Nondual Inquiry Labs.
Audio Recordings
Lab 1 — Beyond Thought
Thoughts and problems: Discovering that problems require thinking, and awareness remains unaffected by thought content
The nature of thought: Examining where thoughts come from, whether they have power, and if we actually control our thinking
Awareness itself: Investigating the basic fact of being alive and present that exists before all experience
Practical inquiry techniques: Learning to look directly at experience rather than explaining or analyzing it
Common pitfalls: Identifying when the mind takes over inquiry with explanations, beliefs, and conceptual thinking
Lab 2 — The Body
Lab format: A collaborative workshop, inviting interruptions, experimentation with wording, and sharing what helps or causes stuckness while using inquiries from the book.
“What has always been here?”: Exploring “being/presence” by letting thoughts answer and pass, using a “metaphorical step back” to notice awareness remains even with distractions, and that there is ultimately no separate doer stepping back.
Body-as-location: The group questions whether one can directly experience being inside the body, tries to locate where “I” is, and observes only shifting sensations and perceptions rather than a findable center.
Edge/border of the body: They investigate whether an actual boundary can be found, seeing “skin” and inside/outside as conceptual additions to visual and sensory impressions rather than direct evidence.
Attention vs awareness and the limits of language: A zooming-out exercise shows attention narrowing/widening within what is aware; the discussion points to what is prior to concepts and even the thought “I am,” described as unnameable and unfindable.
Lab 3 — Doership
Non-doership and agency: Exploring the core inquiry of whether we truly control our thoughts and actions, concluding through direct observation that thoughts simply appear and bodily actions happen spontaneously — often before any corresponding thought arises.
The narrator/voiceover analogy: The mind acts like a voiceover in a nature documentary, narrating life after it happens and adding a false sense of personal agency, just as a documentary attributes intent to animals that are simply acting instinctively.
Judgment and self-blame dissolve without a doer: If there is truly no controller of thoughts or actions, the entire basis for judging oneself or others collapses.
Awareness is impersonal and uncaused: The inquiry of whether anyone is doing awareness, pointing to the fact that presence/aliveness is already here unconditionally — it doesn't belong to any person, cannot be turned on or off, and requires no effort.
Frustration as a sign of genuine seeking: Frustration is good news, it signals that real inquiry is happening. The self-referencing mechanism (even when it adopts "no-self" as an identity) can only be seen through, not fixed.
Lab 4 — Separation
Inquiry into separation: The session explored whether direct experience (visual, auditory, tactile) actually contains inherent information about separate objects or a separate self — and consistently found that it does not; separation is a concept the mind adds to raw perception.
"No substantial self" inquiry: Participants examined direct experience without labels and discovered that nothing in raw sensory perception proclaims itself as a distinct, bounded object or self — separation is mentally constructed, not given by reality.
Inner/outer border inquiry: The group looked for where "me" ends and the "not-me" world begins, finding no discoverable boundary in direct experience — the division between inner and outer is a learned, conditioned label, not a feature of experience itself.
"Headless way" / pointing exercise: Participants pointed at objects and then at their own face, noticing that unlike external objects, pointing at oneself reveals nothing — no self, no object, just openness — highlighting that the self is unfindable in direct experience.
"Mine vs. not mine" inquiry: Why we label some experiences "mine" (my body, my thoughts) and others not, showing this division is arbitrary and culturally conditioned — experience itself carries no ownership label, and belief in a "mine" is what sustains the illusion of a separate self.
Lab 5 — Sense of self
Nondual experience isn't elsewhere — the inquiry challenges the assumption that nonduality is a special experience you're not having yet; awareness is already fully present right now.
Experience is always dualistic — any perception, sensation, or feeling occurs through an individual body-mind, so "oneness" can never be experienced as a felt state, only known as a truth.
The self ("me") can't be found — when you search for a solid, continuous self, all you find are thoughts and sensations; the sense of "me" comes and goes and is itself witnessed by something more expansive.
A thought has no power to create — the "me" is just a recurring thought pattern, not an actual entity, so there's nothing to get rid of, only to stop mistakenly identifying with.
Freedom is in the knowing, not the experience — daily life and personality continue unchanged, but recognizing there's no separate self dissolves ownership of problems, trauma, and identity, leaving things "known" as this awareness experiencing itself.
Lab 6 — Now and Here
Time only exists through thought. Without thinking about the past, future, or even "the now," there is no experience of time — time is a concept created by the mind.
"Now" is not a unit of time — it is what we are. Rather than being a fleeting moment, "now" points to timeless awareness itself. Everything — memories, future plans, even the concept of "now" — arises as a thought occurring now.
"Here" is equally a mental construct. The sense of "somewhere else" only exists as a concept added onto direct experience. Naked experience is always only this, with no "elsewhere."
What is aware has no location or limit. Awareness cannot be an object found "out there," it is the subject in which space and time appear. Contracting into a body-mind identity is a learned addition, not what we fundamentally are.
Freedom is already here — no path or future moment required. Since there is only now and only here, whatever is being sought cannot be elsewhere or in the future. Direct inquiry repeatedly points back to the open, unconditioned knowing that is already present.
Lab 7 — Awareness
Removing Objects to Find Awareness: Awareness is not an object you can focus on — it is the knowing/attention itself. Any object that appears, even the thought "I am awareness," is just another object that can be used to point back to what is aware.
Standing as Awareness: Pretend there is no separate self and take the stand as awareness itself — like a method actor fully committing to a role. Assume what the non-dual teachings say is true, then observe how reality shows up from that position.
Dropping Everything: Drop all notions — body, mind, identity, and even the concept of awareness itself — imagining placing everything in a hot air balloon and letting it float away. From that space of "being nothing, knowing nothing," they test whether they are truly the body, the mind, or the sensations, and discover what remains: presence, existence, being.
Language is inadequate for pointing to this, the mind will constantly try to grasp and objectify awareness, and direct recognition — not intellectual understanding or guided practice — is what matters. Each person is encouraged to find their own words and apply these inquiries in any life circumstance.