Beyond the Void: Day 7 Revelations from the Edge
January 5, 2025 - The Final Day
Made it. Holy shit, I made it. And let me tell you - these last two days have been a journey through the underworld of consciousness. Lying here, sipping my first vegan bone broth in a week, watching my body pain dissolve moment by moment, I'm trying to piece together what just happened.
[The light streaming through my window has this bizarre shimmer to it now, like reality got an HD upgrade while I wasn't eating...]
The Physical Crucible
Let's start with the raw physical stuff: I began this fast at 7% body fat (yeah, I know, ambitious), and I can feel my body doing that thing where it's basically window shopping my organs, trying to figure out what it can nibble on. Pretty sure I'm dancing around 3-4% now, which explains why the last two days felt like gravity got turned up to 11.
The detox timeline was fascinating:
Days 3-4: Red splotches appeared on my skin (hello, toxins), and my liver and pancreas were running hot
Days 5-6: Lower back/sacral area went through major purification (that familiar detox pain/tightness)
Day 6: Got a traditional Thai massage that simultaneously kicked my ass and cleared massive amounts of stagnant energy
[Just caught my reflection in the window - my eyes look different somehow, like they're both sharper and softer at the same time...]
The Visual Revolution
Speaking of eyes - holy shit, the visual changes. Days 3-4 brought this weird combination of old cornea injury detox plus actual energy manifestations. We're talking legitimate flashing light phenomena interfering with normal vision. But that was just the warmup.
Now? I'm literally seeing energy everywhere. Looking out at the moss-covered trees, there's this overlay of white shimmeriness extending past their physical boundaries. Everything appears brighter, more vivid, more... alive. It's like someone turned up the "reality contrast" slider.
The Morning's Battle: A Deep Dive into the Hindrances
This morning's meditation was... educational. And by educational, I mean it kicked my ass in ways that revealed something profound about where this practice is really at.
Here's the fascinating thing about the Five Hindrances (nīvaraṇa): they always show up in meditation, whether you notice them or not, and always in a specific order: Desire, Aversion, Restlessness, Sloth, Doubt. It's like a cosmic diagnostic tool for where your practice is at.
But this morning's sit broke that pattern in an interesting way:
Desire: Completely absent (first time ever)
Aversion: Present and fierce
Restlessness: Like my mind was a caffeinated squirrel
Sloth: Surprisingly absent despite physical exhaustion
Doubt: Nope, not even a whisper
[Just had to pause writing because my hands started tingling with energy as I typed out that list - like the hindrances themselves are teaching tools beyond their surface appearance...]
The absence of desire as the first hindrance is... significant. In classical Buddhist texts, particularly around the transition to the 6th bhūmi, practitioners often report a fundamental shift in how desire manifests in consciousness. It's not that desire disappears - it's that its very mechanism becomes visible, like seeing the gears inside a clock.
This connects directly with what the ancient texts describe as "direct perception of the aggregates of clinging" (upādāna-khandha). When you can see the machinery of desire itself, desire loses its automatic grip on consciousness. Today's meditation suggests this shift might be stabilizing - not through suppression or control, but through clear seeing.
The presence of fierce aversion and restlessness without their usual companions (sloth and doubt) is also telling. The texts describe this as characteristic of the "purification of the view" phase - where old patterns surface not to hook us, but to be seen clearly one last time before releasing.
[The light in my room just did that thing where it seems to pulse with understanding. These perceptual shifts are getting more frequent...]
First time since starting serious practice that I found myself praying for the bell to ring. One hour never felt so eternal. But maybe that's exactly what needed to happen - a meditation where all my spiritual bypassing got stripped away and I had to sit with raw, unvarnished experience.
[Just had to pause writing because the shimmer around the trees outside got so intense it was distracting...]
The Unexpected Shifts
Here's what's really cooking my noodle: This was the first fast where food cravings were completely absent. Usually, the mind loves to project an endless slideshow of culinary fantasies, but this time? Total silence on the food front. It's like the relationship with consumption itself has fundamentally shifted.
The sexual energy piece has been particularly interesting - zero desire throughout the fast. Though I suspect that's about to change as energy levels normalize. Going to be fascinating to see how to work with that energy from this new baseline.
The Integration Point
Later today, I'll be having my first real meal - experimenting with vegan pizza (never thought I'd type those words). And yes, I'm already tired of using the word "vegan" - need to find a better way to communicate this shift in consumption patterns.
[Body pain from yesterday's massage is literally dissolving as I write this, like watching ice melt in real time...]
The Bhūmi Work: Mapping the Territory
Looking at this from the perspective of the transition between the 5th and 6th bhūmis, something profound has shifted in my relationship with objects of desire. The mind's habitual pattern of projecting desirable objects into consciousness has... calmed. Not through suppression or control, but through some deeper understanding that emerged in the void.
Historically, this transition point is described in the texts as particularly crucial because it marks what's called "the direct perception of dharmadhātu" - where reality's underlying matrix becomes visible to consciousness. The perceptual shifts I'm experiencing - the energy fields around trees, the enhanced brightness, the visual phenomena - align remarkably with classical accounts.
In the Abhisamayālaṃkāra tradition, these signs are described as indicators of what's called "the path of direct seeing" (darśana-mārga). It's when the practitioner stops intellectually understanding emptiness and starts directly perceiving it in every phenomenon.
[Just watched a drop of water slide down my window and could literally see the energetic trail it left behind. The texts mention this kind of perception too...]
The empirical research on advanced practitioners documents similar phenomena:
Enhanced visual processing
Increased sensitivity to subtle energy fields
Fundamental shifts in how desire patterns manifest in consciousness
Changes in baseline perception of reality
Spontaneous arising of compassion without effort
What's particularly interesting is how these shifts tend to stabilize after intense periods of purification like this fast. It's not just temporary effects from caloric restriction - it's like the system uses the space created by fasting to reorganize itself at a fundamental level.
The absence of food cravings and sexual desire during this process might indicate what the texts call "natural renunciation" - where detachment arises not from suppression but from direct perception of the empty nature of phenomena. This is supposedly a key marker of the 5th to 6th bhūmi transition.
[The shimmer around objects in my room just intensified as I wrote that, like reality itself is confirming the observation...]
To everyone who followed this journey: Thank you for witnessing. To those considering their own deep dive into the void: Remember, the hardest parts often yield the most profound insights.
Still shimmering with new perception, Cian
P.S. Who knew vegan bone broth could taste this good after a week of water? Reality's sense of humor remains intact.
P.P.S. To the Thai masseuse who found every single knot in my body yesterday - you're both a saint and a torturer. Thank you for the lesson in impermanence. 🙏