I've been noticing a pattern. When encountering any new experience, I may first dismiss it, next resist it, and then finally yield to it.

However, sometimes I simply yield without first dismissing and resisting something. That would be if I am ripe and open to something. Otherwise, a new experience may result first in a temporary breakdown before a breakthrough. What gets broken down? An error, a mistake, an illusion, a vanity or some other attachment breaks down and then a sudden breakthrough can develop.

At the root of resistance and breakdowns is attachment. When life uproots my attachments, that can produce a breakthrough- like transplanting a seedling into some rich soil where deep roots can be spread and nourished.

If you are willing to have a breakthrough develop from some recent breakdown in your life, I invite you to keep reading. The next breakthrough could be happening suddenly any moment.


Now, when a seed first germinates, the best soil provides a stable base for the seed to stretch its roots. Some soil is very hard and dense, and the seed does not take root. Some soil is soft and loose, and the seed does not take root in that soil either. However, the best soil for a particular seed is any soil that works for that seed to stretch its roots.

Attachments are like those roots. Sometimes a plant can flourish abundantly without uprooting the original attachments for that plant. Sometimes a plant can flourish abundantly after uprooting those original attachments and possibly even disturbing the soil. What is best for any particular plant depends on the plant and on the soil.

So, returning to the explicit possibility of a personal breakthrough that you are willing to experience, consider whether you can imagine a particular issue. If you can specify an issue, then consider if can you just dismiss the issue? Is it a minor or temporary issue, or is it something that is persisting and growing in magnitude?

If it has not been persisting and growing, consider identifying another issue that has been urgent- or at least persisting and growing. If you have selected an issue that has persisted and grown even if you have been dismissing it, then you may be ripe for a breakthrough.


Next, consider if you can just resist the issue. Maybe it has been persisting and growing, yet there is some other focus that you value instead of focusing on that. You can acknowledge the persistent issue, yet simply resist it- like intervening to remedy a symptom of healing to slow or interrupt the healing process in order to focus on something else.

Resisting a particular issue may allow you to prioritize and focus elsewhere- even if only temporarily. Resisting is similar in some ways to dismissing an issue, but acknowledges the issue as a possible future focus (while, in contrast, dismissing an issue does not require even noticing it at all).

Resisting an issue implies that the resisting is temporary, but also may be persisting. There may be an ongoing remedial intervention to hold a certain issue temporarily in remission while maintaining focus on some other issue. A resisted issue will either be "upgraded" to an urgent issue, or some other issue will be the focus of urgent attention first, and if any other issues that are valuable to focus on instead have all been resolved, then it could be optional to discontinue resisting an issue and actually directly explore it- even if not especially urgent. Or perhaps the investment of energy into resisting a certain issue may eventually be so exhausting as to frustrate any alternative except discontinuing resistance immediately.

So, if you declare that you are unable or unwilling to effectively resist any issue that is urgent or at least persistent and growing, then you may been ripe for a breakthrough... perhaps soon, but not quite yet. There is one more stage before a breakthrough.


A plant does not uproot itself. Attachments cling to the soil, which is their purpose and function. However, we are not plants. We can declare a breakdown and discontinue our investment into resisting an issue.

Declaring a breakdown is admitting that we may have been resisting something. We may have been attached to one thing and resisting a transplant to a new context for experience. However, we may feel an attraction or a seemingly outside force pulling at us, matching or overwhelming any attachments we may have been holding and resistance we may have been practicing.

First, we may have dismissed something, then declared it a symptom to resist temporarily as we focus elsewhere, then declared that we value the issue (and the resolution of the issue) rather than just continuing to resist it. We may have declared a breakdown in our resistance- discontinuing it or "giving it up"- as we open to a breakthrough.

Sometimes a major breakthrough follows a single instant in which I practice relaxing a single attachment. Sometimes that instant follows a long series of practices of relaxing a complex network of attachments- like suddenly releasing the soil from an entire root system, perhaps after a long period of loosening.


Or, there may be nothing to practice. Either there are current attachments that hold or not. Maybe I am the one who has been resisting, but then I yield. However, maybe it is just the soil that resists for however long, and then eventually loosens and yields.

The plant does not transplant itself. The plant may just grow. Wherever the plant is rooted, and however it is rooted into whatever soil it is rooted it, the plant either grows or not. Either a plant is transplanted or not. Either there is already a breakthrough or not yet- and if not, is a breakthrough ever guaranteed?

Some seeds germinate. That is their design. Some sprout up, breaking through the soil into a seedling. That is their design, too.

However, when a plant is transplanted, that is not the design of the plant. A transplant may happen or not. There is nothing inherent in the seed or plant that brings about a transplant, right?

Of course, we still are not plants. In fact, we may have always been transplants- like by design.

The breakthrough of germination is possible. The breakthrough of the sprouting of a seedling is possible. The breakthrough of a transplant is possible, isn't it?


By the way, some say that death is just another transplant. Consider that your body is just the visible part of something- like the part above the ground- and there may be invisible roots and an invisible seed that may live even when there is no plant showing above the ground. Any body may be just one possible breakthrough, an expression or fulfillment of a particular design: temporary, beautifully desgned, and something to be attached to only as long as there is no other priority on which to focus instead.

Finally, in case you were wondering, if you had asked me when I started writing this whether I could have accurately predicted the content of that last paragraph, I would have said no. However, I did not have to predict it for it to happen, did I? The seed may not know it is designed to germinate and breakthrough the surface of the earth into a realm that it would not have predicted, might have even dismissed, and may have been resisting all the way up until however recently....

Consider also that the physical body is like a root system. Perhaps the body is designed to extend from a seed and then to nourish and give access to a breakthrough into another realm of experience. We may resist our design, but it is possible that our resistance is part of the design- allowing the roots to flourish so that a sprout can suddenly break through. Now, wouldn't that be interesting- to know what flavor of fruit might yield from this plant, rooted in these attachments, seeded by this design?