Today I found an article on Medium that got me thinking. It was one of those pieces that circles a question we’ve all bumped into at some point: can the mind ever truly see itself?
The author, Kenneth Leong, offered a neat, thoughtful take—rooted in mindfulness, meta-awareness, and that now-familiar advice to observe our thoughts as they pass.
He argued that the best we can do is notice what the mind is doing, step back, and let the waves roll through.
It’s the kind of guidance that lands well in a world full of overwhelm. For many, Leong’s view is both practical and comforting—a way to find space between stimulus and reaction, to watch the play of worry and fear without getting pulled under.
But as I read, something in me bristled—not in opposition, but in recognition. His take sparked real reflection for me, not because it was wrong, but because for some of us, the surface isn’t enough.
Symptom relief is a start, not a finish line. For anyone who has lived through collapse, chaos, or deep transformation, “just watch and let go” can feel like stopping at the edge of the forest and calling it a hike.
What follows isn’t a rebuttal or a review. It’s a journey beyond the surface—one that starts with noticing, but refuses to end there.
Listen to a deep-dive episode by the Google NotebookLM Podcasters, as they explore this article in their unique style, blending light banter with thought-provoking studio conversations.
The Limits of Watching the Mind
Leong uses a simple example—worrying about tomorrow’s meeting. You catch yourself spiraling, then pause: “Ah, I’m worrying again.”
The standard move is to notice the worry, let it float by, and go on with your day. It’s tidy, almost clinical. The moment you observe, the theory goes, you break the spell.
But is that all there is? Is recognizing the pattern enough to end it—or even to understand it?
There’s a crucial difference between managing a symptom and tracing a signal back to its source. Noticing the worry gives you a moment of breathing room, sure. But does it really tell you why you worry in the first place?
Does it explain why the same anxious pulse returns before every meeting, every conversation, every unmade decision? Or are you just learning to ride the same circuit in a nicer carriage—better cushions, maybe, but still stuck on the same track?
If all we do is notice and move on, we risk becoming spectators of our own lives, forever circling the arena but never stepping into the ring. Worry shows up, we wave at it, and hope it wanders away.
For a while, maybe it does. But for many of us, it keeps coming back—sometimes louder, sometimes more subtle, but always familiar.
The real challenge isn’t in watching the mind. It’s in daring to ask why the mind is doing what it does. Not just “What am I feeling?” but “Where does this come from?” Not just “How do I let it pass?” but “What’s at the root of this cycle?” That’s where symptom relief gives way to real inquiry.
Curiosity: The Antidote to Stagnation
If watching the mind is the first move, curiosity is what breaks the loop. Curiosity isn’t passive—it’s a force that disrupts stagnation and draws us beneath the surface. Where acceptance asks us to let go, curiosity dares us to go in.
So, the next time you catch yourself worrying, try pausing for something more than a breath. Ask: Why am I worrying about this, really? Is it the meeting itself, or is there an older fear stirring below the surface? Is this worry even mine—or does it echo something from family, culture, or the collective tension in the air? Has worrying ever truly protected me, or has it just become a reflex—an old defense still firing, even though the threat is long gone?
These questions aren’t rhetorical. They’re invitations. Each one cracks open the default story and lets light into the places we rarely look.
Practical tools can help:
- Journaling the worry and letting the pen wander into memories, associations, even dreams.
- Noting what bodily sensations show up—where does anxiety land in your body, and when did you first feel it?
- Dialoguing with the worry itself, as if it’s a character in your inner cast: What do you want from me? What are you protecting?
- Mapping the timeline—when did this pattern first appear, and what’s changed (or hasn’t) since?
Curiosity isn’t about analysis paralysis or endless navel-gazing. It’s about restoring agency.
When we ask real questions, we stop being spectators on the merry-go-round and start finding the lever that controls the ride.
Curiosity liberates because it moves us—from resignation to possibility, from passivity to authorship. It’s the refusal to settle for symptom management when transformation is possible.
Tradition, Misunderstood: What True Zen, Buddhism, and Jung Teach
If you listen to popular culture, “Zen” often gets reduced to a hashtag for feeling calm or unbothered—a state of perpetual chill, floating above the noise. Mindfulness, in this world, is just another way to manage stress, an app notification to “just breathe” and let things pass.
But the real traditions—the roots beneath the buzzwords—tell a different story.
True Zen is anything but passive. At its core is the relentless question: “What is this?” Zen koans aren’t meant to soothe you into bliss; they’re designed to break your mental habits, to force you to confront the limits of what you think you know.
Sitting with a koan isn’t a spiritual nap—it’s an encounter with the edge of the mind, a direct confrontation with paradox, uncertainty, and shadow.
Buddhist psychology, too, is built on tracing the roots of suffering. The Four Noble Truths don’t just say, “Notice suffering and move on.”
They invite you to diagnose, to ask where the pain comes from, to imagine an end to it, and to walk the path toward freedom. The entire tradition is a blueprint for radical inquiry—compassionate, yes, but uncompromising.
Then there’s Jung. He didn’t just invite people to watch their thoughts float by; he insisted on diving down to the source. Jungian work is about excavating the shadow, understanding the complexes and archetypes that drive our compulsions, and bringing what’s hidden into the light.
For Jung, surface awareness is only the threshold. The real work is in the descent—integrating what you find so you can break free from old cycles.
All of these paths share a common DNA: transformation through inquiry, not just observation. Calm is a byproduct, not the point. The traditions weren’t created to help us tolerate our suffering—they were built to help us transcend it.
From Collapse to Clarity: Why Surface Acceptance Wasn’t Enough for Me
I didn’t arrive at this perspective from reading philosophy books or collecting spiritual mantras. For me, transformation started with collapse—the gritty, brutal kind.
Not the kind you can reframe as “a growth opportunity” while it’s happening. Mine began in a prison cell in Norway. Real walls, real consequences, real loss. Before that: family fractures, foster care, addiction, and a series of escape attempts that led only deeper into chaos.
It would’ve been easy, and maybe even safer, to accept my situation and move on. That’s what some self-help circles recommend: notice your pain, breathe, let it go, focus on the next small thing.
But if I’d stopped there—if I’d just tried to be “okay” with my reality—I’d still be caught in the same loops, just with a softer soundtrack.
What saved me wasn’t acceptance. It was the willingness to dig, to question, and to keep going even when what I uncovered threatened to break me open. Group therapy became my crucible, not because it taught me how to cope, but because it forced me to stare down my patterns, my defenses, my shadow. Books and writing helped, but only when the insights cut all the way down to how I actually lived.
This is where TULWA began—not as a theory, but as a necessity. The decision to go below, to confront what I’d been running from, to wrestle with the darkest parts of myself until I found the thread of light hidden in the mess.
If I’d settled for surface acceptance, none of that would have happened. I had to risk discomfort, uncertainty, and the pain of honest self-examination.
I don’t offer this as a hero story. It’s just a fact: digging deeper is the only way out. And every inch of clarity I’ve found started with a question I was scared to ask.
The TULWA Approach: A Map for Deep Transformation
Out of those years of collapse, confrontation, and honest self-inquiry, TULWA was forged—not as a philosophy to recite, but as a toolkit for real, ground-level change.
TULWA doesn’t sugarcoat or sell shortcuts. It doesn’t treat you as a sealed-off silo, nor does it pretend you’re an isolated mind floating on a cloud of good intentions.
The reality is electromagnetic. We’re impacted by forces—internal and external—that pop spirituality doesn’t even attempt to map. If your aim is transformative freedom, you need tools that dig as deep as the roots go.
Three core practices form the backbone of TULWA’s path:
1. Points of No Return
These are the thresholds where old selves die and something new, irreversible, is born. You don’t get to turn back—nor would you want to.
Each one is a crossing that marks your commitment to true change. It’s not about momentary insight, but about hitting a depth where going back isn’t possible, and you have to source energy from within to move forward.
2. Pattern Recognition
Surface observation can show you what’s happening right now, but it won’t tell you why you keep repeating the same cycles.
TULWA is ruthless about naming patterns—family codes, trauma, survival strategies, cultural scripts—that run beneath conscious awareness. Only when you track, name, and confront these loops do you begin to rewrite your life’s architecture.
3. The Challenge of Spiritual Bypassing
Escaping into positivity, transcendence, or ritual may feel like relief, but it’s just another form of avoidance.
TULWA calls you out of hiding—not to shame, but to integrate. When you’re tempted to bypass discomfort, that’s the precise moment to get curious. Real spirituality holds space for the full spectrum—rage, shame, loss, joy—without editing out what hurts.
This isn’t theory. These are lived, tested tools for going beyond symptom relief and touching the source of suffering.
They’re not for everyone, and they’re not gentle. But if you want to break the cycle, not just soften it, this is the territory you need to enter.
What’s Really at Stake: Individual and Collective Evolution
This isn’t just about personal relief, or even about finding peace with your own story. The reason deep inquiry matters is because it shapes more than individual lives—it changes the collective trajectory.
When you trace your patterns, face your shadow, and move beyond symptom management, you’re not only breaking your own loops. You’re shifting the architecture for everyone around you.
Every person who refuses to stop at surface-level acceptance becomes a signal flare in the dark, showing that deeper change is possible.
The risk, in our time, is that institutional authority—whether in academia, pop psychology, or spiritual circles—subtly discourages this kind of questioning. The market prefers easy tools, neat checklists, and five-minute mindfulness hacks that fit inside a workday.
That’s what sells, and that’s what’s prescribed. But those blueprints aren’t built for actual freedom; they’re designed for compliance and comfort.
What’s needed now, more than ever, are models and maps for radical self-inquiry—frameworks that encourage discomfort, risk, and honest transformation. Humanity doesn’t move forward when everyone finds the perfect way to cope. It moves forward when enough people dig deep enough to change the underlying field.
That’s how families, communities, and entire cultures begin to evolve—one person breaking a pattern, and making a new path visible for the rest.
If we settle for symptom relief, we might feel a bit better—but we stay in orbit around the same problems.
If we commit to the deeper work, we become part of a living experiment in what’s actually possible for a human being. That’s the real stake in all of this—not just your peace, but our shared future.
The Ethics of Questioning: Respect, Ego, and the Real Work
It’s never simple, this act of responding to another thinker’s work—especially when it touches something raw.
There’s a tension in the space between critique and curiosity, and it’s all too easy to tip into ego or turn the process into a subtle game of one-upmanship. I feel that risk every time I take on someone else’s ideas, especially those written from genuine experience or expertise.
The goal isn’t to attack or elevate myself, but to stay honest and horizontal. Respect means wrestling with ideas as peers—naming what resonates, but also what feels incomplete.
Sometimes the most honoring thing you can do is ask the next question, even if it leads into rough territory. That’s how collective thinking evolves: not through safe agreement, but through the friction of real, unvarnished engagement.
If you’re reading this and find yourself bracing against disagreement or afraid of looking foolish by asking “the wrong question,” know you’re not alone.
The work is messy. It’s risky. And it asks more of us than just acceptance—it asks for presence, humility, and the willingness to walk through the fire of our own assumptions.
But that’s where things get interesting. That’s where something new can happen.
Closing: An Invitation to the Spiral
So, can the mind ever see its own workings? Maybe not in the neat, clinical way we sometimes imagine. But if you’re willing to follow the signal—through the layers of pattern, shadow, and discomfort—you might find that the journey itself reshapes what’s possible to see.
This isn’t a question with a tidy answer. It’s an invitation to keep moving—downward, inward, and sometimes back around, tracing the spiral of your own experience with curiosity and integrity.
No map can tell you exactly what you’ll find. All I can offer is a path I’ve walked, and the tools I’ve forged along the way.
If you want to go deeper, The Unified Light Warrior – A Transformational Path is available for free on TULWA Philosophy. The full foundational book, TULWA Philosophy – A Unified Path, is also freely accessible. There’s no gatekeeping, no transaction—just an open field for those willing to do the work.
Note: This article was sparked by Kenneth Leong’s recent reflections on Medium. His willingness to share and question publicly is part of what makes spaces like this possible. For those curious, you’ll find his original article and more of his writing in the publication “Where Thought Bends.”