Contemplation · an antidote to scrolling
Stop. There’s nothing to do here. Just look.
These places are also where our online meetings will happen.
That’s the plan: we gather online and choose together where to meet today — by the lake, at Kailash, on the ship. The format is in the works; no dates yet.
Sound starts with your first tap — you can turn it off.
- You don’t change. You come back — to yourself.
- What changes is the point you’re looking from.
- Pause — the moment between stimulus and response. That’s where choice lives.
- “If other thoughts rise, one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire, ‘To whom did they arise?’”Ramana Maharshi · “Who Am I?” (Nan Yar), question 11 · English edition
- “Happiness is the very nature of the Self; happiness and the Self are not different.”Ramana Maharshi · Who Am I? (Nan Yar), Q. 24 · tr. T. M. P. Mahadevan
- Anyone can check this. Right now, while you’re reading.
- They’re not the enemy. What gets in the way of clarity isn’t your smartphone — it’s the autopilot you pick it up with.
- Witness — the one who notices a thought without being that thought.
- Consciousness is the only thing directly available to experience.
- “The thought ‘who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed.”Ramana Maharshi · “Who Am I?” (Nan Yar), question 10 · English edition
- “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.”Lao Tzu · Tao Te Ching, ch. 33 · tr. Stephen Mitchell
- “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”Shunryu Suzuki · Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Prologue
- Autopilot — when you react before you’ve noticed.
- Decisions made by you, not by fear or habit.
- We avoid foolish situations. But if there’s nowhere to retreat, a warrior acts without hesitation.
- “To act from desire and fear is bondage, to act from love is freedom.”Nisargadatta Maharaj · “I Am That” · English edition
- “The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or as a curse.”Don Juan · Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power
- A ronin is free. His own discipline.
- No master above him, no school behind him. Only the path he has chosen, and the word he keeps.
- Don’t believe me or anyone else. If it works — keep it. If not — drop it.
- You don’t need to leave the game. It’s enough to stop forgetting that it’s a game.
- “Love says ‘I am everything’. Wisdom says ‘I am nothing’. Between the two my life flows.”Nisargadatta Maharaj · “I Am That” · English edition
- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”Rumi · “A Great Wagon” · tr. Coleman Barks with John Moyne, The Essential Rumi
- “In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped.”Lao Tzu · Tao Te Ching, ch. 48 · tr. Stephen Mitchell
- For years a man studies maps and argues about them — then he looks up and sees that the road was under his feet all along.
- Running away didn’t work. Coming back did. You don’t need to fly to the edge of the world.
- The question “Who am I?” isn’t a crisis — it’s the start of an inquiry.
- “Nobody lands here by accident. If you’re here, something brought you here.”
- “Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use.”Don Juan · Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan
- “There will come a time when one will have to forget all that one has learned.”Ramana Maharshi · Who Am I? (Nan Yar), Q. 23 · tr. T. M. P. Mahadevan
- Free. He sets his own rhythm and answers for every step. Solitude is not a loss — it’s room to choose.
- You’ve been searching for a long time — and there’s no one to talk to about it.
- Day to day we’re online. At night, in the morning, between tasks: each at their own screen — and not alone.