August 12
I started with science, desire, and a lot of ideas.
During meditation I kept getting pulled toward molecules, chemistry, the cosmos, teaching, and the kind of scientist I want to become. I started imagining a science-and-spirituality course and asking what I would do if there were no rush and no organizational stipulations. In essence, asking: what does the awareness want to create and share through my physical being?
“I love science. I love fundamentals. I love chemistry.”Direct note
I was not trying to leave my ambitions behind. I was trying to understand whether they could come from something other than status or money.
“I do good science because it’s an art and I love it. I don’t do it for the money.”Direct note
I reached for physics to describe the experience itself: a wave-like nature that can't be pinned to one place or moment, and a particle-like nature that's the physical, bodily part. The body is the boundary that keeps the wave-like part from just going everywhere.
What I notice now
My ambition is becoming less about needing to become somebody and more about giving myself to work I already love.
The question that stayed: What do I want to create when there are no constraints, no rush, and I'm not looking for recognition or validation?
August 12-13
Then I noticed how hard I was trying to control the next moment.
I wrote about being held, and about the usefulness of letting things simply happen. Then I caught myself on the word “trying,” and recognized how, in my current life, I keep trying to plan and map out trajectories: calendars, journaling, AI, rituals, all to get ahead of uncertainty.
“How do you balance ‘it’s all good’ with trying to create a desired reality? And I caught myself and then underlined trying.”Direct note
During a nap following a longer meditation sit, I had vivid dreams, but I could not control them. When I woke up and journaled, I started writing something like, “I had vivid dreams but I couldn’t control them.” As I put the thought into words, I caught myself: why did I feel the need to try to lucid dream? Why did the idea that I needed to try, to keep showing up, keep returning?
“I can just be an experience, the dream, without forcing anything.”Direct note
That felt immediately relevant to real life. I wrote that I could get myself fully to each moment and put my best effort into cleaning, writing, science, relationships, and everything else.
What I notice now
There's a balance to be found with effort and grip on outcome. I can act wholeheartedly without needing the action to secure a specific future.
The question that stayed: Am I doing this because I want to, or because I think it will make me feel safer?
August 13-14
The unusual experiences mattered, but awareness was more available than I expected.
I had long meditations, an energy-healing practice, a semi-lucid state, and moments that felt difficult to put into words. But the thing that started to feel most profound was not one particular vision or sensation. It was noticing the awareness in which thoughts, feelings, and images kept appearing.
“The thoughts are always here. I just don’t have to identify with them.”Direct note, August 14
I also realized that deepening practice was not necessarily about longer eyes-closed sessions. It could be brought into work, relationships, cooking, dishes, laundry, and cleaning my space. That same morning I found myself thinking about doing a retreat virtually versus in person: it lets you fold the practice into ordinary chores, it's more affordable without travel, and you get to move at your own pace from the comfort of home. I made a note to talk about this on video sometime.
Paraphrase of direct note: the profoundness was not in having an extraordinary experience, but in clearly recognizing the awareness that was already there.
Paraphrase of the retreat notes
What I notice now
Ordinary life is the real test. Visions and energy experiences can open a door, but I don't need to keep recreating them.
The question that stayed: Can I notice awareness in the next ordinary task without needing the task to become profound?
August 15
Looking at the clouds, I felt both bigger than myself and more human.
Earlier that day I noticed I respond more to visualization and energy-based practices - Joe Dispenza's energy-centers meditation is one of the most powerful for me because I feel it more. I also wrote that I already practice nonduality in daily life, and that I genuinely have the capacity to leave the world behind if I needed to: to renunciate, live like a monk, travel, and learn different techniques.
The following reflection came during a jog. I kept my attention on feeling each moment, each step, and let my body carry itself the way it already knows how to - the same way it knows how to breathe, or blink. I kept moving my attention through different areas of sensation. Toward the end I felt like crying, but no tears came. I looked up at the sky, and - wow. I felt that the clouds were breathing with me, or that I was breathing them. There was an emotional release. I also felt grateful for my parents, my sister, my body, my curious mind, my practice, my community, and the life I was living.
“Everything is fleeting, and that in itself is beautiful.”Direct note
The experience led me to write about expansion and contraction: too much time as awareness could mean not eating, sleeping, or tending to human tasks; too much time as a hurt human being could mean separation and conditioning.
“The clouds were breathing more like I was breathing them. I was them - expanding, contracting.”Direct note
What I notice now
Not about escaping personhood or renunciating. More a rhythm between widening beyond the small self and coming back to care for the life I'm actually living.
The question that stayed: What would it look like to be less identified with “me” without becoming less responsible for my life?
August 15-16
The retreat ended by bringing the practice back to the life I want.
I returned to science, to the possibility that my work itself could be meditative practice, and to the realization that five days without my phone had shown me something about habit. On Friday night, August 14, I did yaza and stayed up through the sitting until 5:00 AM Pacific. I also talked with Shinzen and Julianna about the middle way and intentional discomfort.
“This lifetime is for science! ... Your work is the meditative practice.”Direct note
“I’m not addicted to my phone ... it’s just a muscle memory habit I need to break.”Direct note
Paraphrase of direct note
During the last three hours of yaza, I moved in and out of alertness: awake and aware, then fully dozing off, then returning to wakefulness. I finished feeling humbled, inspired, joyful, and deeply grateful to the teachers, moderators, and participants.
Intentional discomfort kept the retreat from collapsing into “just relax and accept everything.” There is also effort, training, and chosen difficulty. The open question is whether discipline can grow freedom instead of becoming another way to prove my worth.
What I notice now
Ambition is good. It's a dance: bringing more freedom and love into the life I already have.
The question that stayed: Which difficulty is helping me become more free, and which difficulty is only making me feel more impressive?
The final feeling was not a conclusion so much as a widening:
“I am leaving with a deeper connection to nothing and everything, with myself and others, with the inner and the outer universe.”Direct note, final reflection