A Mirror, Not a Master

Eight rules for looking at your own life

The teaching

Almost every way of looking at your life is secretly built around the future — the plan, the streak, the better version of you ahead. It never works, because it puts a boss where a mirror should be. This is the other way: look only at what is, and trust yourself to choose from there.

Before the laws

There are only three things anyone can do with a life. Live it. Look back on it. See its shape. Present, past, pattern. Notice what's missing from that list: the future. The future is where your freedom lives, and the moment something starts prescribing it, it stops being a mirror and becomes a master.

1 of 8

Reflect. Never dictate.

Because seeing clearly is already the change. Nothing has to be added to the seeing.

Tonight, before sleep, look at the day as if it happened to someone you love. Don't grade it. Just see it.

2 of 8

No future. No 'should'.

Because the future is the one room where you are still free. Anything that prescribes it takes that room away.

Notice the next time a thought starts with 'I should.' Let the sentence finish. Then ask what is actually true right now.

3 of 8

A full day and an empty day are both just seen.

Because judgment turns a day into a verdict, and a verdict can't be looked at. It can only be argued with.

Look at a day you did nothing. Look at a day you did everything. Try to see them with the same eyes.

4 of 8

Gratitude is the medium.

Because correction closes a person and appreciation opens one, and you can only see inside something that is open.

Find one thing in a hard day that you're glad happened. Not to feel better. To see more.

5 of 8

Count aliveness, not output.

Because output is what a day produced, and aliveness is what a day was. Only one of them is you.

Ask, at the end of a day: which parts of me were lit? Rest, stillness, love, the body, making things, being with people. Which were quiet?

6 of 8

Protect being.

Because rest, stillness, sleep, and the pause are never things to get more of. They are things to honour for happening.

The next time you rest, don't measure it. Don't earn it. Let it be the ground the rest stands on.

7 of 8

Dormant, not deleted.

Because nothing you stopped doing failed. It went quiet. Quiet things can come back.

Think of something you used to do and stopped. Say to it: you're resting. Notice how different that feels from 'I quit.'

8 of 8

A menu, not a mandate.

Because a life is chosen from, not assigned. What's offered stays offered; nothing is required.

Tomorrow, before you decide what to do, look at what's available as if it were a menu. Then choose one thing. Only one is required.

The practice

The whole teaching in a minute: at the end of a day, ask which six things were alive — the body, stillness, gratitude, love, making, learning. Don't score any of them. Notice which were lit and which were quiet. Then let the next day be chosen, not assigned.

The medicine is the gap between what happened and the story you tell about it. A mirror shows the first. A master only ever talks about the second.

This teaching is the ethic of an instrument called Bindu Being. Read what it is →

← previous the teachings next →