The TSK Email Forum
Thread 0005: Essential points about the practice of TSK inquiry
entry 0001:
Inquiry is a discipline of the mind that clears confusion and obstacles rather than being directed toward intellectual understanding; it fosters the embodiment and expansion of radiance and brilliance. [Composed by Jan Samson and Steve Randall, 8/3/98]
KTS, p. xx: The Time-Space-Knowledge vision is one of transmutation. It carries within it the specific energy inherent in transmutation. . . . It is not important to 'understand all that is said here; it is enough to be open to each question as it arises, and to persevere through uncertainty or discomfort. Difficulties arise only if the material presented is approached merely through labeling, incorporating, and storing away.
entry 0002:
KTS, p. xvii: A new kind of inquiry would invite a new appreciation of ordinary existence through investigating experience from the perspective of time itself, space itself, and knowledge itself. . . . The unfolding of this inquiry invites Time, Space, and Knowledge to speak for themselves--not simply as facets of 'our' experience, but as interacting dimensions of Being.
KTS, p. xx: It is only our insistence on limitations that closes knowledge off.
entry 0003:
KTS, p. 58: An appreciation that sustains inquiry can calm
and balance the self's tendency toward self-involvement and identification,
which 'takes over' the energy of time and prevents it from flowing
freely.
entry 0004:
LOK, p. xix: Love of Knowledge is first and foremost an inquiry, and it is important to give attention to the way in which this inquiry is conducted. Investigations usually rely on a pre-existing understanding, which may or may not be formalized as a working 'philosophy'. Though useful as a tool, such pre-established understanding tends to be lifeless. It accumulates outward forms that weigh inquiry down and rob it of flexibility.
LOK, p. xxi: Inquiry becomes an adventure--a boundless field of action with no fixed starting point or goal.
LOK, p. xxvi: Following the path of open inquiry means treating Love of Knowledge as a companion in investigation rather than as an authority. Throughout Love of Knowledge, there is an emphasis on questioning all beliefs and doctrines, and this applies with full force to all that is said here. Even statements that seem to be presented as principles or axioms are better understood as suggestive ways of looking at the evidence that thoughts and experience provide.
LOK, p. xxvii: There is no specific program or methodology of inquiry to follow. Even the reader who proceeds casually on the basis of simple curiosity may discover interesting insights.
LOK, p. xxix: The style of inquiry introduced here counteracts the tendency toward 'singling out', thus signaling a return to balance. With no positions or possessions, such inquiry is committed only to knowledge, and this commitment, because it remains available as a subject for inquiry, is in an important sense self-correcting.
LOK, p. xxx: Inquiry best suited to activating a more subtle intelligence is one that goes beyond words and concepts, judgments and distinctions, and the sense that the self 'gains' knowledge. Investigation can certainly make use of such basic concepts as 'higher', 'lower', 'process', 'path', 'progress', 'transformation', etc. But if the words take on a reality of their own, the pursuit of knowledge degenerates into word games.
LOK, p. xliv: Although I had been raised in a tradition where inquiry into the workings of mind was an integral part of education, the specific approach I now found myself adopting had no direct connection to this tradition, or to any other path of inquiry that I was familiar with. I saw the clear potential for tracing such connections, or for exploring possible links between what I was discovering and the views of science. While this approach would have been interesting, it would also have led away from the immediacy of inquiry into a realm where identities, orientations, definitions, and descriptions played a large role.
LOK, p. 5: We could pursue questions in a new way: not just to accumulate information and ideas, but to learn who we really are and what we can do with our lives.
entry 0005:
LOK, p. 228: Questions framed in accord with the structures of temporal knowing stay vithin the 'logos': They allow only for 'correct' answers that reflect our own projections. We ask our questions, then strain to hear the answer in the echo of our own voice. Question and answer together form a narrative: Asking a question means taking a position; searching for an answer means acting within the linear sequencing of past, present, and future.
Could we abandon this positioning in space and time? If our questions were more accommodating, so that knowing were no longer 'doing' and questioning not 'the activity of a self', space might no longer entail separation, time might not pass away, and knowledge might go beyond conventional limits. There would be no 'witness' to the 'truth' of our knowledge and no 'narrator' to make our wonder 'meaningful', but also no structures to confine our knowing. Penetrating the narrative and the 'logos', we might discover that experience can be meaningful in its own right, and that knowledge can serve as its own witness.
entry 0006:
LOK, p. 283: If we let our questions arise from true wonder, they will open to further questions; free from the bias of positions, they will call forth a knowledge that reflects their power to go beyond the known.
entry 0007:
KTS, p. 316: the more carefully we look, the closer the topic being investigated comes to us, until ultimately we ourselves are the subjects of the inquiry.
KTS, p. 409: The simplicity of 'only knowing' seems very difficult to discover. But this is because when we undertake an investigation, we are accustomed to looking for the results of the investigation. From the 'only knowing' perspective, it is the inquiry that truly represents 'knowingness', not the 'truth' of what is discovered.
KTS, p. 417: When the goal orientation of the self yields
to free and open inquiry, the play of space and time presented
by the temporal order, together with human knowledge, become
factors that open to the investigation of inquiry.
KTS, p. 420: Linked to free and open inquiry, 'cognition' discovers
knowing in not-knowing, for not-knowing also embodies the
'logos'. When inquiry leads us to the unknown, we can abandon
our concern with 'explanation' and turn instead to the unknown
as a starting point.
KTS, pp. 420-21: We might distinguish two kinds of not-knowing. 'Conventional not-knowing' is simply another position taken by the self--a judgment that takes form in terms of a goal that has proved unattainable. Such not-knowing sets itself up as opposed to knowing, on a par with such other dichotomies as acceptance and rejection, praise and blame, or positive and negative. Because it is opposed to knowledge, it signals the end of inquiry and the failure of investigation. The 'not-knowing' accessible to inquiry, however, can be understood as the 'completion' of inquiry. This not-knowing emerges only when inquiry has reached its furthest limits: at the point when knowledge has traversed the domain of knowing and is ready to see that domain revealed in a new light. It is a 'not-knowing' that must be earned through the power and vigor of inquiry itself. . . . As an active knowing, inquiry converts the first-level opposition between knowing and not-knowing into a partnership. Instead of being exhausted in pointing 'to' or 'from', knowledge is left free to know itself as the context of lower-level knowing and not-knowing.
entry 0008:
KTS, pp. 494-5: For inquiry to be of real benefit, it must be inspired by a concern that goes beyond the rational, a motivation that will lift the accustomed form of knowing outside itself, so that transcendence of the old 'order' is possible. Without this dimension of aspiration, inquiry will not be able to maintain its freedom, and the Body of Knowledge will remain unknown.
Aspiration itself is an expression of 'knowingness': a way for the light of knowledge to shine through the patterns of our 'minding'. The best aspiration, then, is the Love of Knowledge itself, for only when our aspiration is great can Great Knowledge arise.
This does not mean that our inquiry must be selfless, or that
we must give up the idea that there will be personal benefit
as the result of more knowledge. The pattern that bases action
on the obtaining of benefit does not have to be rejected any
more than any other pattern or model. We can simply acknowledge
that the desire for benefit sets up a goal, and thus a barrier.
That barrier too can become a subject for inquiry.
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