Alexander's Practice Log

Fatal Hubris, modified 6 Months ago at 10/15/23 2:55 PM
Created 6 Months ago at 10/15/23 2:55 PM

Alexander's Practice Log

Posts: 3 Join Date: 10/16/22 Recent Posts
Hey!
So I figured it's about time for me to try keeping a public log and see if it benefits my practice.

My name is Alex, I'm a 26 year old practicioner living in Germany. Full-time white-collar job. Not very stressful. Fiancee. Living together with 2 cats.

Current practice:
Workdays: 1h sit every morning and evening. Usually 30' at lunchtime.
Weekends: 90' sits every morning and evening.
Lots of yoga practice in a studio.
Pretty good at maintaining mindfulness all day long, sometimes lightly verbally noting, sometimes non-verbally.

Practice history:
4-5 years.
Worked up to consistent 30'/day primarily with Waking Up app until 1,5 years ago.
Then crossed the A&P while tripping.
Went all-in down the rabbit hole, completely transformed my lifestyle, got into TMI and started going on retreats and working with a student of Culadasa.
Got up to stage 7ish, could do "really nice" jhanas 1-4 in daily life and "damn mindblowing" jhanas on retreat.
Went through what vaguely felt like the Progress of Insight without noticing too much disturbance.
Got MCTB and familiarized myself with the Vipassana lingo, started trying to observe the 3C without doing formal noting practice or the like.

I do claim I got stream entry last March after powering up on jhanas for 5 hours on a lazy Friday evening and then seeing a strange scene arise wherein I was sitting in a cinema watching the movie of my life and then looked around and saw the cinema filled with me, all the other me's turned to look at me and it all collapsed.
Much has changed since then.
Semi-consistent fruitions preceded by what sure seems like the 3 doors as described in MCTB.
Been cycling through the PoI every single day since then. Consider myself quite familiar with the nanas and keep noticing fractal sub sub whatever nanas even without meaning to.
Been having a lot of fun with fire kasina in daily life.
Also figured out how to get into the formless realms in the meantime.

I place myself on the verge of 2nd path right now.
Keep switching between a sense of almost incomprehensible relaxed freedom in EQ and reviewing my suffering in its full intensity in Reobservation.
Currently planning a 3 week fire kasina retreat around Christmas.
Hoping to land 2nd path before then and see what new frontiers await by the time the retreat rolls around.

Let's see how the practice unfolds!
shargrol, modified 6 Months ago at 10/15/23 6:51 PM
Created 6 Months ago at 10/15/23 6:51 PM

RE: Alexander's Practice Log

Posts: 2413 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
Welcome and best wishes for your practice!
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 6 Months ago at 10/16/23 2:36 AM
Created 6 Months ago at 10/16/23 2:36 AM

RE: Alexander's Practice Log

Posts: 2734 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
Welcome to DhO and thanks for sharing with us! 

Best wishes Alex! 

"Not very stressful. living with fiancée and two cats" 
That can be stressful! emoticon emoticon emoticon 
Fatal Hubris, modified 6 Months ago at 10/17/23 1:42 PM
Created 6 Months ago at 10/17/23 1:42 PM

RE: Alexander's Practice Log

Posts: 3 Join Date: 10/16/22 Recent Posts
Hi guys!

Thanks a ton for the warm welcome.
Also @shargrol since you did me the honour of welcoming me already, I'd like to take the chance to personally thank you for your contributions to my practice without even knowing it.
I've read many of your answers on reddit and here during my time lurking and in fact I've found the online compilation of your posts to be extremely profound at transmitting the depth/sophistication/nuance of what this practice entails.
I made a PDF out of it and printed it for easy reference. It's come in handy on many occassions.
So thanks a lot for that right off the bat.
Fatal Hubris, modified 6 Months ago at 10/17/23 1:48 PM
Created 6 Months ago at 10/17/23 1:48 PM

RE: Alexander's Practice Log

Posts: 3 Join Date: 10/16/22 Recent Posts
Papa Che Dusko
Welcome to DhO and thanks for sharing with us! 

Best wishes Alex! 

"Not very stressful. living with fiancée and two cats" 
That can be stressful! emoticon emoticon emoticon 
Eh, I have to say I've been very very lucky on that front.
My fiancee has been through the same weird ego death whatever experience while tripping together so she's quite unusually open to what has become my chief preoccupation in life and she even listens with an attentive ear to my ramblings about insights and dukkha and jhanas and whatever.
She even put up with me during my 2,5 months of serious Darknighting last spring which is very commendable indeed.

I'm still holding out hope that it all finally clicks for her and we can spend our days meditating side by side and discussing arcane ancient texts but hey, I gave up the undue evangelizing a while ago after figuring out that everyone goes at their own pace...

As for the cats, I can only say they've been a tremendous gift to my insight practice. They have taught me so so much about metta, compassion, my interconnectedness to the world and all of life and in fact single-handedly made me a vegetarian within 2 months after we got them.
Plus they were one of the few things that kept me sane at the height of the worst Reobservation so I really can't complain.
Whatever stress they cause they have given back thousandfold haha.
shargrol, modified 6 Months ago at 10/18/23 3:33 PM
Created 6 Months ago at 10/18/23 3:33 PM

RE: Alexander's Practice Log

Posts: 2413 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
Neat, thanks for the thanks!

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