Why I Stack 21 Objects Daily Despite Being at Bhumi 6

The cosmic joke happened at 8:47 PM last Friday. I'd just finished writing about the effortless wisdom of the 6th bhumi, that stage of Buddhist realization where you're "facing forward" toward ultimate reality without intermediary. My tea was still warm. The evening felt perfect.

Then my phone buzzed. My Lunar Love couldn't make it over tonight—something came up with the kids, completely understandable given her situation.

And that's when my shoulders collapsed forward like someone had cut my strings.

[Writing this while sitting at the same desk, but now with 21 small objects lined up beside me—books, stones, a USB drive. Each one represents a breath, a moment of building capacity to stay present with what feels unbearable...]

The frenetic energy started immediately. That high-vibration anxiety that makes standing feel like too much effort. My chest closing in. The urge to cry rising from somewhere deeper than thought. And here's the kicker—I could witness it all happening with perfect clarity, that bhumi 6 awareness operating flawlessly, and I still couldn't stop it.

Welcome to the fourth test that Mara doesn't advertise. The one that comes after you've already passed the classic three.

The Tests Nobody Mentions

If you've studied the Buddha's awakening, you know about that night under the bodhi tree. Mara showed up with three archetypal challenges that every serious practitioner eventually faces:

The armies of fear and doubt attacked first. "Your survival depends on abandoning this path." The root chakra test of basic safety. I passed this one years ago during my dark night of the soul.

The daughters of desire came next, promising pleasure and sensual fulfillment. "Why suffer when you could enjoy?" The sacral chakra test. Transcended that through tantric practice—turns out you can have both pleasure and awakening.

The offer of worldly power arrived last. "You could rule rather than serve." The solar plexus test. As a tech executive who's tasted that particular poison, I know exactly where that road leads.

But here's what the dharma books don't tell you: there's a fourth test that arrives after stabilization. After you think you're done. After you've written blog posts about your effortless wisdom.

It's the attachment system test. And unlike the others, this one doesn't care about your spiritual achievements.

The Mammalian Override

I can sit in vipassana for hours, watching sensations arise and pass like clouds through empty sky. Anger? I hold it with compassion until it transforms. Shame? I feed it awareness until it reveals its gift. Guilt, sexual desire, even existential terror—I've learned to transmute them all.

But when this particular feeling hits—when the attachment system activates—something different happens. I become a 7-year-old trying to be perfect enough to avoid getting hit, disguised as a 44-year-old tech executive who just happens to really, really need his Lunar Love to sleep over tonight.

[Just noticed how Schrödinger's cat is watching me build today's tower. Even she seems to understand that some practices don't need to make sense to work...]

The attachment system is older than Buddhism. Older than consciousness practices. It's mammalian wiring that helped our ancestors survive by maintaining proximity to protective others. When it activates, it doesn't check your meditation credentials. It doesn't care that you've integrated your shadow or opened your third eye or stabilized non-dual awareness.

It just knows that anticipated connection got severed, and that means danger.

The Pattern Recognition

Looking back, I can see how this pattern has shaped my entire relationship history. In my DMT vision months ago, I saw it clearly—how I'd given pieces of my heart to my ex and ex-ex, letting them lead me around like a puppy on an invisible leash. That external validation meant safety. The absence of it meant threat.

My Lunar Love, bless her wisdom, refuses to take that piece. She doesn't want to lead me. Won't play that game. Which leaves the pattern spinning in empty space, looking for something to hook onto, finding nothing, and subsequently freaking the fuck out.

This is actually the universe's kindness, though I couldn't see it at first.

Building Towers in Milarepa's Cave

Not too long ago, in desperation, I created what I now call the Tower Practice. It sounds absurd when I describe it: I stack 21 objects—books, stones, whatever's nearby—while speaking this phrase with each placement: "Stone by stone, I build the capacity to stay."

It's based on Milarepa's story, the Tibetan yogi who had to build and rebuild stone towers as purification practice. But for me, it's become something else. It's literally creating new neural pathways for self-soothing. Somatic reprogramming through repetitive action.

The protocol is specific:

• If the intensity goes above 7/10, I stop and regulate

• Each object gets one conscious breath

• The phrase anchors presence in the body

• The physical stacking creates bilateral stimulation

[My daily tower from this morning is still standing on my altar. Twenty-one random objects that somehow became a prayer...]

After the tower comes the cave practice. Twenty minutes facing a wall, just me and the sensation. No escape routes. No spiritual bypassing. Just sitting with the collapsed chest, the forward shoulders, the urge to text something needy to my Lunar Love.

Then comes the demon feeding—imagining this fear as an entity, asking what it needs, offering it that exact quality until it transforms. Usually it wants weight, grounding, the sense of being held. Sometimes it just wants to be seen without judgment.

Finally, I write a doha—a spontaneous song of realization. Four to eight lines that capture what I've learned. Yesterday's went:

When the house felt too wide for one body,
I became the walls that hold themselves.
Each stone I stack builds a bridge
Between the child who needs and the man who stays.

The Paradox of Human Realization

Here's what I'm learning: this isn't a failure of bhumi 6. This IS bhumi 6 in a human body.

The fact that I can witness the collapse while it's happening? That's realization operating. The ability to feel the seven-year-old's terror without completely identifying with it? That's wisdom functioning. The choice to build towers instead of sending desperate texts? That's skillful means.

We think enlightenment means transcending our humanity. But what if it means including it so completely that even our attachment wounds become doorways to deeper compassion?

[Construction noise just started outside. Perfect timing, universe. Even the jackhammers want to participate in this teaching...]

The Science of Somatic Rewiring

From a neuroscience perspective, what I'm doing makes perfect sense. The attachment system operates through subcortical structures—the amygdala, hypothalamus, brainstem. These areas process threat faster than conscious thought. They're designed to override the prefrontal cortex when survival seems at stake.

Traditional meditation strengthens top-down regulation—prefrontal control over emotional responses. But attachment trauma needs bottom-up approaches. The body needs to learn, through repeated experience, that it's safe to be alone.

That's what the tower building does. It's bilateral stimulation (like EMDR) combined with grounding phrases (like somatic experiencing) wrapped in a ritual container (like indigenous healing practices). It looks weird from the outside, but it's actually sophisticated trauma integration.

The research on polyvagal theory backs this up. By combining movement, breath, and vocalization (the doha singing), I'm literally toning my vagus nerve, shifting my nervous system from sympathetic activation to parasympathetic regulation.

When Your Shadow Has a Point

The hardest part has been accepting that this pattern might have wisdom.

Yes, it's rooted in childhood trauma. Yes, it creates suffering. But it's also pointing to something real—humans need connection. We're social mammals. The idea that we should be completely self-sufficient islands of consciousness is actually the delusion.

My attachment system is just doing its job, albeit with outdated software. It's trying to ensure I maintain connections necessary for thriving. The problem isn't the need for connection—it's the panicked intensity when connection feels threatened.

[My Lunar Love just texted a heart emoji. Nothing else, just a heart. My shoulders immediately softened. The attachment system purred and went back to sleep. We're such simple creatures sometimes...]

The Universal Teaching

If you're reading this and recognizing yourself—if you've had profound spiritual openings but still struggle with basic attachment needs—know that you're not broken. You're not failing at awakening. You're just human.

The nervous system has its own timeline, separate from consciousness development. You can be established in witnessing awareness and still have a dysregulated vagus nerve. You can see through the illusion of self and still carry somatic memories of abandonment.

Sometimes the highest practice isn't transcending your humanity but learning to hold it with infinite tenderness. Sometimes enlightenment looks exactly like stacking 21 objects while crying.

The Deeper Pattern

What strikes me most is how this mirrors the larger journey of integration. We think spiritual development is about ascending beyond our animal nature, but what if it's about descending into it with full awareness?

The 6th bhumi isn't about being beyond attachment—it's about facing forward toward reality while attachment waves move through you. It's maintaining that stable witnessing even as your shoulders collapse. It's choosing to build a tower instead of abandoning yourself in someone else's arms.

Each time I complete the practice—tower, cave, demon feeding, doha—I'm literally rewiring decades of survival programming. Not through force or spiritual bypassing, but through patient, embodied presence.

Your Turn

What attachment patterns still run you, despite your spiritual development? Where does your mammalian wiring override your transcendent wisdom? What towers might you need to build?

Try this: Next time you feel that desperate need for external validation, pause. Put your hand on your chest. Say: "I see you, little one. You're safe now." Then do something physical—stack some books, arrange stones, organize your desk—while breathing consciously.

You might be surprised what happens when you give your nervous system a new pathway for that ancient energy.

The tower doesn't replace the need for connection. It just creates enough stability to reach for connection from wholeness rather than desperation. To text from love rather than fear. To be alone without abandoning yourself.

[Finishing this as my evening tower awaits—tonight's will be built from tea boxes, crystals, and USB drives. Each object a prayer that I can stay present with whatever arises. Each breath a promise to the seven-year-old that we're learning, slowly, how to hold ourselves...]

Keep building your towers and singing your songs,

• Cian