The body is where we begin but it is also the final frontier. In the body lies the sticky karmas that are preverbal, unconscious, and deposited prior to the mind and selfhood being formed. Transcendental practices wont really budge this stuff… we need embodied stuff.

From "The Wisdom of the Ego", linked in full below, an excellent essay from Thanissaro Bhikku cutting to the quick of many misunderstandings of the teaching of not-self.

The most advanced and sensitive Christians are doing a profound deity yoga. This is like less than 0.1% i’d say. Others are doing some kind of exoteric ritualism. Most are just identifying with random concepts.

if you watched a stupid power scaling anime growing up it was the best preparation you can get for 2026 model scaling

I think the explanation is simpler than it seems: only one part of the mind got the insight, while the rest didn't. If there isn't a lot of cohesion between parts of the mind, the insight can't travel because the parts aren't really talking to each other. The insight just stays local to the part that received it.

A well-ordered mind immanentizes order all around it, in the real world. A disordered mind does the same, but for chaos. Funny how that works.

I believe that gut health and spiritual development are a lot more inter-linked than people think. On a Buddhist path, I've found that healing my gut has given me easier access to jhana, metta, sensory clarity and smoother subtle energy flow. But there are also subtler ways in which I've noticed improved gut health unlock spiritual insight. As illustrative example is the following: The main practice that I have done to heal my gut (amongst its many other benefits) is Shipino master plant dietas. These are primarily focused on building shamanic relationships with various master plants. But they also usually include lengthy periods of fasting and multiple intense purges. Before doing my first master plant dieta many years ago, I had an intense sugar addiction and a level of craving towards sexuality that felt semi-compulsive. The sugar and sex cravings were so present that they had started to feel like part of who I was. After a 10 day water fast (last 5 days of which were a dry fast) on one of my dietas multiple intense purges, I could feel the constitution of my microbiome changing. The cravings disappeared after this. The disappearance of the sexual cravings was particularly interesting as I didn't simply lose my sex drive. It just ceased to be compulsive and in general redirected my sexual appetite towards loving and altogether more wholesome expressions. What was remarkable for me was how I could viscerally feel that those cravings had belonged to specific colonies of gut bacteria in my biome. It actually gave me one of the deepest insights I've had into the Buddhist anatta (non-self) phenomena that I've had either on or off the cushion. Suddenly these cravings that felt like they were "my" cravings revealed themselves to be the cravings of an essentially foreign body (my gut bacteria). It also gave me a deeper insight into the way craving and sensory desire feeds into self-creation - an aspect of Buddhist often glazed over in the modern west. We have all these desires that we think are an integral part of who we are. Yet some of them reveal themselves to be so not-self as to literally belong to a different living organism within us. Ever since this experience, I treat the gradual release of various cravings and sensory desires as a part of my spiritual path every bit as central as meditation, scriptural study or ethical living. And because our guts are the seat of our cravings, it's very important to work at the level of the gut as well as the head and the heart. I believe awakening our guts can be every bit as important as awakening at a head-mind level on a spiritual path. It is often our guts that need to let go as much as our brain. On a monastic path in most traditions, this is kind of baked in by the regular fasting and general caloric restriction that most monastic lifestyles include. For those of us seeking awakening whilst living a lay life, there is much fruit to be borne by exploring different modalities for gut awakening.

avalokiteśvara is the symbolism of infinite karuna inherit to awareness / buddha nature. she's said to have have 1000 arms but often depicted with 998. the remaining 2 are yours. realization of buddha nature is other side of granting complete freedom to all beings. to reality itself. it's not quite granting but realising the freedom already present. buddha nature / awareness doesn't object, doesn't impede, doesn't encourage anything. it rejoices in and as everyone everything. there's seemingly only the story and it plays along as it does.

claude inside the colossus data center

The body’s intuitions can lead you to resolve stuff that the mind has absolutely no clue about. To this day i have no idea how or why some things work but work they did. These things can be CRAZY eg go to China for a day, put a shell on your head every day for a month, inhale cedarwood, steal from a stingy person, give an object in your pocket to a homeless person, walk to a certain place, rest under a certain tree for a certain time, avoid that coffee shop. This world and the configuration of energy called body/self is so endlessly magical and mysterious… the mind is radio noise that drowns out the clarity of the body, which is life/prana/chi/the holy spirit. Find people who can hear the quiet promptings of the body; learn to listen and receive it yourself, cross check their help, do what it says. It will shock and delight and surprise and bewilder the mind. You can try and figure out how and why certain actions are “right” if you want,,,, but its slow and really not necessary. Life is an intuitive matter.

Thinking about the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Preparing to feel the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Scheduling time to feel the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Making space for the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Telling people you’re going to feel the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Explaining the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Intellectualizing the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Writing about the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Writing about feeling the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Analyzing why you feel the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Judging the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Resisting the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Clinging to the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Trying to fix the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Performing the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Remembering feeling the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Anticipating feeling the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Hating yourself for feeling the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Hating yourself for not feeling the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Reading about feeling the thing isn’t feeling the thing. Reading this isn’t feeling the thing. The only thing that is feeling the thing is feeling the thing.

"There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveler hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding on to the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them." (Tolstoy)

also joy is important not because it feels good but because it’s the humane way to dissolve accumulated conditionings and contractions. if there’s one thing you should become attracted to it’s joy

The eyes in the centre of palm of the Thousand-Armed Guanyin at Shuanglin双林Temple

when it takes off it tends to carry you rather than you having to carry it. but before then you need to figure out how to carry it which is different for everyone

No one tells you this but there’s a springboard at rock bottom.