Actuality
What is actually here before it becomes a body, a room, a world or a situation?
Essays and notes
Writings
Essays and notes from the ongoing inquiry.
The writing
Ordinary things, looked at more closely
Most of the writing begins with something ordinary.
A glass on a table. The sound of birds. A memory. A difficult conversation. The sense of being someone moving through time.
Usually, we already know what these things are and what they mean. The writing stays with them a little longer, until that certainty begins to loosen.
I am not trying to build a philosophy or persuade anyone of a spiritual position. I am trying to look at what has been taken for granted and see whether it holds.
Public writing
Not What You Think
The main essays and shorter notes are published on Substack.
They return often to ordinary perception, spiritual seeking and the familiar stories of self, world, time, thought, life and death.
Some pieces take their time. Others begin with a sentence, an image or something that happened, and stop before it has been tidied up.
Read on SubstackI am not looking for a better explanation of the familiar world. I am interested in what the explanation has added, and what is still here without it.
Recurring themes
Things I keep coming back to
Interpretation
What do thought, memory and expectation add, and how quickly do we take that addition to be the fact?
The apparent self
What is the person who seems to be here, having the experience and trying to manage what happens?
Time and memory
Where are the past and future when they are looked for now?
Spiritual seeking
Why does fulfilment always seem to be waiting somewhere ahead, and what is missed while we look for it there?
Ordinary experience
Coffee, irritation, beauty, boredom, loss, a sound from outside. Nothing special has to happen.
Sustained inquiry
This Radiant Space on Patreon
Patreon is where the longer inquiry series, guided explorations, audio, commentary, workshop material and live community meetings are gathered.
The main strand is the Actuality Inquiry. It takes one apparently ordinary thing at a time and looks at how experience becomes body, world, time, memory, choice, self and personal life.
It is a growing library and a place to practise. There is no need to keep up with everything.
Explore PatreonDifferent forms
Writing and material to work with
Essays and notes
Written inquiry
The public essays and shorter notes published on Substack.
Visit SubstackAudio and exploration
Guided material
Spoken explorations and longer inquiry sequences intended to be worked with, not only read or listened to.
Visit PatreonAt some point, reading is not enough.
From reading to inquiry
Looking together
A piece of writing may interrupt something or make an ordinary assumption visible. But it cannot do the looking for you.
The workshops give us time to look together: through guided inquiry, work in pairs and discussion of the places where the usual answer still feels completely true.
Explore the workshops