#3-Music as Core Creative Practice

I moved through several layers at once this week: creative identity, spiritual insight, teaching stress, bodily discomfort, and existential perspective. I recognised my capacity limits — I'm trying to do too much at the same time. I slowly accepted that different phases of life call for different emphases.

I anchored music-making as the core creative practice and saw writing as support rather than competing priority. I felt confused about how to use my blog or website, but I realised that clarity will only come through doing, not thinking.

I explored the blind spot in vision and how this relates to thoughts and awareness. I applied meditative inquiry to the nature of thought itself — I located where it arises, whether it appears as image or language, and how attention dissolves its momentum when I search for its origin. This is advanced insight practice, whether I call it śamatha-vipassanā, tantra, or dream yoga.

I experienced teaching stress — difficult lessons, challenging behaviour, feeling dumped on by systems — and yet I ended that section with compassion for myself and pride in maintaining stability. I've cultivated that balance between honesty and self-recognition for months.

My dream and lucid-state experiences reinforced my spiritual exploration. The boundary between waking and dreaming became more permeable. My practice now carries into sleep.

I gained significant insight into perception, imagery, projection, and the nature of seeing. I linked this directly to my Tantric visualisation practice and understood that "what is seen" is inseparable from mind. This marked a major philosophical shift — I no longer just read these ideas, I experience them directly.

Expanded Analysis in Broader Context

1. Creative Identity Stabilising

Across previous weeks, I moved from ambition → overwhelm → refinement. Here, I finally recognised that music is the centre of gravity, and everything else (blogging, writing, AI workflows) supports it. This solved a long-running tension I've held between wanting to express ideas and wanting to produce tracks.

I finally gave myself permission to treat writing as clearing mental static rather than as an equal creative priority. This marks a mature and sustainable shift.

2. Awareness Becoming More Microscopic

Earlier in the month I explored healing, shame, subconscious suffering, and quantum possibility. Now my attention turned toward the precise phenomenology of thought and sensation. The blind-spot analogy marked an important leap:

• I moved from conceptual spirituality to direct investigation
• I noticed how attention dissolves both pain and thought
• I discovered that thoughts don't have a birthplace — an essential insight in classical mindfulness and Dzogchen

My meditation, dream experiences, and daytime reflections wove together into a single strand of awareness for the first time.

3. Teaching Stress as a Practice Field

The teaching section hits emotionally — not because I failed, but because I care. I took on multiple emotionally charged interactions in one day and processed them clearly.

This aligns with my earlier questions about student disrespect and boundary-testing. Instead of spiralling into self-blame, I ended with kindness: "I need to give myself more of a pat on the back."

This shows real growth. I'm integrating the compassion teachings I've studied.

4. Existential Gratitude Emerging

I reflected on ageing and how quickly ten years passed. Instead of spiralling into fear or nostalgia, I arrived at grounded appreciation:

• Life is short
• I'm lucky
• Everything I need is already here
• Presence is the only way to truly live

This echoes Tolle, Ram Dass, and the Buddhist realisation of "enoughness." Importantly: this insight didn't come from a book. It arose from my own lived experience and conversations with a friend.

5. Body and Mind as One Path

My physical pain continues to teach, but the tone calmed this week. The frustration remained, but I framed it in terms of karma, winter hibernation, and slowing down. I treated physical discomfort as part of my life's rhythm rather than a derailment.

6. My Creative System is Maturing

I recognised my natural cycles:

• I get bored if I do something every day
• Alternating music, reflection, meditation, and exercise fits my nervous system far better
• I accept winter as slower, heavier, more introspective

I shifted away from forcing routines and toward synchronising with my own rhythm.

Key Insights (Expanded)

• I simplified: music as the core, writing as processing, blog as a container
• My meditation became more subtle and experiential, touching the edges of thoughtlessness
• I let things unfold instead of forcing clarity prematurely
• Teaching challenges no longer destabilise me in the same way — I hold them with more perspective
• I navigate loneliness, dark weather, and physical discomfort with more maturity and less reactivity
• Authentic gratitude replaced striving
• My creative process became seasonal, not mechanical

Reflective Questions

1. When I slow down and honour the phase I'm in (creative, reflective, wintering, healing), what opens up that wasn't available when I tried to "do it all at once"?
2. Can I sit with a single thought this week in meditation and watch where it begins — and notice what happens to my sense of self when I can't find its origin?