Issness Is All That Is Issing đ
Happy Sunday Friends! đ
This week I finished jury duty, and it was a lot. We deliberated for almost four days on a very complicated case: three defendants, thirty-three charges, and twelve strangers in a room trying to see clearly together. The weight of it wasnât lost on any of usâwe were making decisions that would directly affect these peopleâs lives, and everyone took that responsibility deeply seriously. Iâm genuinely grateful I got to be part of it. If you ever have the chance to serve, I highly recommend saying yes. Itâs a crash course in watching how different minds process the same information⌠and in seeing when your own âcharacterâ gets loud, opinionated, and absolutely sure itâs rightâand then having to put that aside and come back to just the facts in front of you. âď¸
That experience is the perfect doorway into todayâs article, which is all about blank slate awareness, tabula rasa, and what happens when we dare to loosen our grip on who we think we are. As I joked on a recent live stream, âIssness Is All That Is Issingââand today weâre going to walk right into that.
Also, now that jury duty is complete, my live stream schedule is getting back to normal đ: Iâll be on Insight Timer every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:00 AM Eastern, and live on Substack every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at 10:00 AM Eastern. Iâd love to have you with me as we keep exploring all of this together, live and in real time.
Lots of Love,
Max đŤđ
Imagine that you are not you.
Not a better you.
Not a more spiritual you.
Not âfuture youâ after three more books, two more retreats, and the perfect morning routine you still havenât stuck to.
Just⌠not you.
For a moment, let the usual storyline drop: your name, your history, your relationships, your to-do list, your problems, your hopes. Donât fight them, just let them drift to the edge of your awareness, like a TV playing softly in another room that youâre not really in the mood to watch.
Whatâs left?
Most people, when they even touch this question, feel one of two things:
A weird, almost vertigo-like freedom.
Or a quiet panic: âIf Iâm not me⌠then who am I, and whoâs going to manage all this chaos?â
Welcome to the blank slate.
The character and the perception machine
From the time you were tiny, something in you has been collecting data:
âThis is my hand.â
âThat face smiling is good.â
âThat tone of voice means danger.â
âThis is what people like me are allowed to want.â
Layer after layer, experience after experience, your âyouâ was scribbled onto the empty page. Nobody asked your permission; it just happened. Congratulations, youâve been professionally conditioned.
Your character is brilliantly constructed. Itâs your perception machine. It scans the world and constantly asks, âWhat does this mean about me? About my safety? About my worth?â
This is not a mistake. Itâs how the human brain works. Itâs subjective, biased, dramatic, and incredibly efficient. Without it, you wouldnât know when to cross the street or how to drink coffee without pouring it into your ear.
So weâre not here to bash the character. Your character is how consciousness currently experiences this particular slice of time and space. Itâs gorgeous and ridiculous and heartbreakingly fragile.
But if thatâs all you ever know, you will feel trapped.
Trapped in your story. Trapped in your patterns. Trapped in the rat race of suffering, wondering why your spiritual practice still hasnât given you a lifetime guarantee of inner peace.
Because the character can only see what fits its script.
Cracks in the mask
And yetâwhile the character is busy judging and interpreting, something else is quietly going on.
Moments that donât quite fit the storyline sneak in:
Those seconds in nature where time disappears.
Laughing so hard you forget to defend yourself.
Holding someoneâs hand in a hospital room and suddenly, there are no roles, only presence.
Watching a movie and, for just a beat, completely forgetting yourself (and not because you checked out on your phone).
Those are cracks in the mask. Tiny ruptures in the âI am only this personâ story.
Through those cracks, something wordless shines. Timeless. Spacious. Not interested in your resume, your trauma, or your spiritual progress report.
You could call it Truth, awareness, Love, God, Beingness, consciousness, or nothing at all. The label doesnât really matter. Every label splits it in two: this vs. that, true vs. false. The thing itself doesnât split. It just⌠is.
And honestly, if you are going to put something on a T-shirt, Iâm partial to:
âIssness Is All That Is Issing.â
Silly? Yes. But it points to something real: this isnât a person doing awareness correctly. This is awareness âissingâ as everythingâincluding your confusion, your resistance, and your attempts to understand what the hell âissingâ even means.
And itâs always here, even while the character is busy interpreting, reacting, scrolling, fixing, and trying to become worthy. It doesnât care how many lessons of A Course in Miracles youâve done. Itâs not grading you.
Acting, readings, and getting out of the way
When I used to act, there were nights where Max wasnât âdoingâ the character. The character was just⌠happening. Lines arose. Emotions moved. The body responded. Max was still in there somewhere, but he was more backstage than center stage, finally letting someone else have the spotlight.
Those were the nights the audience would say things like, âIt felt so real,â or âSomething was different tonight.â On those nights, I wasnât trying to be real. I was letting something real use me.
Later, when I did intuitive readings, the same dynamic showed up.
If I stayed as âMax, trying to be intuitive and helpful,â things were muddy. Iâd worry:
âAm I getting this right?â
âDo they like me?â
âIs this landing, or are they just being polite?â
But if I let goâif I relaxed the grip on âmeâ for a bitâsomething else clicked in. The words, images, and insights came from somewhere beyond my personal opinions. I wasnât manufacturing them. I was watching them arrive.
Was it pure, perfect, and bias-free? No. As long as thereâs a human nervous system involved, thereâs distortion. But it was remarkably clearer when I got out of the way.
As a kid, that blank-slate openness came very naturally to me. Later, I learned to refine it, but the essence was the same: step aside and let something larger speak.
You donât have to be an actor or an intuitive to know this space. Youâve tasted it any time youâve disappeared into what youâre doing so fully that the âyouâ doing it falls away. No incense required.
The terrifying freedom of âtabula rasaâ
Hereâs the tricky part:
The idea of a blank slate can sound romanticâ
until you actually feel it.
Tabula rasa doesnât mean you lose your memories or personality. Itâs not brain damage. Itâs not pretending you never suffered, or bypassing your trauma, or floating off into spiritual la-la land while your life catches fire in the background.
Itâs more like this:
For a moment, you stop assuming that your past, your labels, your wounds, and your preferences are the only reference point for reality.
You stop automatically consulting the characterâs script before you feel, see, or respond.
You loosen the requirement that everything must be interpreted as âfor meâ or âagainst me.â
And in that loosening, thereâs a strange, raw openness.
Who am I, if Iâm not the sum of my stories?
What if this moment doesnât need my commentary?
What if life knows what itâs doing, even without my constant editing?
That can feel like standing on the edge of a cliff with no railing.
The mind screams, âIf Iâm not my story, Iâll vanish. Iâll become nothing. Iâll be unsafe.â
But notice: every time you cling back to the old script for safety, you also pick up your old suffering. The same loops. The same offense. The same meaning-making that has exhausted you for years. Same show, different day.
Nothing wrong with the character
I want to be very clear: there is nothing wrong with the character you play.
Your nervous system, your preferences, your quirks, your humor, your particular way of moving through the worldânone of that is a mistake.
The problem isnât the character.
The problem is forgetting that itâs a character.
If you think the movie is all there is, you will spend your life trying to fix the plot instead of realizing you are also the screen it appears on.
When you begin to sense yourself as the screenâthis open, aware presence in which everything arisesâthe character becomes lighter. You can still pay your bills, send your emails, cry when youâre hurt, and delight in stupid memes. But the desperation eases.
You see that the perception machine is doing what it does, but itâs not all that you are.
A small experiment, right now
Letâs turn this from concept into a tiny live experiment as you read:
For the next few sentences, let everything be exactly as it is.
Donât try to relax. Donât try to âbe spiritual.â Donât try to understand. (Your mind will try anyway. Let it have its little moment.)
Just notice:
Thoughts are appearing.
Sensations are appearing.
Emotions, subtle or loud, are appearing.
Even the sense of âme reading thisâ is appearing.
Now, with a very light touch, ask:
What is not appearing?
What is here before the next thought, the next feeling, the next judgment?
You canât see it as an object, the way you can see your hand or hear your inner voice. But you might sense a kind of open spaceâa silent, aware âsomethingâ that doesnât come and go as quickly as the rest.
That space is already blank. Itâs already free. It doesnât need healing. It doesnât need convincing. It doesnât need your character to be more spiritual, more healed, or more âhigh-vibe.â
And yet, itâs not separate from your character. Itâs what your character is happening in.
The courage to step aside
Letting go of who you think you are isnât about self-improvement. Itâs about curiosity and courage.
The courage to stop defending the image.
The courage to question the story.
The courage to admit that your perception machine, as brilliant as it is, might not be the final authority on Reality. (Shocking, I know.)
You donât have to renounce your life or shave your head. You donât have to move to a cave or pretend you no longer care about anything.
Youâre simply invited to noticeâagain and againâthat you are more than the one who is noticing.
So as this day unfolds, you might play with this:
When you catch yourself reacting as your usual character, just quietly ask:
âWhat if this isnât the whole story?âWhen you feel the old suffering loop starting up, ask:
âWho would I be here, if I didnât automatically believe my interpretation?â
Not to get the ârightâ answer. Just to crack the mask a little, to let some light through.
Because in those cracks, the blank slate that has always been here starts to reveal itselfânot as an idea you believe, but as the wordless truth of what you are, even when you forget.




Thanks for keeping everyone safe and on jury duty! đ beautiful !