The practice register

To see the performance of a day without sentencing the performer.

Introduced in S-001 The Face Before the Mask, Module One  ·  Source Pillar 1

Use when. Use once at the end of the day, for five minutes, before the day is edited into a story.

1. Review the day and ask: who did I perform for?
2. Ask what the performance was protecting.
3. Do not judge the performance. Just see it.
4. The seeing is the practice.

Which face did I bring to the table today, and who was I bringing it to?

H-005 The Mask | A-004 Self-Observation | S-001

To keep a feeling from becoming an identity.

Introduced in S-007 Emotion Moves, Attachment Sticks, Module Two  ·  Source Pillar 2

Use when. Use when a strong feeling arrives and there is no immediate danger requiring action.

1. Name the feeling in the third person: anger is here, not I am angry.
2. Watch it the way you would watch weather.
3. Stay with it until it crests and passes.
4. Ninety seconds of watching is enough to begin.

Did the feeling change when it stopped being me?

H-012 Emotional Charge | H-016 Emotion | P-002 Witness Meditation | S-007

To find the shape of the cage by touching its bars once, gently.

Introduced in S-012 The Man Who Defends the Cage, Module Two  ·  Source Pillar 3

Use when. Use once in a week, when there is time afterward to sit with what it raises.

1. Do one thing that is safe but uncomfortable.
2. Notice what the comfort was protecting.
3. Then sit still for ten minutes with nothing to do.
4. If the questions rise, let them. They can be survived.

What did the discomfort turn out to be guarding?

H-011 Attachment | H-023 Suffering | A-006 Stillness | S-012

To see the foundation of a belief, whether or not you keep the belief.

Introduced in S-013 They Told Us Who We Were, Module Three  ·  Source Pillar 4

Use when. Use with a belief that has never been examined, rather than one already in dispute.

1. Choose one belief you have never questioned.
2. Ask who gave it to you.
3. Ask who gave it to them.
4. Ask what it stands on.
5. You are not required to discard it. You are required to have seen its foundation.

Was this mine, or was it handed to me before I could weigh it?

H-007 Belief | H-008 Conditioning | P-010 Self-Autolysis Page | S-013

To find out where the hours actually went, and what they were spent avoiding.

Introduced in S-014 Comfort Is the Postponement, Module Three  ·  Source Pillar 5

Use when. Use over three ordinary days, not a holiday or a crisis.

1. For three days, note where the hours actually went.
2. Ask of each destination, gently: what was it keeping me from?
3. Feed nothing for one evening.
4. Notice what gets hungry.

What became present when the distraction stopped?

H-020 Distraction and Avoidance | H-021 The Satisfaction Loop | P-016 Distraction Audit | S-014

To notice which fears arrived secondhand, and to stop passing them on.

Introduced in S-016 The Herd, Module Three  ·  Source Pillar 6

Use when. Use across a week, in ordinary contact with news, crowds and feeds.

1. Hold one opinion loosely for a week.
2. When you notice fear arriving secondhand, stop.
3. Ask: who felt this first, and did they examine it?
4. Pass on nothing you have not weighed.

Which of my certainties did I never actually arrive at?

H-007 Belief | R-012 Resonance | S-016

To thin the wall of separation by practicing on someone with no stake in you.

Introduced in S-019 Two Waves of the Same Ocean, Module Four  ·  Source Pillar 7

Use when. Use in passing, with strangers, at a distance, requiring nothing of them.

1. Choose a stranger.
2. Silently wish them what you wish yourself.
3. Notice the wall thin.
4. Kindness done this way is not a favor to them. It is a remembering.

What thinned, in me, when I wished it for someone I will never meet?

H-017 Compassion | A-017 The Illusion of Separation | P-011 Compassion Practice | S-019

To find the still point that watched the swing.

Introduced in S-022 The Swing That Never Lands, Module Four  ·  Source Pillar 8

Use when. Use with ordinary wanting, not with dependence.

1. Track one craving from its rise to its passing.
2. Do not act on it.
3. Note the moment the wanting moves on ahead of you.
4. You are looking for the hinge: the still point that watched the whole swing.

Did the wanting end, or did it simply move to the next thing?

R-029 Karma and the Pendulum | H-010 Desire | S-022

To cultivate the one opening that does not have to arrive on its own.

Introduced in S-026 The Five Apertures, Module Five  ·  Source Pillar 9

Use when. Use daily, in small amounts, over months rather than days.

1. Sit each morning before the story begins, even for five minutes.
2. In provocation, find the space before the answer.
3. Carry the question like a key: is that true? Who told me?
4. Then, when life opens one of the four great doors, you will recognize it.

Is this moment asking for insight, stabilization, support, or rest?

A-005 The Five Apertures | P-003 Recognizing an Aperture | S-026

To turn attention back toward the one attending.

Introduced in S-030 Returning to the Beginning, Module Five  ·  Source Pillar 10

Use when. Use briefly and often, rather than at length and rarely.

1. Of any thought, ask: who is aware of this?
2. Do not answer with words.
3. Rest as the one who noticed.
4. Repeat until the question becomes a place you can stand.

Did this increase contact, or create distance?

A-002 The Witness | R-004 Awareness | P-002 Witness Meditation | S-030

To set down what has finished its work, with thanks rather than contempt.

Introduced in S-031 To Let Go Is to Let Be, Module Six  ·  Source Pillar 11

Use when. Use with something that genuinely served you once and no longer does.

1. Choose one belief, grievance, or ambition that has served its purpose.
2. Thank it, honestly, for what it once did.
3. Set it down, the way a raft is left at the far bank.
4. If your hand reaches for it tomorrow, notice, and set it down again.

What did this once do for me that I have never thanked it for?

A-013 Letting Go | A-021 The Open Hand | P-009 The Open Hand Release | S-031

To hold one question through religion, science and spirituality in turn, without resolving the differences.

Introduced in S-004 The Trinity of Truth, Module One

Use when. Use with a question that matters to you and that you have only ever answered one way.

1. Write one question you actually care about, in a single sentence.
2. Answer it as religion would: where did this come from, and what does it mean?
3. Answer it as science would: how does it work, and what would count as evidence?
4. Answer it as spirituality would: who am I in relation to it?
5. Read all three back. Do not reconcile them.
6. Note which lens you reached for first, and which one you had to work at.

Which part of the elephant have I been holding longest?

R-018 The Unified Field | C-001 to C-009 Comparative Philosophy | S-004

To separate what happened from the meaning assigned to it, and find where the only real choice sits.

Introduced in S-008 The Same Rain, A Hundred Roofs, Module Two

Use when. Use with a recent incident that still carries a charge, not with a historical one and not in the moment.

1. Choose one incident from the past week that still has a charge on it.
2. Head three short paragraphs: Event, Interpretation, Response.
3. Under Event, write only what a camera would have recorded. No adjectives.
4. Under Interpretation, write the meaning you gave it, and how fast it arrived.
5. Under Response, write what you then did.
6. Reread the Event paragraph and move anything that smuggled itself in.

How much of the weight was in the rain, and how much was in the roof?

R-007 The Observed | R-008 Perception | H-012 Emotional Charge | S-008

To read one ordinary event through five qualities, as questions rather than as scores.

Introduced in S-035 A Circle, Not a Staircase, Module Six  ·  Source S-035 · The Way, Beyond Becoming

Use when. Use with a small event, not a significant one. Once a week at most.

1. Take one ordinary event from today. Not a crisis and not an achievement.
2. Shoshin: did I meet it without deciding in advance what it meant?
3. Zanshin: was I still present after it finished?
4. Mushin: did I act without checking how I appeared?
5. Fudoshin: was I disturbed at the surface and undivided beneath?
6. Senshin: did anything compassionate come out of the other four? Then stop. There is no total.

Which of the five do I have to work at, and have I turned that into a rank?

A-024 | R-024 Play | S-035

To finish the course by setting it down rather than by keeping it.

Introduced in S-036 Thirteen Thousand Feet, Module Six  ·  Source S-036 · The Way, the interlude Thirteen Thousand Feet

Use when. Use once, at the end of the thirty-six lessons, and not before.

1. Sit with the whole course behind you.
2. Write what it carried you across.
3. Write what you are still holding from it that should be set down, including any part of the course itself.
4. Write the first ordinary thing you will do next.
5. Close the book, literally.
6. Do the ordinary thing. The practice is not complete when the writing is finished.

What is the raft I am about to hoist onto my shoulders?

A-018 | P-020 | The Way, Pillar 11 | S-036

To find out how much material a first reading left unlit.

Introduced in S-010 The Power of Perception, Module Two

Use when. Use once a week, with a situation you have already made up your mind about.

1. Choose a situation you have already judged.
2. Write the strongest possible opposite reading of it. Not the fair one, the strongest.
3. List the details your first reading did not use.
4. For each, decide whether it was absent or merely unlit.
5. You are not required to believe the second reading, or to act on it.

Were the details absent, or unlit?

R-008 Perception | R-006 The Observer | H-007 Belief | S-010

To let attention open past the spotlight, and to meet one thing standing outside it.

Introduced in S-011 The Spectrum of Awareness, Module Two

Use when. Use daily for a week for the first part; once in that week for the second.

1. Once a day, stop for sixty seconds and take in everything the beam was not on.
2. Include the sounds behind the sound you were attending to, the peripheral edges, the state of your own body.
3. Once in the week, notice a trait in another person that irritates you out of proportion.
4. Write down where that trait lives in you.
5. Name it without deciding what it makes you.

What has been standing just outside the beam the whole time?

A-004 Self-Observation | H-008 Conditioning | S-011

To practice the act of questioning itself, rather than the content of any one belief.

Introduced in S-002 Question Everything, Including This, Module One

Use when. Use once, slowly, early in the course, and return to it whenever a certainty hardens.

1. Take any claim you encountered today, from a person, a feed, a book, or this course.
2. Ask what kind of evidence it rests on: direct observation, or something you were told.
3. Ask what would have to be true for it to be false.
4. Ask what you would have to give up if it were false.
5. Notice which of the four questions was hardest to answer. That is the one to keep.

Do I know this, or was I told it by someone who was also told it?

H-007 Belief | A-010 Investigation | A-021 The Open Hand | S-002

To find where fear is entering through an input rather than through a life, and to change one thing.

Introduced in S-017 The Controllers of the Game, Module Three

Use when. Use over one week. Change one input at the end of it, not five.

1. Each evening, write one line: a moment when fear entered through an input rather than through your own life.
2. Write what you did next.
3. At the end of the week, read the seven lines together.
4. Change one input. Only one.
5. Notice what you expect to lose by changing it.

Which of today's fears reached me through a screen rather than through my life?

H-008 Conditioning | L-012 Power | H-020 Distraction and Avoidance | S-017

To price a belief honestly before deciding anything about it.

Introduced in S-020 Breaking Out of the Cave, Module Four

Use when. Use with a belief that would be socially costly to question aloud.

1. Name one belief you hold that you would find costly to question in public.
2. Write precisely who would react, and how.
3. Write what the belief makes simple.
4. Write what you would have to decide for yourself without it.
5. Stop there. The practice does not ask you to abandon it.

What is this belief saving me from having to decide?

A-001 Awakening | H-007 Belief | H-020 Distraction and Avoidance | S-020

To find out what state you are actually in, several times a day, without trying to change it.

Introduced in S-021 Resonant Frequencies, Module Four

Use when. Use three or more times daily, for a week. It takes about ten seconds each time.

1. Pause wherever you are.
2. Ask: what frequency am I on right now?
3. Name it in one word, without judgment. Fear. Curiosity. Resentment. Compassion.
4. Do not try to change the setting.
5. Write the word down, with the hour.

What was happening in the hour before the reading I liked least?

R-009 Vibration | R-011 Frequency | R-012 Resonance | S-021

To see the difference between two people's records of one hour, and what that difference is made of.

Introduced in S-023 Tuning a Shared Timeline, Module Four

Use when. Use twice: once with someone close to you, once with someone who is not.

1. Write an account of a recent hour you shared with someone.
2. Ask them to describe the same hour to you.
3. Write their account beside yours. Correct neither.
4. Mark the places where the two do not merely differ in opinion but differ in what happened.
5. Say nothing about the marks until you have both finished.

Were we in the same room, or only at the same address?

R-012 Resonance | R-026 The Convergence Principle | S-023

To recognize the collective in ordinary experience rather than accept it as a proposition.

Introduced in S-003 What the Collective Is, Module One

Use when. Use once, with time to let memories surface rather than be hunted.

1. Recall a moment when you knew something you had no way of knowing.
2. Recall a moment when you felt part of something larger than yourself. Where were you, and what was happening?
3. Recall a difficult period that, looking back, corrected something.
4. Write all three. Do not explain any of them.
5. Read them back and notice what they have in common.

What did that connection actually feel like, before I had a word for it?

R-001 The Source | R-002 Unity | R-022 Dynamic Balance | S-003

To reach, by writing, the point at which self-description runs out.

Introduced in S-025 The Eye That Cannot See Itself, Module Five

Use when. Use once, and only once, with an hour and no interruption. It does not reward repetition.

1. Write one honest paragraph describing yourself.
2. Ask, in writing: who wrote that? Describe the one who wrote it.
3. Ask who is describing the describer, and write that description too.
4. Continue until the writing genuinely stops. Three or four rounds is usual.
5. Do not try to write a final answer. Notice instead what is still there when the descriptions run out.

At what round did the writing stop being possible, and what happened in me at that point?

A-008 Self-Autolysis | R-006 The Observer | A-002 The Witness | S-025

To locate one belief about personal possibility and test it against a single counter-instance.

Introduced in S-009 Belief Is Everything, Module Two

Use when. Use once per belief. It is worth returning to with a different belief every few months.

1. Name one thing you have decided you are not: not creative, not athletic, not the sort of person who does that.
2. Write the sentence in full, in the words you actually use to yourself.
3. Find one occasion, however small or long ago, when it was not true.
4. Write what you did on that occasion, in plain detail, without softening it.
5. Then write what the belief is protecting you from having to attempt.

Is this a limit I have met, or a limit I was handed?

H-007 Belief | H-008 Conditioning | R-008 Perception | S-009

To find the responses to an obstacle that force had already ruled out.

Introduced in S-033 The Way of Water, Module Six  ·  Source S-033 · The Way, The Closing, with The Journey of Self Discovery ch.12

Use when. Use with something you are currently pushing against and getting nowhere with.

1. Name one obstacle you are currently pushing against.
2. Write the answer where you go around it, in real detail.
3. Write the answer where you go over it, in real detail.
4. Write the answer where you wait, in real detail. This is the one most people write in a single line.
5. Notice which of the three you had ruled out before you started, and write down why.
6. You are not required to choose it. You are required to have actually considered it.

What am I calling unjust that is only terrain?

A-022 | L-025 | S-033

To find out how much of a recurring pattern's motion is being supplied by you.

Introduced in S-006 Karma, Correctly Defined, Module One  ·  Source S-006 · Behind the Curtain, Part Four

Use when. Use with something that keeps coming back, not with a one-off.

1. Choose one situation that keeps returning.
2. Name what you keep adding to it: the argument rehearsed in the shower, the checking, the proving, the explaining to people who were not asking.
3. Write what the adding is protecting.
4. Go one day without adding it.
5. Write down what happened to the swing.

Where am I adding force to a swing that would settle if I stopped?

R-029 Karma and the Pendulum | H-011 Attachment | R-022 Dynamic Balance | S-006