A course by Phan Ý Ly
Tâm Như Là
Heart-Mind as It Is
See what is actually happening, and what the mind has quietly added to it.
For people who already understand a great deal, yet whose old reactions keep playing out just as before.
A method for witnessing body and mind, explained in modern, scientific language. You test it for yourself, in real time, without having to take anything on faith.
Keep me posted- 16recorded sessions
- 1–1private messaging with Phan Ý Ly, no time limit
- 150students so far
01
Who this course is for
- People who have spent years practising body-and-mind observation or insight meditation, and are either treading water or have come to identify with the role of the witness.
- People who want to practise correctly from the start, with the aim of ending suffering completely.
- People who want to go from understanding to seeing: telling what is happening apart from what the mind adds to it, and noticing a reaction the moment it forms.
- People ready to test what they learn against their own lives, including the part they themselves play in conflict, defensiveness, clinging and suffering.
02
It starts with your own experience
Something happens, and almost in the same instant the mind spreads a layer of meaning over it. The two arrive so close together that we take them for one.
- The body tightens, and the mind concludes that something is wrong.
- An old memory surfaces, and a hurt from years ago becomes today's hurt.
- An assumption about someone hardens into certainty about what they intend.
- Something brushes against your self-image, and anger flares up.
The sensation is real. The conclusion is what the mind added.
But by the time we notice, the addition has already become the very situation we are reacting to. At that point we are no longer arguing with a thought, but with something that looks exactly like reality.
Tâm Như Là trains one capacity: seeing these layers come apart while they are still forming.
03
Understand the game first, and practice finds its bearings
Many people meditate for years and are still where they started. They know they are meant to witness body and mind, but not why they should, nor why something that seems so simple turns out to be so hard.
The root cause usually lies in how practice is framed. Some treat it as a moral matter: anger is bad, so you must be less angry. Others treat it as an intellectual one, assuming that once they understand something, they will be able to do it straight away.
Both views miss a far more objective level. The body and the brain run on biological rules, and most reactions are already complete before morality or reason gets a say.
Tâm Như Là sets out the whole map of how suffering arises and how it ends, cross-checked from three angles: the nervous system, direct realisation and the Buddhist scriptures. Because each one checks the other two, the map does not slide into pseudo-science, superstition or personal opinion.
Read on: how the map goes wrong when one angle is missing
- The nervous system Each mechanism is explained in everyday language, drawing on what neuroscience knows. But on its own, science can understand the brain in fine detail and still aim only at improving memory, finding life hacks or treating brain injury. Ending suffering is not among those aims.
- Direct realisation The map is not drawn from books. It comes from stages of practice the teacher has gone through herself, including the places where she once got stuck. But realisation without an objective explanation is very hard to pass on: it can easily sound mystical, or be taken on authority.
- The Buddhist scriptures Scriptural terms that can seem remote, such as mental formations, perception, craving and clinging, are set right beside what science describes about the brain, and explored through guided experiments in the student's own body and mind during the course. The scriptures record the path of someone recognised as awakened and liberated, and serve as an objective point of comparison. But knowing the texts by heart without realisation means understanding the word “non-self” while quietly clinging to a new “me”.
04
The teacher
Everything Phan Ý Ly teaches comes from her own observation. Since 2013, she has directly recognised that every experience of body and mind is being perceived. In 2014, she began pointing this out to others.
For more than ten years, Ly has worked directly with practitioners from many traditions, in hundreds of online Q&A sessions and in her courses. The sticking point a person believes is theirs alone is, more often than not, one Ly has already met and taken apart many times.
In 2021 she founded the Như Là community, which now has around 6,000 members, and went on to launch online courses and Như Không, an in-person programme. Most of what she writes and teaches is free for anyone to read or watch: more than 350 essays and answers on phanyly.net, ultimate-freedom.net and Quora, and more than 700 videos on YouTube (mostly in Vietnamese). She has also created three card decks: Tỉnh, Yêu Tỉnh Thức and Minh Mẫn.
Ly also has a second field of expertise: designing processes that build self-awareness. In 2004, she was awarded a Chevening Scholarship to study for an MA in Theatre and Media as Development at the University of Winchester in the UK, and graduated with Distinction. It is the only academic programme of its kind in the world; when Ly studied there, it took around ten students a year.
The philosophy behind that field sees self-awareness as part of self-liberation. Through participatory creative processes and multiple forms of expression, people name their own reality, recognise the conditions and relationships shaping their lives, and develop greater agency. Ly was trained to design and facilitate processes in which people discover this for themselves, rather than being told what they ought to see.
Years later, Ly applied that same rigour of process design to a different field of inquiry: the direct observation of body and mind. Tâm Như Là is built around helping people examine, in real time, how perception, interpretation, emotion and reaction shape their experience and suffering.
Ly works independently and does not rely on the authority of any school or lineage. Every conclusion has to stand on direct observation and on scripture read in its proper context.
The course has the same aim: that you can verify it for yourself. If you had to take Ly's word for what is true, the method would have failed at the most basic level.
05
What students say
You'll hear each student's own voice in Vietnamese first, then an English voice-over on top, with the original kept quietly underneath. The voice-over is AI-generated from our translation; the quotes below are condensed.
When it came to non-self, I'd watched every video on YouTube and listened to every teacher, and I still couldn't grasp it. In the course I experimented, and saw it clearly in my own body: my hands and feet, my organs, all keep working without any central character running them. But it isn't a matter of just letting everything happen, either. She showed us how to point the mind in the right direction. There are a hundred wrong turns you could take, and she had already closed them all off, so you end up heading the right way.
I used to mistake positive words laid over the truth for the truth itself. I'd studied with lots of modern teachers, and we were always taught that when something went wrong, you reprogramme your thinking by saying something positive. It did make life cheerful and easy. But for about a year now, something has kept feeling off: I see everything as positive, but is it actually positive?
My mind kept smugly assuring me that I was observing naturally, and I believed it. When something started to feel not quite right, I messaged her, and only then did it dawn on me that nearly everything I'd written in my practice journal had come from the controlling ego, not from natural observation of body and mind. It had fooled me spectacularly.
Hear from eleven more students
I'd read the Abhidhamma and knew all the concepts, yet it was still hazy. I kept asking: what actually is non-self? I understood it intellectually, but I couldn't turn it into my own experience. By the thirteenth session I really saw that there is no “me”, and from then on I felt lighter and lighter.
I used to have a real misunderstanding: just witness, just observe, and let the Dhamma run its course while I follow along. But then what am I, as a human being, meant to do? Now I've realised I'm still allowed to think and to reason, as long as I see the motive clearly: am I thinking out of craving, or out of a wholesome wish? That is what I find valuable.
I thought the observing mind was the final stop, and once I got there, I had no idea where else to go. Only after the course did I see that the observing mind also arises from conditions, and that there is no fixed self behind any of those processes.
I used to think being myself meant getting angry when I was angry, going crazy when I felt crazy, and showing it to the other person right then and there. When I allowed myself to relax and rest, it often turned into laziness without my noticing. And the biggest misconception of all: that knowing was something immense, which I had to find no matter what and then take to be me. Once I let that go, I felt lighter, and I searched far less.
I used to live by a rulebook: everything had to be right, everything had to be perfect. I held myself tightly in check, made a show of all the ways I practised, and just went round in circles without seeing anything. Now I dare to get things wrong and try things out, and I see far more. I'd tried for ages to learn to swim and never could, because I was afraid of the water and my whole body went rigid. Once I saw the pattern I was caught in, I could relax, and to my surprise, I could actually swim.
I was always the one rushing over to hug and kiss my wife, and she was always ice-cold. My ego's reasoning was: I've tried so hard to be a really good husband and father, so she has to respond. And I kept blaming her. I had never once investigated why she was like that. When I asked more, I saw that it came from the causes and conditions of the environment she grew up in. Once I understood that, our marriage got better too.
For a while I lived very freely, with nothing weighing on me: I ate when I felt like eating and slept when I felt like sleeping. A month later I asked myself: right, so now what? What am I living for? What's the purpose? Once I was in the course, I found I was no longer searching for anything.
Once the misconception is no longer fed, identifying things as me or mine weakens too. Then letting go becomes very gentle, a natural consequence rather than something forced. Emotions are still there, but I'm starting to see the process: just before I identify with it, there's a noticing, and that pause helps me react less and defend the ego less. Before, I lived inside the mind's story; now I can see clearly how that story is created, in my own body and mind, in real time. It's only a starting point, but I feel it's quite important for my journey.
Before, I only saw tiny links in the chain and just left them there, and sometimes I wondered why I kept treading water. After the whole course, it opened up: I saw the steps you have to go through to reach awakening and liberation. All along I had been observing, sometimes seeing, sometimes not, but I hadn't seen the big picture. I still have further to go.
My mind loves to wander, always searching here and there. In this course, through a few small realisations, I understood more clearly that there really is no “me”, and I realised that always wanting to go looking for something far away is a way of avoiding the present: I don't want the present to be this simple; it ought to be a bit grander. Now, when the momentum starts wandering and telling stories again, it's as if I realise I'm building castles on sand.
I used to think I was practising observing my mind and seeing a little. In the course I saw that I was being pulled along completely by the “me” model that loves control and chases achievement, and by its stories, with a momentum so strong there was no stopping point. I saw both craving and wholesome wishes in me, even my genuine wholesome wishes and my false ones. Now I have a pause: I'm more alert to the stories the mind tells, and I get the chance to stop and look again at what my mind is doing.
06
The brain puts survival before truth
Picture this
You are alone in a steamy bathroom. Suddenly you hear a growl and see the outline of a hand pressed against the glass. Your whole body has reacted before you have had time to think.
The brain does not wait until it knows for sure what is happening. From a few blurred signals, it draws on what it already knows and builds a scenario on the spot: there is a stranger, and there is danger. The body reacts to that scenario at once, even though the truth may be far less threatening.
For the brain, staying alive matters more than seeing the truth: a wrong guess that keeps you safe beats waiting to be certain before you run.
Read on: how the brain builds a “me”
To make predictions, the brain has to build a model of the world in advance. That model comes with a central character called “me”, who has a past, a future and a place among other people. The brain keeps the story of this “me” seamless over the years.
Neuroscience currently describes part of this work in terms of the default mode network (DMN). Even so, the DMN is only a model for understanding the phenomenon, not the whole truth. The course also explores many other mechanisms with you, so that you can see what, in evolutionary terms, a human being is actually doing whenever they remember, worry, get angry or defend themselves.
This prediction machinery is superb at keeping us alive, but it does not clearly distinguish between what it has built and what is actually happening.
- Simply remembering being told off in front of other people is enough: your face burns and your chest tightens as if you were still standing there.
- Simply thinking about tomorrow's meeting is enough to set your stomach churning, though nothing has happened yet.
And when something brushes against the story of “me”, the brain works to keep the story consistent, not to check whether it is true.
Suffering does not lie in the event itself. It arises when the brain mistakes the model it has built for reality, then throws everything into defending that model against any evidence to the contrary.
07
Clearing up the misconceptions that lead practitioners astray
Once the map is detailed, consistent and logically tight, the misunderstandings that lead to wrong practice show themselves for what they are. The second session alone clears up many of them. Here are three:
- Liberation does not mean losing the sense of “I”. Someone with no sense of “I” at all falls into one of only two cases: severe brain damage, or a numbed state of impaired functioning. In someone who sees clearly, “I” can still appear, but it is recognised as a conditioned phenomenon.
- The root of suffering is not thinking too much. It is being too sure of something that is wrong. When certainty runs too high, even a small discrepancy gets blown out of proportion and the body goes into alarm mode. The mind spins scenario after scenario, and controlling behaviour starts to appear.
- Looking closely is not the same as seeing accurately. The mind can turn its focus towards whatever confirms what it already believes: rereading a message, searching other people's faces, checking on your own feelings, even checking over and over whether you are being “aware”. The more you search in that direction, the stronger the old model becomes.
Tâm Như Là brings students back to observing the process as it unfolds: what the facts actually are, what the mind has just added to them, and how a reaction is taking shape. Once they can tell these three apart in lived experience, students begin to see clearly the difference between what is happening and how they are interpreting it.
Once you have that map and have checked it against the scriptures and against what you have realised for yourself, you come to understand why suffering, impermanence and non-self are called the three marks of existence.
Read on: what the three marks reveal about the “me” model
- ImpermanenceThe “me” that the brain builds is not a fixed entity but a model the brain keeps updating.
- Non-selfThat model arises from conditions and runs on conditions, with no one behind it in charge.
- SufferingWhen we take that makeshift model to be ourselves and throw everything into defending it, there is suffering.
As long as anything is still held as permanent, even something as beautiful as “I am the Knowing”, the brain still has room to build an illusory model and cling to it.
See the cause, and the effect becomes clear.
Cause
Taking the “me” model to be a real entity.
Effect
The whole chain of reaction, defence and suffering that follows.
So what makes practice thorough is not soothing the effect, nor reaching any pleasant state. It is seeing the cause while the cause is at work.
A reminder at the end of the second session
However well you understand it, however much of it you know by heart, however much you treasure it, that does not yet mean you have set foot on the path. The path only really begins when you yourself witness those distorting processes happening in you, in real time.
Once the principle is understood, effort finally has a direction.
08
How will you know Tâm Như Là is actually helping?
Tâm Như Là does not measure results by how many more concepts you understand, but by changes you can notice in everyday life.
You can check your own progress against these signs:
- You distinguish more and more clearly between what is actually happening and the interpretation you add to it.
- You notice bodily sensations, emotions and fear earlier, before they have a chance to turn into defensiveness, attack, control or withdrawal.
- In a conflict, you see more clearly the part you play in how things unfold, even when the other person is also at fault.
- When you come up against an uncomfortable truth, you notice the moment you start to deny it, justify yourself or twist it.
- When you do get swept into an old reaction, you notice it sooner and more clearly, and it no longer carries you as far as it used to.
You do not need to achieve all of these at once. What is worth watching is whether the gap between a reaction and the moment you notice it is getting shorter.
09
The witness trap
People who have practised for a long time often go through three stages. At first, they have never even noticed knowing. Then they begin to separate knowing from what is known. Then they stop at “the nature of awareness”, take it to be themselves, and feel so at peace that they believe they have arrived.
This new position is calmer and less reactive, so it feels like very real progress. That is exactly why it is the hardest to recognise: it comes dressed as practice.
From then on, every question is shut down with a familiar argument: as long as you still distinguish knowing from the known, or the continuous from the discontinuous, you are still in duality.
A pointer meant for direct experiment has been turned into a reason to stop investigating, and that is precisely how the ego's last foothold escapes scrutiny.
A concept used to stop the looking is not seeing. It is still the brain protecting the model it has built, this time in language with a very spiritual ring to it.
A common result is a hidden strain: always having to be alert, to be aware, to stand exactly where the witness should stand. Whenever they get carried away, practitioners add another layer of suffering by blaming themselves for having lost clear knowing.
Tâm Như Là goes straight to this point, with very concrete questions. What is actually present in experience, and what has been inferred on top of it and then called the truth? Is knowing really unchanging, or does it shift with attention, with the state of the body, with how alert you are? The answer does not come from a better argument, but from checking it for yourself, in your own body and mind.
10
What the course includes
- 16 recorded sessions Each one runs 2.5 to 3.5 hours, around 40–56 hours of teaching in total. Watch whenever it suits you, pause whenever you like, and rewatch them for life.
- One-to-one messaging with Phan Ý Ly Message Ly at any time, with no time limit, and she replies in writing. This is an exchange by message, not a private live session. Once you are a student, Ly stays with you all the way, following your questions and your progress.
- Practice journal and practice reports These let Ly follow closely how each person is witnessing body and mind.
The map is the same for everyone; where people get stuck is not. Two people who both say “I've let go” may be in opposite states: one has genuinely let go, while the other is suppressing. The journal, the practice reports and the one-to-one contact help pinpoint exactly where you are stuck.
Tâm Như Là has had 150 students so far. They come from many schools and levels of practice experience, and range in age from around 18 to around 60.
Practical details
- The course is currently taught in Vietnamese; an English edition is coming soon.
- You can rewatch the recordings for life, as many times as you like.
- The recordings and the class group are hosted on Mighty Networks.
- One-to-one contact with Ly takes place through messaging, your practice journal and practice reports. She usually replies the same day, and within two days at most.
11
Common questions
Is there an English edition?
Not yet, but one is on its way. Leave your email, and Ly will write to you when it opens.
Each session runs 2.5 to 3.5 hours. How will I find the time?
There is no deadline for finishing. Pause whenever you like, and rewatch as often as you like. Ly asks students not to treat the course as homework to get through, but to approach it in a spirit of play.
If I'm learning from recordings, who helps me when I get stuck?
Ly does. You message her, or write in your practice journal or a practice report, and she usually replies the same day, within two days at most. Two people can both write “today I managed to relax”: one has genuinely relaxed, while the other has drifted into laziness without noticing. From what you write, Ly points out where you are stuck.
Is this a religion? Do I have to believe anything?
No. Ly works independently and belongs to no school or lineage. The scriptures serve as a point of comparison, set alongside what science describes about the brain and what you observe for yourself. Everything in the course is tested against your own body and mind.
How long before I can tell whether it is working?
Ly does not promise a timeline, because everyone gets stuck in a different place. The effects show up in very ordinary moments: you notice anger just as it starts to flare, or catch yourself making excuses mid-sentence. And you are not left to guess on your own, because Ly follows your process through your practice journal.
I have never meditated. Can I still take the course?
Yes, if you have found that the usual advice is no longer enough. The course does not require any previous meditation experience. What it does require is a willingness to re-examine what you believe.
This course is not the right fit if what you are looking for is
- A new belief to replace the old one.
- A thorough grasp of the scriptures, without realising anything for yourself.
- A community to belong to for reassurance, in place of checking things for yourself.
Where things stand
For now, Tâm Như Là is taught in Vietnamese. The English edition will open soon, though no start date has been set yet. Nothing is for sale on this page.
Leave your name and email, and Ly will write to you when the English edition opens.
Thank you, you're on the list. Ly will write to you when the English edition opens.
Phan Ý Ly