS ( Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies): MINDFULNESS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: Deepening The Conversation. May 19, 1- 4 PM, De Neve Plaza/UCLA.