Hello to Daniel, and everybody at The Dharma Overground.
I just found and joined this forum a few days ago, and I thought I would initiate this thread as an introduction and also as a place for me to post my personal practice notes (assuming that's allowed).
Here's a little bit of my background
I've been meditating for 47 years.
I started at 12 years old with Advaita Vedanta self-enquiry. Self-enquiry didn't feel "right", so I quickly moved to Patanjali's dharana-dhyana-samadhi model coupled with the kundalini physio-energetic model. I stayed with this mix for 12 years, and got quite adept at what in the Theravada Buddhist community are called the samatha jhanas.
After 12 years with the dharana-dhyana-samadhi-kundalini model it seemed that I wasn't really making any "progress", so I switched to mantra meditation for a couple of a year. But mantra meditation didn't feel right, so I switched to the Taoist physio-energetic model, and again got quite adept at accessing various states of concentration and manipulating and circulating "physio-energy."
I stayed with the Taoist physio-energetic model for about 20 years, but made little "real" progress (with respect to Insight or Wisdom). About 10 years ago I found myself spontaneously shifting back to the dharana-dhyana-samadhi model with the addition of Advaita Vedanta self-enquiry. This mix felt just right to me, and I've stayed with it since, adding in some spontaneous qigong a couple of years ago. The spontaneous qigong somehow sparked my practice and I found myself meditating with this mix for many hours a day, which I still do.
Just last week, during a lengthy walking meditation, I realized that for the last 10 years I had been unconciously evolving a "Vipassana-style" meditation practice for myself.
Rather than continuing to unconsciously re-evolve Vipassana Meditation, I've decided to "consciously" undertake Vipassana Meditation. That's why I'm here.
I look forward to learning from all.
Michael

PS: I'm also a member of and post at The Taobums forum and Kenneth Folk's Dharma forum.