1. Imagine yourself sitting in the middle of a room, with all the other people and things in your life placed around you in a circle.
2. Scan around the whole circle.
3. As you look at each person or thing, notice how it appears to reflect back to you the idea that you are deficient in some way.
In a way, your life is already designed as a circle. All the people, situations, and events you encounter are all around you, feeding you information about who you are. Imagining this circle puts everything and everyone around you into focus. It allows you to see how each person and thing is mirroring back to you some version of the story I am deficient.
Seeking in vain outside the self for what the self seems to lack is an impulse ingrained into the very fabric of the story of self. This impulse is based on one fundamental assumption: I am separate and deficient. We can spend our whole lives believing this basic assumption about ourselves. Until it is questioned, it tends to continue operating, driving much of what we do and how we act toward others.
When the basic assumption of separation and deficiency is undermined and seen through, fruitless seeking naturally relaxes, and we experience a stable sense of completeness with life as it is in the present moment. We can enjoy relationships, create things, express ourselves, follow our interests, and enjoy life in every way. We find that we can still move and fully operate in the world, but now without the belief that something is missing at a fundamental level.
Seeking is happening in our lives in so many ways that it can make our heads spin when we begin to look more closely at it. The Panorama Inquiry works well with useless seeking because it places all the people and things in our lives in a circle around us. By creating the circle, we can see that we are seeking in just about every direction.
Notice that when you rest in the moment, without emphasizing any thought, there is nothing to seek. There’s nowhere to go. Here you are, in the present moment. Your thoughts have relaxed, and you’re at peace. Even as you relax thoughts, you may notice that the energy in your body feels restless. Let that restless energy be as it is. Let it arise and fall without going back into the story of needing to seek something in the future, or from someone else. As the energy is allowed to relax, the mind relaxes with it more and more.
It’s worth repeating that these inquiries are not designed to create another avenue for fruitless seeking. They aren’t designed to get you something that you believe you lack. They’re here to help you see through the self that lacks. That seeing through is always a present seeing. The inquiry brings you right back to where you already are, resting in the present moment. There’s a stable well-being and contentment in presence. That sense of stable well-being and contentment is not based on getting to some later point, or getting something from someone else.
From The Unfindable Inquiry: One Simple Tool to Overcome Feelings of Unworthiness and Find Inner Peace
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