August 2020

In August, I went on a solo road trip through Washington, Oregon & California.  It was awesome & I had never done something like that - fully of my own volition before.  It was part of the recent trend of engaging in adventurous, healthy activities that don’t have to do with self improvement.  On the trip I was also spending the mornings attending a Dzogchen retreat live.  The teaching revolved around a Dzogchen root text & clarified very technical, precise, scholarly aspects of understanding right view & the basis in Dzogchen.  It helped me see how one’s beliefs about the way reality actually works can not be separated from the effects of meditation techniques.  For me, this was a useful divergence from the pragmatic but inaccurate mindset I had previously cultivated which focused more on the idea of a core set of techniques wrapped up in various layers of culture & ritual.

After the road trip, I started an online tummo retreat which gave me the courage to try the practice out with pleasant results.  Like Mahasi noting from years earlier, I found that tummo utilized the momentum of my high-energy mind rather than trying to work against it or contain it.  There were a lot of helpful pointers in the retreat about containing the fire in the tummo spot (rather than letting it rush up/out) & cultivating a deep, rich, dense texture to it with visualization, physical movement & breathing.  I didn’t immediately start doing the practice regularly, but would in later months.  

I also started doing overnight backpacking trips in April in the Cascade mountains.  I enjoyed practicing while watching mountain sunsets & by alpine lakes.  On one of these trips, I read Karmamudra by Dr Nida, a non restricted text.  I discovered that the technique of thigle breathing at the end of the book ran with nice parallels to the tummo techniques.  I did start doing the thigle practice somewhat regularly & quickly found that the white thigle in the upper chakra gave me head aches.  In order to ground this I moved the camera of witnessing down to the stomach & shifted to keeping the white thigle in the heart not the head.  I checked in with my spiritual friend about this via email & they approved.  It also makes sense as an adjustment because the ultimate goal of both tummo & karmamudra is to allow the white thigle bliss to pervade the entire body, with each of the chakras as intermediate steps.  I found that the thigle breathing was able to get me into reliable bliss states.  Perhaps what I had hoped breath based samatha practice would yield but never did.  I’ve continued the practice in future months.

The work with tummo & thigle breathing made me think of how far I have come with regards to dealing with libido but also how much work there was still left to do.  I found myself continuing to have various contemplations of dating & communication.  In related areas of struggle, I continued to worry about keeping the consistency of my healthy habits.  I started to fantasize about pivoting towards a more radically altruistic lifestyle, inspired by talks from the Monastic Academy.

As side notes, I started getting into half lotus in formal sitting, a position I’ve been gradually working towards in 2020.  I enjoyed Vinay Gupta talks, obsessively listing out integral maps, researching the practices of Yantra Yoga & thogal & studying the 5 wisdom energies.