73 Days to Ultraman Mexico

Light, Oneness, and the Thinking Mind

Today I reached 25 hours at Korbin’s—eight hours of landscaping in one stretch. I had worried how long the day would feel, but the hours slipped by almost unnoticed. Around 2 p.m., the light shifted. The world softened, glowing with a warmth that spread across the leaves and shade. It wasn’t sudden; it was just there, all at once, everywhere.

Looking back, I realize I must have changed with the light. But in the moment, I was caught in a kind of otherness, looking outward at it all. I felt peaceful, yes—but there was a moment before thought stepped in, before I began to “notice.” I perceived the change without realizing I was perceiving it. In that gap, there was no self, no separation. Just perception.

It’s a strange space—like negative space in the mind. I can’t recall the moment directly, only the empty gap it left between the thoughts before and the thoughts after. For a flicker of time, I wasn’t thinking of anything. I was simply absorbed by beauty. And then the mind returned, tugging me back.

Once thought arrived, I started searching, trying to hold onto the light, trying to have more of it. And in that reaching, I was cut off from the very thing I wanted. Oneness slipped away.

Oneness, I think, is the natural state. It’s what animals live in constantly—pure perception and experience. But the human mind interferes. It wants to evaluate, name, control, and in doing so, it ends the experience. The thinking mind clutches tightly to survival, to its dominion over everything. It leaves no space for true being, only endless comparisons and divisions.

How much of my life has been captured by this state? Nearly all of it. And yet—there are moments of escape. Staring into the eyes of an elk. Riding a motorcycle. Skiing down a mountain. Running deep into fatigue. In those moments, thought falls away and oneness returns.

But the trap is in wanting it. To desire that state is to lose it. To think, “I must escape thought,” only layers more thought upon thought—Russian dolls of the mind. The only way out is through acceptance. To observe thought without resistance. To surrender. In surrender, tranquility arises, and the division dissolves. Then, once again, there is no self—only experience.