For decades, I’ve moved through worlds of contemplation—psychedelic journeys, Buddhist retreats, Hindu mantras, Esoteric Christian prayers, and the labyrinthine corridors of high Magick. Each path, each practice, carried its own gifts: insight, wonder, collapse, reformation. But each also held a kind of architecture—beliefs, rituals, cosmologies that pointed somewhere, even if that “somewhere” dissolved at the edges.
Over time, I noticed a thread woven through them all—a thread that required no religion, no ceremony, no allegiance to any system of thought. Just a simple, recursive reminder: that which perceives is not the Self, and that which reminds is not the Self, either. Like a finger pointing at itself until the finger dissolves.
This is the practice I return to now. I call it simply: The Reminder. It’s not a practice in the traditional sense, but a kind of mental posture—an undoing, a recursive feedback loop that leads, inevitably, to the Mirror.
The Reminder
A thought arises—joy, sorrow, memory, desire.
Remind yourself: This thought is mind. It is not the Self.
Another thought arises—the voice that reminds.
Remind yourself: This reminder is also mind. It is not the Self.
Repeat this process—like reducing fractions—until the reminders themselves fade and the feedback loop collapses into a kind of spacious presence.
What remains is the Mirror—a clear, reflective awareness where the division between thought and reminder, seer and seen, self and other, dissolves.
This is not a ceremony. No candles, no bells, no icons. Just this reminder, repeated like a koan or a mantra, until even the reminder collapses. When it all stops, what’s left is not a void but the clearest reflection of being itself.
Why This Practice Matters
After years of practice, I found that no technique, no symbol, no belief was more effective than this recursive, self-negating inquiry. It doesn’t belong to any tradition, yet it honors them all. It’s the distilled essence of every path I’ve walked—a direct encounter with the nature of mind, the nature of self, and the nature of consciousness.
No illusions. No symbols. No external authorities. Just the mind confronting itself until even the confrontation dissolves.
A Note from the Author
This practice is not something I invented. It’s a distillation—an essence—drawn from decades of seeking and from countless traditions that all point, in their own ways, to the same truth: that the Self is found only by seeing that which is not the Self.
If you feel called, I encourage you to try it for yourself. Seek the silence between thoughts. Look into the mirror that remains when even the reminder falls away. It may be the simplest practice you’ll ever meet—and perhaps the most profound.
May you find the mirror that reflects who you truly are, beyond all voices and all reminders.