Don’t Panic, Step Back, and Enter the Not-Self

Projekt Rattloch — Week 5 🐀🕳️

SLART 🧿

Jul 28, 2025

40 days until memento vivere.

Palms hot and sweato.

Cheeks flushed, amaretto.

Knees wobbling, like a gargantuan bowl of Jell-o.

Puking on my T-shirt

Try to forgetto, that…

I’ve got so much to do.

And I’m feeling blue.

But then then I remember

“It’s not about you”

As in me, little old m to the e.

Can’t you see, that it’s.

A god-for-sak-en fall-a-cy!

I know for a fact

that once I am there,

on the night,

it’ll all be okay.

Terrible anxiety overwhelms my central nervous system

at times when I’m stepping out of my character’s comfort zone.

But that isn’t me.

It’s just the field between selves.

“You have achieved a state of No-Mind. Or Mushin, as the Japanese refer to it. In this No-Mind state, you are the human being that nature created. Unlimited. Blissful. And magnificently creative.”
— Kapil Gupta

I’m no Zen Master.

But I have been there.

No-Mind.

That timeless, magnificent, expansive free.

A few minutes that felt like hours,

or maybe

eternity compressed into a breath.

It may sound corny,

but it was real.

And what’s more real than the feeling

you didn’t have to force?

“When the mind is not dwelling on the ego, it is open to everything.”
— Takuan Sōhō

This isn’t a promise I’ll be in No-Mind on the night of the show.

I’m not placing my faith in performance,

or mental clarity,

or control.

I’m placing it here:

RIGHT

HERE

in the stillness under the chaos,

in the truth below the body’s noise,

in the quiet voice whispering:

You are okay.
Even now.

Under the pain.

Under the hum.

Under the thousand phantom fists of worry.

You. Are. Okay.

“When our mind is empty, it can be filled with insight from the natural intelligence that exists beyond our personal thinking. This natural intelligence is our innate wisdom.”
— Michael Neill
“You are most powerful when you are most silent.”
— Unknown

The silence isn’t absence.

It’s the presence of everything.

Unarranged.

Unimpressed.

Unfolding.

“The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.”
— Shunryu Suzuki
“Be formless, shapeless — like water.”
— Bruce Lee
“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.”
— Eckhart Tolle

If you feel scattered,

shake your hands out.

If you feel heavy,

let gravity hold you.

Let the breath be a bridge:

Inhale slow

Hold

Exhale like a sigh.

That’s it.

You’re in the circle now.

—

I’m not my fear.

I’m not my mind.

I’m not the noise.

I’m not even the calm.

I’m the space between.

Sometimes the sacred sounds like panic.

It’s still sacred.

This isn’t performance.

It’s emergence.

The art is not the show.

The art is the presence.

And I will be present.

—

⛧

I return to presence through paradox.

I return to silence not to escape the noise

but to listen beneath it.

👁

🕯

∞

↯

♒

Let this be the sigil.

Let this be the spell.

Let this be enough.

Tell me what you felt for yourself in the comments. Can you relate to the inner turmoil that arises when you’re aiming for something big, and you think yourself small?