Noah's Monthly Update

In formal practice, I continued following the instructions from the tummo retreat.  I learned more about the early signs of success in the practice which involve the ability to call up & maintain the heat in the tummo spot with intention, at any time.  This is all before getting to the melting of white thigle.  I would begin to notice this after a few months of daily practice.  I also completed setting up a traditional buddist altar & continued working on my sitting posture & flexibility. In informal practice, I maintained the mindfulness of up & right torso energy from July & August, but started to notice it’s limitations in not always regulating my mood for habit consistency.  This led me to ponder the importance of controlling one's feelings to free up space both for personal functioning & interpersonal service.  I also worked with mindfulness of the earth & water elements which I had started in August as a balance for worki...

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 ...

I dropped the habits again for about 9 days at the beginning of July, due to work stress.  This caused me to get a bit reactive & obsessive about how to prevent further “relapses”.  As work stress was the cause, I decided to switch teams under the same employer, a move I completed in September.   I met with my spiritual friend & asked them for advice about how to prevent further habit disruptions.  They advised me to focus on the “up” (aspect of transcendence/dignity/optimism) & “right” (aspect of getting things done) energies of the torso/heart chakra area.  While I was doubtful this would work, as I could not find reference to it in any Buddhadharma source, they grounded it in the dharma, as a method of stabilizing the 5 prana vayu.  They also explained that focusing on the heart area in this way helps to manage the overall energy of one’s being & integrate the personality/ego with more subtle levels.  They expanded that this is ...

In June, the themes around communication & identity continued.  I contemplated what authentic communication looks like & how it rests on all parties having some inner alignment (connecting with the agent-arena contemplations from last month).  The exploration of culture also continued, as I saw how introvert tendancies can reinforce the poisons of individualist culture.  To counter this, I meditated more on how to maximize “hunter gatherer happiness”, reading “Awakened Ape” by pragmatic dharma participant Jevan Pradas.  This linked up with my newfound hiking habit, as I absorbed nature/outdoorsy books & tv shows.   I pondered the importance of accepting hardship as a vital facet of life rather than a phenomena to be rejected.  I also read “Tribe” by Sebastian Junger & found his valuing of loyalty & group membership to be a nice rebalancing.  The importance of social ritual in strengthening community came up, given that I was ra...

In May, my relative insight from April around relationships & communication deepened.  There were more epiphanies about ownership of my identity & desires.  I explored some perfect-parent type practices with other friend & family figures to help round out some of these insights.  I contemplated the “agent-arena match”: how one must present a different self depending on the situation in life.  I also mused about the shortcomings of individualist culture & how total well-being can be deepened by harkening back to the hunter-gatherer roots of humanity.  This line of inquiry led me back to Integral-type writing for the first time in a while & I thought about how the ideal future civilization would be able to combine technological advance with basic collectivist values & connectivity. I met with my spiritual friend who gave my practice the stamp of approval.  To my surprise, they encouraged my “no emotions” line of inquiry from April, fra...

April was a fairly eventful month.  On the morality front, I continued with the same habits from prior months but added more, such as a house cleaning routine split up throughout the month.  I also switched to a different habit tracker app (called “Done”).  I had some back pain which I resolved through a calisthenics & stretching regimen throughout the week that I’ve continued into late June as of writing this.  I had some tiredness due to low blood pressure which stopped when I dropped my hypertension med.  I had some other health & wellness opportunities open up - all things that I would never have thought of in the past because I was lower on Maslow’s hierarchy.   I talked 2 times to a TMI teacher whose granular instructions on mindful set up, checking in on quality of attention, really breaking down the sub elements of the breath with curiosity, as well exercises before & after each session, all helped boost my stage 4 practice...

I noticed the POI prominently.  March started with a strong a&p experience where I felt my consciousness “thin out” & expand beyond the limits of space.  This event has repeated itself several times & I can access it in other nanas, so I think it could be a legitimate preview of some powersy future baseline.   I then felt guided to investigate thought as an obstacle to calm abiding progress.  I looked at teachers like Gary Weber & Vinay Gupta, who claim to have eliminated thoughts entirely.  I had some micro shifts related to seeing through the conceptual self. I also spun around in circles for a week until I realized that thought isn’t going anywhere (lol).  On a separate note, I tried sleeping significantly less for a week, thinking that my body chemistry had changed. Then I crashed & got grumpy (albeit only for about 3 hours - whereas it used to be 3 months).   On cushion practice remained calm-abiding inspi...