Living the Inquiries Weekend Retreat
Living the Inquiries Retreat November 21 – 23, 2014 This weekend retreat was facilitated by Scott Kiloby, author of a number of books on self inquiry and addiction as well as the founder of the Kiloby Centre for treatment of addiction and compulsions, located in Palm Springs, Florida. Scott has developed a very specific method of self inquiry which has proven highly effective in working with all kinds of issues or problems in people’s lives and also in looking into our misconceptions about our self identity. He credits Krishnamurti with being a very important inspiration in his work and greatly admires his spirit of questioning and inquiring into everything without settling for conceptual conclusions about life or oneself. In the Friday evening talk Scott explained the general principles and structures of his approach. The basic practice he recommends is to rest as awareness, doing nothing, allowing things to be as they are, and looking at how issues and problems arise or are created by thought. If this simple awareness does not take care of whatever presents itself, then some further inquiry can be done. Problems, Scott says, are created by the “velcro” effect whereby words, pictures, and sensations are glued together to form something solid, substantial, and “sticky”. This stickiness can be looked into and dissolved by a focused looking and questioning. There are three kinds of inquiries used to explore issues: the unfindability inquiry, the anxiety inquiry, and the compulsion inquiry. The first looks to see if there is a self or an identity attached to words, pictures, or sensations and facilitates a resting with these arisings without any judgement or interpretation, at which point they simply dissolve. The second inquiry asks what is the threat being experienced within anxiety or fear and looks for the actuality of that apparent threat. Again the threat and the self experiencing it may be found to be entirely insubstantial and may just melt away. The compulsion inquiry looks at the drive or urge to seek relief from substances or “addictions” of any kind and again deconstructs the assumptions and beliefs around the sense of being compelled to act in a certain way. An inquiry may have to be done many times over before there is a significant release or relaxing of the problem. On Saturday there was further explanation of the inquiries and some work with individuals which demonstrated the processes in action. Scott also led guided group meditations on being present with things as they are as well as working with the inquiries. There was more exploration along the same lines on Sunday and some time for participants to practice inquiring by themselves, with Scott available for any questions that might arise. A Krishnamurti video was shown on Sunday morning which seemed to be very interesting for many of the participants, and some Krishnamurti books were sold afterwards. The retreat was found to be “powerful” by those attending and the hope was expressed by many that Scott would return next year.
