We are walking in the forest.

In front is a clear trail and signs put up by travelers. We started out with a map, now you even have an app with an AI assistant! It tells us we are on the right path.

We can feel safe as we listen to the orchestra of the Cicadas, the sound of thunder, look at that fungi growing on the underside of a damp log. (🎧sample the audio narration embedded up top)

Eventually this path starts to feel dull. We’ve seen it all before. We find ourself looking at our AI more and more looking for action. Our mind and body grows weary.

Then we hear the call of a bird that sounds mysterious we’ve never heard before. It sounds like its coming from a little deeper in the woods. We turn back to the path but now that we’ve heard it the first time we keep hearing it. Has it been there the whole time?

What else have we missed following the map handed to us so long ago we cannot even remember life before it. We were trained to walk this very path. We’re pretty decent at it. It’s got us this far. But going forward we know we cannot be on auto-pilot anymore. We want to be explorers.

What does it mean to be truly free to forge your own path? How might we truly experience the depths of the forest?

🧭A (working) protocol for us Light Forest explorers

∞Unlearning to an Open Mind

We live in a culture that places a lot of emphasis on learning and knowledge. Unlearning is more difficult yet we don’t practice. Why unlearn? So we can let go of worldviews, habits, beliefs which we find no longer serve us as Light Forest explorers.

The Mind OS (operating system) is layered with interconnected beliefs that drive the nature of our thoughts, emotions, and subsequently, our lives. Spiritual coach Byron Katie says it decides who we are and what we become, both mentally and physically. As we explore we may find unquestioned beliefs about love, technology, food, sex, politics, time, success, money etc. We may come to see that some do not serve our higher good anymore.

Unlearning is actually a powerful way to learn. In Daoism and Zen a state of being called 无心(wu xin) or ‘the No Mind’ is taught. This is not an empty mind. Quite the opposite. This is a state of fullness, vitality, and insight. In this state we experience what J. Krishnamurti describes to be ‘a free mind that is learning never concluding’. We can begin to ‘detach from the central rituals’ as Ivan Illych says is necessary to create radical change.

As we practice unlearning we start to explore with more freedom.

The real learning is unlearning all that one has learnt —Sufi Complete Sayings 957

⏳Grounding in the Present, the Now

We ground ourselves in this very moment. As an explorer in the forest you need to be intensly aware or you’ll be dead. Not dead as in death. Dead as in trapped in the mind, a stupor, a dulling of your vitality. Thats far worse than death and will eventually get you actually killed.

How much of our life do we sacrifice in exchange for a mythical future in which we will be content and happy? How many of our own (and our planet’s) urgent problems do we pledge to solve in the future allowing the situation to worsen today. Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh says ‘worry about today and the future will take care of itself’. In Zen tradition they simply ask: ‘if not now, when?’ Every spiritual tradition since the dawn of time (lol) is rooted on an intense focus on the present moment and a disassociation with the past and future.