Zenrabansho

Zenrabansho is a meditative system monitor that renders your Mac's state as a single mandala. The opposite of Activity Monitor, it visualizes CPU, memory, disk, and network as a radial geometric pattern.

■ What it does

- Samples CPU usage, memory pressure, disk I/O, and network throughput every second
- Maps each resource to mandala rings, petals, and rays
- Animates the system as breath and pulse
- Lets you sense your Mac's condition at a glance

■ Four display modes

1. Full — mandala plus metric cards and help
2. Mandala-only — pure visualization in a circular window
3. Wallpaper background — pinned at desktop level
4. Foreground overlay — translucent on top of all windows

Opacity is adjustable from 1% to 100% so the visualization can sit gently at the edge of your attention without disturbing work.

■ Twelve visuals

Four themes for the classic four-resource mandala:
- Kongokai — traditional gold and vermilion
- Taizokai — compassionate blue and indigo
- Sumi-e — black-and-white Zen extreme
- Neon — modern mandala glowing in the dark

Eight styles for the eight-indicator mandala:
- Samurai — blade strikes and indigo armor
- Sakura — endlessly drifting cherry blossoms
- Cosmic — galaxies and nebulae
- Zen — a golden sanctum with a Buddha silhouette
- Kintsugi — a black raku vessel where load leaves golden cracks
- Unryu — an ink-and-gold dragon wrapped in distant thunder
- Gekko — fireflies and moon phases in a night garden
- Karesansui — a raked-sand rock garden that breathes

The eight-indicator mandala renders CPU, memory usage, memory pressure, swap, disk capacity, disk I/O, network, and battery (or process pressure) in a single mandala.

The menu bar icon itself is a 12-petal lotus that pulses at its center under CPU load.

■ Your data never leaves your Mac

The app itself makes no network connections and collects no data. Optional tips are processed by Apple's App Store; the developer receives no personal data. Everything runs locally on your device. App Sandbox and Hardened Runtime are both enabled.

■ Tip Jar (optional)

From the tip jar, you can send the developer an optional tip (Small Tip ¥300 / Generous Tip ¥1,000 / Grand Tip ¥3,000). It's a tip to support the developer — not a donation to any temple, shrine, charity, or third party. Nothing is unlocked.

■ Made for

- Developers who want something contemplative to look at while builds and inferences run
- Creatives who prefer to feel system load rather than read it
- Anyone who loves screen-saver-like meditative visuals
- People drawn to mindfulness and Zen aesthetics

■ Use cases

- Watch your Mac "breathe" full-screen while a heavy build runs
- Glance at the menu bar in the morning to sense how the machine feels
- Leave the mandala painting your Mac's state as a desktop background while you are away
- Use it as a tasteful background during presentations
- Spot resource anomalies (memory spikes, runaway I/O) as visual disturbances

■ Requirements

macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later. Universal binary for Apple Silicon and Intel.

■ From the developer

This was built to fill the gap between numerical accuracy and the desire to keep looking. May this small tool help you observe your Mac — your tiny universe — with a little more stillness.