Self-Inquiry, April 26, 2023

Self-Inquiry in Victoria

With Jackie McInley

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Esquimalt Gorge Pavilion

 

Eleven participants attended this in-person meeting at the new Gorge Pavilion. This was Jackie’s last session with us before her return to the UK, but we are hoping she will return before long for more dialogues and friendship. We soon began to explore the quality of our listening and sharing as well as how we listen to ourselves. There was some acknowledgement of the sometimes intense and deep meaning of silence in the midst of the dialogue. We then moved into quite an engaged conversation about what was arising for people in the group as we interacted and noticed our reactions and responses. How did insight and revelations about ourselves show up, and did these bring a greater depth and meaning to our inquiry?

One participant asked if what we were reporting to be our experience was mostly mental or was it significantly “somatic”, or feeling-based. We seemed to sense that it was both bodily based and also a function of what we might call “awareness”, which notices what is going on but may itself be beyond the physical sensations and the thoughts that are arising.

As we continued with the verbal exchange some dialoguers began to take note of something that they called “compassion”. It seemed to be an aspect of “listening carefully” to what others are saying. Even if what they are saying contains some amount of confusion, still the listening transforms it into something that could be called “thinking together” and which brings more “heart” into the communication. Some called the experience of such sharing “meditative” and seemed to be surprised at the heightened sensitivity and sense of closeness that was infiltrating the conversation.

It seemed that everyone felt a great deal of appreciation for the quality of the sharing that had taken place within the meetings during the month of April. It will be interesting to see how things take form in May.

DB