Reference: Book II: Subject Clearing
Looking = Direct Observation Without Judgment
Beneath the practical steps of Subject Clearing sits a quiet discipline. The engine of Subject Clearing is looking — a calm, honest way of paying attention to what is actually in front of you. It asks you to observe carefully without letting expectations or wishes color what you see.
The examples below follow Raj, a man working through his confusion about the stock market, to show each aspect in action.
The 12 Aspects of Looking
1. Observe without being swayed by expectations or desires.
Wanting a certain outcome makes you guess instead of see. But you can only predict the future well once you actually know what’s in front of you.
Example. Raj wants the market to be simple, so he keeps guessing that “price” and “value” are the same thing — because that would make investing easier. Every time he checks his desire against the actual data, he catches himself projecting instead of observing.
2. Observe things as they are, without assuming.
Familiarity tricks you into assuming something is a certain way — a belief, a bias, a fixed idea — and that mental picture gets pasted over reality. But familiar things aren’t permanent, and the assumption might just be wrong.
Anecdote. Raj has “known” for years that bonds are safer than stocks. He assumed this so long he never questioned it. When he finally looks closely, he learns that a bond can lose more value than a stock during a rate spike — his old assumption was just a habit, not a fact.
3. If something is missing, don’t invent something to fill the gap.
If you don’t know, admit you don’t know. If someone asks a question and no answer comes, don’t manufacture one just to feel complete.
Story. A colleague asks Raj why the market dropped that morning. He feels pressure to have a smart answer, almost says “probably profit-taking” just to sound informed — then catches himself. He says, “I don’t actually know,” and looks it up later instead of bluffing.
4. If something doesn’t make sense, don’t explain it away.
Justifying an inconsistency just shifts blame without fixing anything. When you feel the urge to explain something away, get curious instead about what you’re taking for granted — sometimes it takes unconventional thinking to see what’s really going on.
Example. Raj reads that markets are “efficient” (all information is priced in) yet also “bubble” (prices go crazy irrational). Instead of hand-waving this as “well, markets are just weird,” he digs in and discovers both ideas are true in different timeframes — a genuine insight he’d have missed by explaining it away.
5. Use both physical and mental senses to observe.
Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body sense physical things like chairs and cars. But the mind is also a sense organ — it senses thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Notice both kinds of objects for what they are.
Anecdote. While reading about “risk,” Raj notices not just the words on the page but a tightness in his chest — a mental/emotional object. That tightness turns out to be tied to a bad investment his father once made. Noticing it is as much “observing” as reading the definition.
6. Let the mind un-stack itself naturally, in its own time.
Don’t dig for answers or force recall. Just watch what naturally comes up first, then next, then next. The mind never hands you more than you can handle if you let it unfold on its own.
Example. Raj sits with the word “leverage.” Instead of forcing himself to remember the textbook definition, he just watches — first he recalls his uncle’s story about borrowing to buy a house, then a memory of a friend’s failed business, then finally the technical definition clicks into place on its own.
7. Experience fully whatever is there
This is the deepest form of looking. Dive into whatever shows up without resisting it. If your mind is racing, experience the racing itself — without adding fuel to it.
Story. Realizing he misdefined “dividend” for years embarrasses Raj. Rather than brushing past the embarrassment, he lets himself fully feel it — the flush of heat, the urge to justify himself. He rides it out instead of rushing past it, and it passes in under a minute.
8. Do not hide anything from yourself.
Follow your attention wherever it leads. Don’t dodge something because it feels shameful or painful — suppression is what causes trouble, not the material itself.
Anecdote. Raj notices a flicker of shame about how much money he lost years ago in a bad trade. His instinct is to change the subject in his own head. Instead, he lets himself look directly at that memory. Nothing catastrophic happens — the shame just quietly dissolves once it’s actually looked at.
9. Let your mind associate ideas freely.
Looking means being comfortable with thinking itself — let the mind connect ideas on its own instead of forcing a direction.
Example. Thinking about “bull markets,” Raj’s mind wanders to a childhood trip to a rodeo, then to his grandfather’s stubbornness, then back to market optimism. He lets the tangent run instead of stopping it — and it turns out the rodeo memory helps him remember the term more vividly than any definition would.
10. Do not get hung up on names and forms.
A name is just a pointer; a form is just one way something is represented. Real understanding goes beyond the label. Fixating on the name can quietly act as a judgment before you’ve actually looked.
Story. Raj hears the term “hedge fund” and immediately pictures a villain in a movie — a fixed image tied to the name. Once he sets the label aside and looks at what a hedge fund actually does (pooled money, various strategies, risk management), his flat mental picture turns into real understanding.
11. Contemplate thoughtfully.
With looking, thinking becomes contemplation: looking non-judgmentally at relationships between things, and going out to find missing information rather than straining to force an answer from what’s already in your head.
Anecdote. Raj can’t figure out why “market efficiency” and “bubbles” coexist. Instead of straining to reason it out from memory, he goes and reads about behavioral economics — new information that resolves what pure “figuring out” couldn’t.
12. Let it all be effortless.
Effort only shows up when you resist letting things be. Let body and mind unwind at their own pace. Trouble comes from anxiety and digging, not from the material itself.
Example. Near the end of a long study session, Raj feels the urge to force one more insight before stopping. He notices the urge, lets it go, and closes his notebook. The insight he was straining for shows up on its own, unprompted, the next morning in the shower.
Taken together, these aspects create the open, unhurried state of mind in which confusions can surface and dissolve on their own. They are less a checklist than a way of being with a subject.
“Looking” in Practice
When you’re studying a subject or watching it directly, you might sense some tension or fuzziness. Pause and ask:
“What doesn’t make sense here?”
Then look closer:
“What kind of anomaly is this — made-up filler, a contradiction, or something missing?”
Keep looking, and more detail surfaces. Follow whatever’s unclear until it resolves.
The key is to stay relaxed and let your mind hand you the data — don’t avoid, resist, suppress, or deny any thought, feeling, or sensation. Let it associate and unwind at its own pace, the way Raj let the rodeo memory and the leverage definition surface on their own instead of forcing them.
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