Tried to post this once but I think it was too long so I'll put it up in smaller chunks.
I started formal daily practice in 2018 with Stephen Procter's MIDL 52-week playlist on Insight Timer and with hardly any knowledge or context gained some basic familiarity with a variety of techniques. In 2019 I became devoted at a Zen center where again without much context given I practiced a jumble of just sitting, counting breaths, and koan. I did a few weekend retreats and a five-day retreat with that group and left in 2020 or 2021. After that I drifted for a few years, still practicing every day, just sitting and/or counting breaths, trying different variations. Then in 2023 I found MCTB and got motivated to contact a teacher, referred to in this log as K, who agreed to work with me. Having more context for the practices than before, I wanted to attain jhana and then turn to vipassana.
In summer of 2023 I did my first solo retreat for 18 days practicing anapanasati and mostly dealing with physical pain but also experiencing glimpses of concentration. In winter of 2023-24 I did a solo retreat for a month and had some kind of jhana breakthrough although I haven't developed the practice to where it's very clear and I'm far from adept. This three-month retreat I just completed was my first vipassana retreat with clear instructions and access to guidance.
Although I was working remotely with K, I went to a monastery for this retreat to experience something different from being all alone. The instructions were to just sit and let everything come and go on its own, notice any effort to control and drop it. I started a separate post-retreat practice log if you want to follow my progress. Let me know if there's any additional background information that would be helpful and I'll add it here. I hope some part of this may be helpful for others' practice.
