The result? My router now interrogates me like a strict parent whenever I want internet after 9 PM. If I can’t convince an AI that I actually need to be online, no internet for me. Yes, I built my own digital bedtime enforcer. No, I’m not proud of how necessary this was.

Video Demo

The Problem

Between 9 PM and 5 AM, my internet usage is basically 95% garbage. Social media, YouTube rabbit holes, Reddit arguments with strangers – you know the drill. The thing is, I know this while I’m doing it. But somehow at 1 AM my brain goes “yeah but what if there’s one more interesting thread” and before I know it the birds are chirping outside.

What I wanted was simple:

1. Block internet at night (no exceptions button I can just click)
2. Force myself to explain why I need access
3. Have something more objective than my 1 AM brain decide if that’s legit
4. Time limits so I can’t abuse a single approval for hours

The Hardware

I grabbed a GL.iNet GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX) travel router for about 60 Euro. It runs OpenWrt, has enough storage for Python, and sits between all my devices and the actual internet. This is important – there’s no way to bypass it without physically unplugging it (and at that point, if I’m that desperate, maybe I deserve the internet).

How It Works

When I connect to WiFi after 9 PM, instead of getting internet I get a chat interface. An AI (Google’s Gemini) asks me why I need access. The conversation goes something like:

AI: “It’s 11:30 PM. Why do you need internet access?”

Me: “I need to check email.”

AI: “How many minutes do you need?”

Me: “30 minutes.”

AI: “Why specifically 30 minutes? What will you be doing?”

And here’s the thing – having to actually type out “I want to mindlessly scroll Twitter” makes you realize how stupid that sounds. Half the time I just give up and go to bed instead. Which is exactly the point.

The AI grants different amounts of time based on what you need:

• 10 minutes for quick checks
• Up to 60 minutes for actual work due TODAY
• Up to 120 minutes for video calls

For anything over 10 minutes, it wants proof. Screenshot of that urgent email? Calendar invite for that meeting? Upload it. The AI actually looks at the image and checks if it matches what you claimed. No more “I have work stuff” as a universal excuse.

The Technical Bits

If you care about the implementation (if not, skip to the Claude Code section):

The whole thing is a Python script running on the router. It does DNS hijacking so all domains point to the router, then redirects HTTP traffic to a captive portal page. When you’re chatting with the AI, your messages go to Google’s Gemini API. If approved, it adds iptables rules to let your specific device through for the approved duration.

# All DNS queries resolve to router
uci add_list dhcp.@dnsmasq[0].address='/#/192.168.8.1'

# All HTTP goes to captive portal
iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING 1 -i br-lan -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 2050

# Block actual internet access
iptables -t filter -I FORWARD 1 -i br-lan -o eth0 -j REJECT

The system also keeps a log of all my requests throughout the night. So if I’ve already asked three times, the AI gets more skeptical. “You already got approved twice tonight, why do you need more time?” It’s like having a disappointed parent watching over your shoulder.

Cron jobs handle the scheduling – gatekeeper mode enables at 9 PM, disables at 5 AM. Even rebooting the router at midnight doesn’t help, it comes back up in restricted mode.

Source code: github.com/kryptokommunist/open-sesame

Built with Claude Code in One Evening

Here’s the part that blows my mind: I built this entire thing in a single evening using Claude Code. Normally a project like this would involve days of reading OpenWrt docs, fighting with iptables syntax, debugging why the captive portal won’t show up, etc. Instead I just told Claude what I wanted and it SSHed into the router, figured out the constraints, and wrote the code.

The workflow was basically:

1. Me: “I want an AI-gated internet system on this router”
2. Claude: checks router specs, proposes architecture
3. Me: “The captive portal isn’t showing”
4. Claude: debugs iptables, finds issue, fixes it
5. Me: “Now add image proof for longer requests”
6. Claude: adds file upload, integrates multimodal API

Each iteration took minutes. I steered, Claude implemented.

Where Claude Code Screwed Up

Let me be clear though – it wasn’t magic. Some real bugs I had to catch:

Bug 1: After setting up DNS hijacking (all domains → router IP), the captive portal showed the router’s admin UI instead of my splash page. Claude had excluded the router IP from the redirect, but with DNS hijacking everything pointed to the router IP, so nothing got redirected. I had to point out the wrong page was showing before Claude figured it out.

Bug 2: The AI couldn’t reach Google’s servers because… my own DNS hijacking was hijacking the API hostname too. Claude first tried hardcoding the IP (broke SSL). Eventually got a proper fix: resolve via external DNS, then monkey-patch Python’s socket handling. Took a few iterations.

The pattern: Claude optimized for the immediate problem without seeing how it’d interact with other parts. Classic AI coding issue. The workflow that actually works is AI implements, human validates. I couldn’t have built this in an evening alone, but Claude couldn’t have shipped it without me catching these bugs. We’re in the centaur phase of AI coding.

Does It Actually Work?

Yeah, embarrassingly well. The friction of having to justify myself to an AI is surprisingly effective. When I’m about to type “I just want to browse Reddit” I realize how pathetic that sounds and often just go to bed. Which was the whole point.

Update: Daytime Features

After using this for a few days, I wanted the same focus superpowers during the day too. So I added daytime features:

Focus Mode: One-click blocking of distracting sites (YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, etc.). Uses both DNS and IP firewall blocking – so you can’t bypass it by using the IP address directly. Customize which sites get blocked via a settings page.

Voluntary Lockdown: Full internet block during daytime – same AI chat to get back online. For deep work sessions where you want zero distractions.

Stats Dashboard: Charts showing usage patterns over time. Scatter plot shows request times and durations. Bar chart breaks down by weekday. Night/Day tabs let you see nighttime requests separately from daytime Focus Mode and Lockdown usage.

The UI also theme-switches – golden during the day, dark at night. Nice visual cue for which mode you’re in.

TL;DR: Built an AI that guards my internet at night because I have zero self-control. It works better than willpower. Claude Code built most of it in one evening but still needed a human to catch the integration bugs. Source code on GitHub if you want to build your own digital parent.

The source code is available at github.com/kryptokommunist/open-sesame.

This post was written with the help of Claude Code.

Heater Spiral

Heat-based body-computer interface pendant

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Videos

Doyle Spiral Studio

Generative Doyle spiral animations etched into steel and wood

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findmyfl.at

Automated Berlin Apartment Search

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The Setup

A two-month silent retreat is a significant commitment. No reading, no writing, no contact with the outside world. Your teacher becomes your only external reference point. I knew this going in, so I vetted carefully. The teacher was welcoming and accommodating. He seemed sensitive to my concerns about undertaking such a long retreat while carrying childhood trauma. He gave space. He listened. Everything felt right. What I didn’t understand then is that this is often how it begins.

The Gradual Shift

The longer the retreat progressed, the more controlling and grandiose the teacher became. It wasn’t sudden — it was incremental, which made it harder to trust my own perception. Some specific examples:

• No questions during dharma talks. For the entire duration of my time there, students could not ask questions in this setting.
• Emotional control. He would verbally welcome students crying, but his body language communicated discomfort. This created a confusing double message that made it harder to process grief.
• Lashing out. I witnessed him react with disproportionate anger to small things—someone being sad, someone arriving late.
• Image over relationship. It increasingly felt like being seen as a great teacher mattered more to him than actually teaching. Validation from students seemed to be the priority. What struck me most was the contradiction between his words and his actions. He spoke of acceptance while communicating rejection. He taught equanimity while modeling reactivity.

The Reality Distortion Field

What felt strange to me was that this teacher had practiced intensively for fifteen years in monasteries. He had genuine access to spaciousness and concentration. And I began to notice something: just sitting in front of him would shift sensations in my stomach. It felt like he transmitted anger packaged in spaciousness — my mind wouldn’t catch it, but my body reacted. My working theory on this is that someone with highly developed concentration can transmit their reality through presence alone, without words. They don’t need to be loud or aggressive. If they have more concentration than you do, they can — consciously or unconsciously — influence your felt sense of what’s happening. You find yourself questioning your own perception while their version of reality gets reinforced simply through the weight of their presence. I think this may be part of how the guru phenomenon works. It sidesteps the mind entirely. The student feels confused, doubts themselves, and the teacher’s reality becomes the default. Of course the authority of a dozen people kinda worshipping the guy in front of your eyes also does something. Because of noble silence you can’t ask what they actually think about him. How convenient.

The Turning Point

Two things helped me see clearly. First, my therapist. When I described what was happening in a check-in call, she said: “Oh, this sounds like narcissism.” Having a word for it was an enormous relief. The confusing soup of experiences suddenly had a shape. Second, Rob Burbea. Towards the end I smuggled my phone back and started listening to his retreat recordings. The contrast was immediate. Where my teacher practiced with a kind of desperate urgency, Burbea was flexible, grounded, gentle, slow. My teacher positioned awakening as the most important thing. Burbea advocated for being human first. Hearing Burbea helped me escape the reality distortion field. It gave me an external reference point that reminded me what good teaching sounds and feels like.

What I Learned About Myself

I couldn’t write this honestly without acknowledging my own part. I went to this retreat hoping a long period of practice would finally make me “enlightened.” I was looking for a teacher who would give me that. I was primed to believe in someone’s grandiosity because I had my own grandiose parts that wanted to be special. I could only fall for his narcissism because I took my own too seriously. When I learned to laugh at my own parts that thought they were better than everyone else, I could also laugh when I saw those parts in the teacher. The dynamic required two participants. This doesn’t excuse harmful behavior from someone in a position of power. But it does help explain why I was susceptible, and it’s something I’ll watch for in the future.

The Harder Nuance

I’ve been sitting with this post for months, and I want to be honest about something that complicates the narrative: the teacher also had a genuinely loving and accepting side. He had a sensitivity, an ability to say the right thing in tense moments, that I haven’t encountered in many people. In some ways, working with his difficult aspects helped me process wounds from my childhood. People are not all one thing. But I also believe he poses a real risk to students, particularly if they do not have very strong and solid boundaries. He lacks the self-awareness to see how his need for validation interferes with his teaching. He lacks the training to work safely with trauma. And the container of a silent retreat — isolated, no outside contact, one authority figure — amplifies whatever dynamics are present. I have heard that he in following retreats had issues with keeping boundaries regarding becoming romantically involved with his students, and later dismissed them when they shared how they felt harmed. Someone I met later at Esalen, who had spent years in Zen monasteries, told me that some of the biggest egos he’d encountered in his life were in those communities. Intensive practice does not automatically confer psychological health. In some cases, it provides a hiding place.

The Takeaway

If you’re considering working with a teacher, especially in an intensive or isolated setting: Watch for contradictions between words and actions. Notice your body. If you consistently feel confused, anxious, or “off” in their presence, take that seriously. Maintain outside reference points if at all possible. Even occasional contact with a trusted friend or therapist can help you stay oriented. Be suspicious of urgency. Good teachers don’t need you to wake up on their timeline. And if you are dealing with significant trauma consider limiting the length of retreat and finding alternative spiritual practices aside from formal sits that can be harmful in themselves.

I left that retreat believing I had witnessed the early stages of a cult. Maybe that’s too strong. Maybe it’s not strong enough. What I know for certain is that meditation does not solve psychological issues — and in some cases, it can provide sophisticated cover for them. The teacher’s name is Milo North, and his organization is Boundlessness. I share this not to condemn him as a person, but because I wish someone had told me before I signed up for a two-month retreat.

For what I actually learned from the practice itself during this retreat, see What Two Months of Intensive Practice Taught Me.

The tent I slept in for two months.

The retreat was held in a beautiful mountain scenery in California.

The Emotional Body: What Emotions Actually Are

Toward the end of the retreat, I began working with Rob Burbea’s recordings from The Boundless Heart. This shifted my attention to what Rob calls the “emotional body” — the axis from root to crown. What became clear through sustained attention is that what we call “emotions” are actually constellations of physical sensations with remarkably consistent mappings:

• Shame: tension in the lower belly
• Fear: tension in belly, throat, and shoulders
• Love/spaciousness: warmth and softness in the heart center

Most of the time, I couldn’t name the emotion. The combination of tensions and sensations was so unique in each moment that conceptual labels felt reductive. This was itself freeing — I stopped trying to figure out what I was feeling and just felt. From Rob, I took the insight that practice doesn’t require cathartic release. You can simply be with the emotional body as it shifts. Watching these constant shifts made something viscerally clear: I am not a conceptual thing. I cannot grasp myself using words or mind. Two techniques from Rob’s recordings proved particularly useful: Spacious holding. Feel the tensions in the body and imagine a soft white bubble of spaciousness around them. This made unpleasant tensions workable rather than something to push through. Playing with views. Rob suggested holding the idea that the world is sacred — lightly, experimentally. After a day of this, everything around me did feel more meaningful. It was subtle but unmistakable how much views shape perception. I also experimented with repeating limiting beliefs aloud (“I need to be a good boy”) until they released into laughter. The belief would just… dissolve.

What I appreciated most about Rob’s approach was the underlying message: everything is just a view. There’s no solid meditation approach you need to twist yourself into like a pretzel. That helped me release my mental image of what meditation and awakening should look like.

IFS on Retreat: Rewiring the Inner Dialogue

For the first three weeks, I practiced Internal Family Systems intensively. The retreat container made this remarkably potent — hours of uninterrupted access to parts that normally stay submerged. I encountered parts with beliefs I’d never been aware of. Again and again, I found myself explaining to various parts that I’m an adult now and don’t live with my parents anymore. This sounds almost comically simple, but the felt sense of parts receiving this information was profound. I also practiced befriending parts directly — asking questions, offering to work together rather than against each other. After three weeks, something shifted. I’d look in the mirror and the voice in my head would say, “You look great, I love you.” I’d drop something and hear, “No worries, I love you.”

The inner critic didn’t disappear, but the default inner dialogue became friendly. My sense is that IFS operates similarly to metta practice. The verbal component gives the mind an illusion of control, which eases resistance. Speaking from Self felt like generating metta — while the voice spoke kindly to parts, tensions in the body would soften and unwind.

Emotional Release: Meeting Anger

We did breathwork every morning on this retreat — screaming, kicking, the full cathartic toolkit. I also set up a punching bag in a small hut on the property. What I discovered: whenever I felt depressed and stuck, punching the bag would leave me feeling more whole and loving afterward. This surprised me. I’d expected anger release to leave me agitated or drained. Through this work, I started to notice a pattern. I’d tap into anger, then fear would arise to block it. But I kept going deeper. At some point I was shocked by how hard I could kick when I actually allowed the anger. I realized I’d been holding back my own strength my entire life, perceiving myself as weaker because of my resistance to feeling anger.

After the first month, I could access anger and fear like never before. I made it a daily practice — one to two hours of feeling into anger and fear through singing, laughing, punching, jumping. From the outside, it probably looked unhinged. From the inside, it was just processing. One observation: societal norms around emotional expression are strange when you examine them. Full emotional expression is considered crazy unless you’re an actor. But on retreat, without social pressure, I found myself walking around singing and laughing by myself. The fear of being judged simply fell away.

The punching bag in the hut I found.

The punching bag after a very freeing anger release session. I didn't expect how much strength there is in my body.

Fourth Jhana and the Deconstruction of Self

My primary practice was metta, radiating from the head in six directions. I’d accessed fourth jhana on a previous retreat and wanted to deepen this. While I didn’t progress to the formless jhanas, sustained fourth jhana practice set certain processes in motion. Over weeks, my body began to feel thinner, lighter, more nebulous. This correlated with my sense of self feeling similarly thin. At some point, my visual field started flickering whenever I closed my eyes or after longer sits. I could glimpse that I was seeing discrete frames of experience. The flickering correlated with subtle tension around the eyes.

Then a connection became clear: the tension around the eyes arose every time a sense of self was created. And this correlated with any shift of tensions throughout the body — the body would take a slightly new shape, and that constituted a new sense of self. Also the distinction between thoughts and body dissolved, my thoughts when I tuned in where the sensations of muscles around the mouth tensing in the pattern that forms words and vice versa. I could tune into vibrating sensations or thoughts and it was like an isomorphism in math.

One insight that sounds obvious but felt deeply freeing: I am living in the present. Each self is created fresh in the present moment. I am not bound by my past. In one sitting, I went through my entire life chronologically and realized something strange: I couldn’t find myself in any of the memories. I wasn’t in them. The one who had those experiences wasn’t locatable now. This was disorienting and liberating in equal measure.

Changes in Awareness

After several weeks, I noticed my awareness had become wider. Looking at a cornfield, I could see the waves of wind across the entire field simultaneously rather than tracking a portion of it. The first time this happened, it felt psychedelic. This persisted after retreat. Watching ocean waves with wide awareness became fascinating — seeing the whole pattern of wave interference at once rather than following individual waves. I also began remembering most of my dreams. And after a few weeks of metta practice, a golden heart started appearing repeatedly in dreams. I took this as a sign the practice was saturating deeper layers.

Multiple Selves: Direct Experience of Plurality

Before this retreat, my life had often felt fragmented — like a movie with fast cuts, chaotic and disorienting. About two years ago, after developing stable witness awareness, it started feeling like a continuous film. On retreat, I got to observe directly that I’m not a monolithic self but a system of parts, as IFS describes. I started by noticing different voices. I’d ask them their names and ages. Then I had the strange experience of noticing co-consciousness — being aware that a different self was operating my body while “I” observed. I could talk to that self and intervene if needed.

The most disorienting experience: I sat down to meditate and began interacting with a friendly inner voice. Then I realized that yesterday, I had been that voice. But today I was identified with a different one, now observing my previous “self” from outside. This could have been terrifying — the realization that my current self could disappear, and I don’t know when or if it would return. Instead, it built trust. While selves, voices, and identity shifted, awareness remained. Safety lies in resting in that which doesn’t change.

Trauma Practice

I came to this retreat partly to work with childhood trauma. Some observations: Stillness as trigger. In the first week, I noticed that extended stillness itself was activating — the body remembered freeze and helplessness. I could hear some fellow practitioners breathing in fight/flight for the first weeks during sitting practice which faded. But I don’t think that is the safest way to ground the body. I introduced movement before and during sits: power stances, fists on legs, pushing arms outward, moving the head. This helped discharge the freeze response.

Root awareness. After several weeks, sexual feelings began arising during sits as awareness moved into the root. I realized I’d never breathed fully because deep breaths bring attention to the root at the end of the inhale, which triggered discomfort. The talk of root chakra as life force suddenly made experiential sense — I’d been cut off from it. I spent many sits just being with these sensations, working through layers until I could hold that energy without being overwhelmed.

Sleep and activation. I noticed that before sleep, fear would arise in my stomach along with root sensations — in hindsight that was fight/flight activation. My lifelong sleep difficulties suddenly made sense: the body replays activating memories before sleep, and I’d spent countless nights on YouTube or other distractions to escape these sensations without knowing that’s what I was doing.

With continued practice, the sensations became less scary. The fear of them had been worse than the sensations themselves. Metta and yoga nidra helped. Eventually, I could go to sleep more easily than I ever had. Also I found parts with extreme beliefs. One part thought it was my father. Many parts held hatred toward me, and working with them took patience. Initially I tried only befriending, but after weeks of continued abuse from certain parts, I began setting boundaries: “You can’t talk to me like that. We can talk when you’re more friendly.” Teaching targeted parts to hold boundaries helped too. Also a lot of shame came up. In my IFS practice I kept repeating to objecting parts: this is not my fault. It’s not any part’s fault.

What Shifted

The retreat gave me more trust in awareness and in my capacity to be okay. I saw repeatedly that fear is usually worse than whatever I’m afraid of. But the bigger shift was a reorientation. I’d come hoping that more metta and jhana practice would bring transcendence — rising above the messiness of human experience. What I left with was the opposite conviction: being with my body, chakras, and emotions is the path. Radiating metta from the head while ignoring the body below isn’t freedom, it’s spiritual bypassing with good concentration.

Practice that brings me down into the body to live my humanity, rather than escape it — that’s what I’m pursuing now. What remains: a deeper trust in life. A changed relationship with time — the retreat felt like a single day, and later I often found myself simply in the present moment without a sense of time. When things get hard, I turned to practice intuitively in the months after. And after the retreat I felt a sense or glimpse how emptiness might be all-encompassing love, and that I might be able to infuse my whole experience with it within this lifetime.

For the other side of this retreat experience — what I learned about the teacher — see When Your Meditation Teacher Becomes the Lesson.

anattā – 𑀅𑀦𑀢𑁆𑀢𑀸

LED installation

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Going for a walk in the forest on the last day, the forest and sun rays were captivating as I saw them with fresh eyes like for the first time.

forgiveness practice, trauma and finding a safe anchor in the heart

This has been the second silent retreat of my life after the 6-day silent retreat with Catherine McGee at Gaia House earlier this year. On the first day everyone had to lock away their phone so for the next 10 days I’d be fully with my experience with little distractions. I started with forgiveness practice for the first three days of the retreat. That meant that I would observe all the thoughts I had throughout the day and forgive them. And I was in for a shock. The whole day my mind was thinking thoughts that were completely referring to the past. My thoughts were mainly going back to replaying situations from my childhood and school as a teenager. Silence at the dinner table due to being on a silent retreat? My mind wouldn’t care and started thinking about being in trouble because there must be some conflict at the dinner table. Looking deeper of course that was how my childhood dinner with family looked like very often. My mind did not care that I was now an adult sitting with meditators at a silent dinner table. I knew I had an at times very abusive upbringing with psychological and physical violence, but after this experience, it became very clear to me that my mind was still living in that time for the majority of the day. No wonder that I was having trouble with depressive episodes and anxiety for all my life. It was likely mostly the body-mind replaying past memories and patterns. 
During the first days of forgiveness meditation, I forgave every thought I had. I had some tears coming up at times, but was never able to really let go and cry. In hindsight, since I could totally do that after the retreat I think that some part of me was holding back and was not feeling fully safe to allow feeling the grief. At times I could also catch some suicidal thoughts, a car going by and some thought of jumping in front of it would come up. I forgave myself for that and also used some IFS moves to ask that part of myself for its reasons. It turned out that the part wanted to protect me from experiencing pain, which I thanked it for and explained that I have learned ways to deal with pain and stay alive. Additionally, I developed a rash around my eyes for a couple of days that probably were the result of some triggers making the body release lots of cortisol.

A couple of days later Delson had me switch to loving kindness practice. His presence was such that it felt like he was practicing what he was preaching. He felt very present in the moment and it felt like whatever emotion, worry, etc. I threw at him would dissipate into equanimity. Besides the technical instructions the interviews conveyed a deep sense of trust in the process and it felt like the core message was: Everything will unfold by itself, accept whatever is arising.

An excerpt from my notebook.


At the middle of the retreat, I started to have such fine awareness and control over my attention that I could play with it and spread it in a circle around my head, move it to any body part, and spread it across the entire body. Having this great detailed awareness of where my attention is spatially was so fun and nothing I ever experienced so strongly outside retreat. Then after some time, I would start to have trouble falling asleep. A lot of fear would come up before sleeping. The most magnificent thing I noticed there was how my consciousness would be pulled by some force into the past, some traumatic memories. I did not access them, it was just a hunch. And then I could immediately feel how attention would be pulled back to my heart. I would then invoke some metta (feeling of loving kindness) and lie in bed with warmth spreading out from the heart in my chest and I felt protected from this movement of mind trying to pull me into the past. After that experience, I was sure that I want to permanently have what Delson called a lighthouse or anchor in the heart. According to Delson that is the only kind of real safety we can have and it made a lot of sense to me. It made sense not logically, but experientally it became very clear to me that this is true and incredibly powerful and valuable.

expanded awareness and Alexander Technique


At some point in the middle of the retreat, I figured out that I was doing everything I did with an amount of unnecessary tension. When I notice that and relax it’s the same move as taught in Alexander Technique class. Only that I rediscovered it by myself as a byproduct of meditation. If I relax in that way my spine extends, my shoulders broaden and my awareness widens. It was obvious that the form of the body and that of consciousness are directly linked, in everyday life I just often lack the fine-tuned perception to catch it. I could very clearly notice how I had the habit of making myself small by tensing up and that I could just relax instead. My awareness of my body increased by a factor of ten. I felt like my upper body was noticeably bigger than how I felt it in everyday life before. I learned a motion indescribable by words where I could relax in a way that my neck would get long and it felt like it grew 10cm even though I know that was physically not the case but the feeling was such. It was like I learned to un-tense into confidence. The first couple times it felt like my shoulders are in the wrong place, above where they were supposed to be. But that was just my habit of making myself small. In my teacher interview, I asked if permanent expanded awareness was something I would get from continuing the practice. Delson told me that this was not the ultimate goal but a side effect. I could see how in my experience I would get triggered and my awareness would be contracted. And how ultimately healing and meditation are intertwined in that staying in expanded awareness is a result of healing or having integrated most triggers.

An excerpt from my notebook.

deepening practice and insight

During my sits, I would just think of a spiritual friend at the start to invoke metta. I did that for a while and the metta got stronger and stronger. At some point, it got so strong that I would always get a bright flickering white light after sitting for a while. At some point, I was given the instructions to radiate the metta into six directions from my head. I proceeded to do so. This felt different. The metta felt more tranquil and from my understanding was Jhana four. I radiated it to all six directions and at the same time followed the instruction to just let the meditation happen instead of trying to meditate. It was kinda like radiating a white flickering fog out of my head, kinda like when you are on an airplane and you fly through a cloud and look out the window. I could notice how I was focusing on the feeling of metta radiating and then some tension in my body arose and I would just relax it. On one day when I felt like it was the deepest I ever got in meditation, I could see how there were tension knots in my body and then they would bubble upwards into my head where a little bubble would pop, and then in its place a thought would appear. I could see how thoughts were directly caused by the tensions in my body. That felt very trippy and since I was completely sober it’s harder to dismiss than a psychedelic experience.

An excerpt from my notebook.

Also at some point in meditation, I was just watching how the meditation was happening, I was watching how something that was not me was relaxing tensions in my field of awareness. Then relaxing that one tension would reconfigure the whole tension pattern and like solving a puzzle something would relax another tension knot. All of that was just happening by itself. It felt like I was watching the mind or consciousness like my core learning algorithm executing. Was that happening all the time on the low level and I just never looked so deep into what was going on? Since I was not able to see this deep after retreat again this experience has been hard to integrate.

Some other finer points of consciousness and meditation I learned. First I asked Delson if I should stop looking for blockages, hidden grief etc. and his answer was that I should let everything just come up by itself. Also that I should watch for what the intention behind looking for blockages is, if it is aversion I should beware. Then there are constructive jhanas as in invoking them by using metta or concentration and deconstructive jhanas as in if I simply relaxed I would end up in a jhanic state at some point without trying to get there. I asked Delson about how therapy is replacing one tension pattern with another whereas the TWIM meditation is just relaxing it fully and he confirmed that this is the case. Also, he said that it is not necessary to be fully aware of what I am letting go of. There will always be some tensions, just accept them. Also what I found interesting was how during the interviews Delson would sometimes look away and look back at me when I would un-tense. It seemed like he was somehow rewarding me nonverbally for un-tensing which I found interesting.

metta circle and feeling the intimacy of the moment

Another great experience at the retreat was the metta circle on one of the last days led by Delson’s assistants. The idea was that we would sit in a group of about 15 in a circle and one of us would sit in the middle and then everyone would close their eyes and send loving kindness to the person in the middle. That was huge for me. I was a bit skeptical if I could feel it or let the love in. But when it was my turn and I sat in the middle I noticed I was trying to receive the metta and just relaxed. At some point, my visual field just lit up with bright light and I wasn’t doing anything. I did not put in any effort and it felt like and the metta was stronger than in many of my sits. This was a huge eye-opener for me and I realised that I could just do the same thing in my sits, fully receiving the metta instead of efforting to create it. Also, this gentle, respectful way of showering someone with love opened my eyes to how in my everyday life I always thought I had to do something to show love and affection when actually it was also possible in this incredibly gentle way. I also remember that sometimes I would feel lonely and miss my friends, but just sitting with tea in the dining hall in the presence of another retreatant would dissolve it, it was great to be able to appreciate this subtle feeling of togetherness and connection without any words. These encounters revealed the intimacy of everyday moments that normally would have gone past me.

feeling the calling of the dharma

Also on the last day the noble-silence was ended for everyone. I could feel how that brought up some social anxiety and how interacting with others would bring up more triggers and I could feel how it required booting up some sense of self for me. Everyone was incredibly diverse and I talked to a bunch of folks and what struck me was how it seemed that the longer folks practiced the more themselves and normal they seemed to me. Somehow it correlated with how much they dared to be themselves. I somehow had this image in my mind that the advanced practitioners would fit some peaceful and serene image of Buddhist monks. It was hugely inspiring that they seemed like normal folks. Also, I could tell that those who had a lot of practice were somehow easy to talk to and it was like spending time with them was transmitting some openness and easefullness effortlessly. To me, it seemed like I was being drawn in by that and it was the dharma speaking to me and inviting me to go further. What stuck in my mind was that someone told me “If you give to the dharma, the dharma will give to you”. The whole experience was amazing, there were these humans that I just met 10 days ago and they were all so loving and kind to me. It felt like they were all my friends. It resembled some memories from my techno clubbing days in Berlin where with the help of MDMA in the after hour everyone was also exceptionally open and friendly with each other. But here on the retreat, it felt more heartfelt and genuine than the chemical kindness of MDMA. But there were similarities, just pointing out how great and beautiful the world looked to each other all the time and being all smiles. Also I could glimpse how powerfully different it is to see the world where everyone is my friend by default and I could see that it is possible to see the world that way through practice.

Still, I sensed that underneath all the metta was still some fundamental fear present in me. Going out in the world was like seeing everything for the first time. I looked at everyone’s faces and when I sat for meditation I could just go to the first or fourth Jhana in a couple minutes which was amazing. And it felt like I could do this even while walking or sitting somewhere not formally meditating. Sitting at the airport all the kindness from the folks at the retreat hit me and I cried for an entire hour during a sit. I felt that the world and people were good and kind and that I had this image of humans as inherently dangerous learned from my abusive upbringing that was just not true. I realised that love and kindness could feel this good and safe and that I probably hadn’t experienced that in a group so immediately in this way before. I felt enormous gratitude.

post-retreat integration

After the retreat, I became aware of how my mind lives in the past further, which seems almost funny, like thoughts looping after getting up about not wanting to get up, because I do not want to go to school. But the school my mind thinks it’s going to is the school I went to as a teenager. I had to explain to this part of me that I would never have to go to this school again. Then a couple of days later after the retreat ended I had a sit in front of a mirror and I experimented with sending myself love while looking into my own eyes. I noticed that when I do the Alexander Technique move of relaxing my body such that I become taller and wider and additionally keep attention in my eyes I started crying. My eyes felt painful, like a burning sensation which from my understanding might be resistance to feeling grief. I kept feeling it and cried for an hour during that sit. After that, the doors to grief were wide open. I cried every day, more after my sits during walks that lasted an hour up to three hours for the next weeks. It got pretty intense, I could catch glimpses of thoughts around this. That grief must be decade-old grief that I was never allowed to feel as a child. After a couple of weeks of that, I could also sense some feeling of hopelessness and even suicidal thoughts at times. I just noticed them and tried to send those parts of me love and compassion. The thing that ultimately stopped those thoughts from coming up again was a ketamine therapy I started later. While ultimately beneficial for my life I have to mention that it did destabilize my life for a couple of weeks. Paradoxically feeling safer in my own heart allowed me to make more risky decisions in changing my life and that kinda of led to more instability and change. So from the outside, it looked like I was in a worse place while it was reflecting the truth of where I always have been more honestly. Still, I learned that the retreat probably reduced some amount of dissociation considerably and that led to feeling that my life was out of alignment with my true needs and wants. That can be quite disturbing, but I kept trusting my heart and followed its advice. During sits, I could now discern between when my mind would answer and when my heart would answer, when in doubt I would listen to my heart. 
Also, there were some other consequences. With my master’s thesis, I started to write my one-page expose and I just felt how uninterested I was in the whole topic I chose. I realised that with my job and thesis topic, I chose things by that others considered them to be great. But these things actually for me were out of alignment with my true interests. And while there were fun sides to going to work, I dreaded doing the work, and then just went into a Jhana state at times, which made the work more pleasant. But over the long run, I couldn’t pretend to like something I did not like. Also, I was dealing with feeling through hours of grief each day and just did not have any energy left for doing much else except meeting friends and getting support to stay afloat. In hindsight, I should have planned two or three months of downtime after the retreat for integration.

The same with friends and my roommates doing things I did not feel good about. I somehow had weeks of difficult conversations with friends where I told them things were pre-retreat I would have been too afraid to speak about these things, too much aggression, passive-aggression, feeling jealous, and what I saw as unkind treatment of others. Also, I felt less defended and got a lot of feedback on where I was self-righteous, saw myself as a victim, and have been passive-aggressive. All in all a humbling experience to realise how blind I was to those things. I think because I found a home in my heart and was okay with feeling grief I stopped being afraid of doing things where I might lose some friendships as well as my self-image. So I was able to take bigger risks that I was not able to take before. I am more myself now. And I learned that doing the scary things was better for me and my friends in the long run. I was surprised by the understanding and encouragement I got from the majority of friends and strangers to be honest about what I think.

Overall this retreat experience and TWIM have profoundly shifted the trajectory of my life. I am very certain now that meditation is an extremely subtle but powerful practice to reduce my own and others’ suffering. During the retreat, many painful truths came up, and meeting them with patience and kindness was a great way to suffer less. A retreat can reduce dissociation to a degree that you might find yourself in a lot more perceived tension than pre-retreat.

May you find your path in your own time towards a home in your heart friend.

TL;DR (by ChatGPT)

This post details my transformative journey through a Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM) retreat. It helped me break patterns of guilt and shame, uncover deep-seated traumas, and understand my depressive episodes and anxiety. The retreat fostered a sense of presence, acceptance, and expanded awareness in me. I gained insights into the mind-body connection and the power of love and kindness. Post-retreat, I experienced intense emotional release and self-realization, leading to significant life changes. I learned the importance of authenticity, honesty, and listening to my heart. The experience underscored the need for downtime after such an intense retreat for proper integration and adjustment. This retreat has been a life-changing journey, inspiring self-discovery and healing.

Curium

12U CubeSat on board computer software

Gallery

At the end of the retreat, I went to London, which was quite a stark contrast to the quiet and peaceful scenery of the rural landscape around the retreat center oozing stillness and peacefulness. But even though it was harder to notice, I could still access the stillness within. It’s always there when I am sensitive enough to look for it. I also noticed colors more intensely and saw the positive and beautiful everywhere, all after five days of maybe six hours of daily meditation in a mix of walking and sitting meditation.

The library and the entire place is truly beautiful and encourages you to become more present.

I am pretty sure now that Alexander Technique is basically a form of social body awareness meditation. You can get to the same place without a teacher and just by returning awareness to the whole body over and over. It’s also bringing students to expanded awareness and ultimately nondual awareness. Over the five days, I noticed my awareness expanding outside but also within my body. At some point, I could feel my hips during walking and generally my whole body. That then automatically improved my posture because my body would automatically untense as soon as awareness was in the tensed area. Also, the feeling after the retreat coming back to the city was similar to receiving Alexander Technique sessions and then walking through Berlin. Awareness is expanded, and I just look everywhere more curiously. There is joy in more small things, the neon light in front of the restaurant, the palm trees. The small becomes big and magical. So there’s more joy in the day.

My main takeaway was that I realized I could still meditate with less effort. Just holding the intention of whatever the goal of the meditation is lightly is enough. Willpower, at the point I am at, is of no more value. And I can notice the effort level in my breath. The more effort I put into meditation (or anything else, for that matter), the more turbulent my breath feels. When there is no effort, the breath feels like a laminar flow without any resistance and is barely audible. I realized that in the big meditation hall, when my breath was significantly more audible, that I was still efforting way more than needed, even when breathing out. But breathing out requires no effort. Doing nothing, the exhale just happens. With this more light way of meditating, I am more sensitive, and I can still work with upcoming dullness or boredom. Instead of using effort, I use the gentle but firm intention of returning to my goal of meditation and addressing whatever concern with acceptance and love.

Another thing I loved about the retreat was Catherine McGee’s charisma in person, which really stood out. She radiated a loving softness with a very confident and strong core. Something I have not seen in a person I met in person before. Some meditation teachers come off as loving but maybe somehow in an unbalanced soft way. She embodied what she spoke of and also explicitly pointed out some things I was missing in many meditation instructions. For example, her approach is very body-centered. So starting off with a shake session and just patting down your own body.

Another new idea I got from the retreat was in a talk by Catherine McGee, who explained how emptiness can help you be sensitive without becoming overwhelmed. I always struggled with meditation making me overly sensitive and wondered how I could cope with it in the real world. McGee pointed out that emptiness is not a goal in itself but rather a tool that can help you navigate the world while being sensitive. Another new idea I got from the retreat was in a talk by Catherine McGee, who explained how emptiness can help you be sensitive without becoming overwhelmed. I always struggled with meditation making me overly sensitive and wondered how I could cope with it in the real world. McGee pointed out that emptiness is not a goal in itself but rather a tool that can help you navigate the world while being sensitive.

Another valuable insight McGee shared was that having attention in your belly can help you stay grounded. This point resonated with me and helped me to cultivate more groundedness in my daily life.

After the retreat, I was able to access Jhana one and two, which was a significant accomplishment for me. I could access them two years ago and then lost the ability to access them. Basically I put in a lot of effort over two years to learn that I need to stop putting in so much effort if I want to access them. I found that by holding the intention of accessing Jhana gently and patiently, I could enter these states more easily. What I found most powerful was imagining a loving other in the second Jhana. It felt like having a real person hold space for my parts and difficult emotions. The after-effects were remarkable, with more equanimity and joy throughout the day. In the Jhanas, attention and awareness are like train tracks that won’t budge, which helped me bring awareness to body parts that needed healing. I want to use the Jhanas to do Internal Family Systems healing work on myself rather than starting insight practice. That seems healthier to me, first strengthen psychological health before I start deconstructing my ways of looking and perception.

I also attended an Alexander Technique workshop after the retreat, which helped me realize that I could put even less effort into accessing the Jhanas after noticing how it is easier to catch a ball if I just don’t use any effort and let my body do it perfectly. During the Alexander Technique class, I learned how attention and awareness work in social group dynamics and how they relate to power and status. When people see someone as high status, they give them attention, and that person then directs others’ attention and awareness. With meditation and Alexander Technique, the goal is to direct awareness and attention mostly to oneself, which gives you permission to go wherever you want. So it’s understandable why people want to have a career and high status, it feels more fun to be in expanded awareness in social settings. But what many people don’t know is with meditation or Alexander Technique you get the same feeling, but without having to rely on external factors to give you permission. What an amazing pitch for meditation that is huh.

In the Alexander Technique class, when the teacher opened the student’s awareness, I could feel the student seeming to command the room as an equal to the teacher. However, a pitfall of Alexander Technique is that this experience of expanded awareness may be tied to permission from the teacher more easily than with meditation. With meditation practice, the teacher is far removed, so you realize that you are giving yourself permission to expand your awareness. But a good Alexander Technique teacher should be aware of this and make sure you credit yourself for expanding your awareness.

Overall, attending a silent retreat and learning about Jhanas and Alexander Technique was a life-changing experience for me. I’m grateful for the insights and tools I gained, and I hope to continue integrating them into my daily life.