The Inner Studio - Riverside Architectural Press

this quality into the built world. Being moved not only gives us
material to experience and analyze internally, it also gives us the
energy that makes a creative breakthrough possible.
Insight
THE INNER STUDIO
Once we are open to receiving, we can begin to notice when we are
moved. If we are willing to watch this process–not judge it, but
accept, investigate, analyze, and pay attention to it–insight has a
chance to naturally arise. Insight reveals the essence of something;
it tells us that our search for the truth has been sincere. Insight is
the outcome of a process and because it belongs to a process, it is
impossible to manufacture without the necessary experience of
being open and moved.
Insight is like a sudden condensation. It often feels as though it
comes suddenly, unexpectedly, with a silent plop! when many subtle
conditions are in place. An insight can arrive early in a process, but,
in my experience, it more usually arrives after long, often tedious,
searching that can sometimes be quite grinding. It may come as an
image, an answer to a veiled question, a dream, or a single word. It
has a feeling of certainty, but not arrogance. Being open allows us to
be moved and this movement indicates we have received something–insight
is knowing at the root level of experience.
Insight means seeing into it...“in-tu-it.” See in to it. Knowing
taken to its essence.
My favorite experience as a teacher is helping others to recognize
their own insights–it’s quite common in the beginning for
students not to be able to do it alone. I often think this is because
an insight can be a surprisingly ordinary thing and we would prefer
something more spectacular or dramatic. Sometimes this is because
we want to see the entire image all at once. But insight can be about
a single step, perhaps just a glimmer in the distance, and so it
sometimes takes another person to point it out.
Another way to recognize if your insight is closer than you
think is to see if there is something you have been returning to
again and again. It might be something right in front of you, like a
guest who is already inside your home while you are still watching
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