Dissolve

Origin · a chapter from the upcoming Dissolve Your Monsters book, by Andy

When I was fifteen, my mum dragged me to a spiritual healing retreat. One of her clients had pulled her in, and she grabbed the nearest available arm — mine. I protested, of course — it was school holidays, and I had parties to attend.

But the event blew my mind. It was built around energy work and mind cultivation — a Western Hermetics system called Alpha Dynamics. Something cracked open. I could see, for the first time, a very different reality. And so I practised that every day, for years.

At 21, my son Duran was born. A year later, his mum and I split — and almost on cue, I found the party scene.

But I’d always known my life would change at 30. I’d said it to friends years before. I didn’t know what was coming — just that something was going to happen.

My mum bought me Personal Power when I was around 21 — those Tony Robbins CDs everyone had in the nineties. I wore them out. So by the time I walked into an arena with him eight years later, his voice was already in me. Unleash the Power Within, Sydney, October 2004. Three thousand of us in an arena, shouting, dancing, walking across hot coals. I walked on fire with him — literally. The whole thing was astounding. The idea that I could push past what my mind said was impossible. And it was really an extension of the Alpha Dynamics stuff I’d done earlier.

So at the event, Tony had us write a list. A very detailed one. Goals, whys, timelines. He had us live that list, feel it — extrapolate forward into what our lives would be if we did the thing, and what they’d be if we didn’t. I wrote that list with such a deep intensity. I’d reached a point in my life where something — everything — had to change. I was successful, had everything I thought I wanted, but I just wasn’t content. It all felt a bit empty.

I didn’t know it at the time, but he was teaching me leverage. Fuel. How to find and understand ‘the reason why’ and use it as the engine that moves you. Years later, I was shocked to realise it was one of the foundations of my Dissolve training and teaching. It was a pillar of my life.

That list Tony had us start in the arena — I finished it properly at home. Everything I wanted from this life. Detailed. I even illustrated it. Three or four months later, I was in a Korean café eating kimchi when I spotted a flyer on the noticeboard. It had rip-off tabs along the bottom.

The poster didn’t mention taiji or qigong or meditation. Just a grainy photo of a Chinese martial arts master and four lines:

‘Do you want —
Supreme martial power
Unlimited internal health
Powerful mind
Inner peace’

I wanted all of those things.

So I tore off a tab, put it in my bag, and subsequently forgot all about it.

It resurfaced four months later, still floating around in there. I put it on my bedside table. Forgot about it again, for another couple of months.

It was my girlfriend at the time who actually called the number. She’d organised it as a birthday present. She called, Adam Mizner answered, and that was that.

The timing was absurd. Adam had returned from Thailand the day before she called — he’d been there eight months. If I’d called the day I found the tab, it would have rung out. Same if it had resurfaced any earlier. Dead number. Paper in the trash.

So I met Adam in 2005, on my 30th birthday, and within a couple of weeks he had moved into my house. I had a spare room and offered it to him. We lived together with Duran for a few years in the beginning, and on and off over the following years. We trained relentlessly: he was my teacher, but we pushed each other to train, and in the end we were training partners. In those early days we sat in meditation for around 5 hours a day, did qigong and Hermetics stuff for 2 or 3 hours and trained taiji for 2 or 3 hours … every day. For years. Back then it was Adam, Curtis, Nick Karram, Kim White, Cameron Hall and me… and that was it. There was no international organisation, we just trained in the park, in the forest or at home, and hung out. The whole life was practice, every breathing moment, even into sleep, and this never really deviated for the next two decades. Mark Rasmus was around at the time too, so we spent time with him and his students. It was a very magical and mystical period.

In 2007 Duran and I moved to Melbourne, Australia, where we built a live-in school in a warehouse: Heaven Man Earth Council (it was called Council back in the old days; it’s International now). We lived there, in that warehouse — training and teaching all day, every day. Curtis Brough and my students at the time — Paul McIntyre, Wu, Beck and Steven Kelly — all lived there with Duran and myself. During that time I also worked with the Victorian and Queensland Governments in the Mental Health, Correctional Facilities, and Education Departments, teaching how to neutralise stress and all that good stuff. This was pre-Jumnien, so it wasn’t Dissolve yet, but was still quite effective.

I lived like a monk in those days — firmly committed to the task of liberation. I slept on the floor, on a yoga mat in front of the altar in my school. Abstained from sex (mostly) and relationships, ate very simply, and really didn’t own much — my accountant would inform me every year that I was below the poverty line. I never really socialised, and my view of the body was that it wasn’t so important. It was all about getting control of my seemingly out-of-control mind. My whole life was a dedication. Albeit a slightly misguided one.

Even when I started travelling to Thailand and teaching around the world, my whole life was contained in two carry-on suitcases. One held a large ancient Buddha and a Jumnien statue, wrapped in my clothes to protect them. The other contained my books from the old masters, also wrapped in my few clothes — I had only a few sets of threads, almost a uniform. And, of course, as many amulets as I could fit around my neck. Even before meeting Jumnien, I looked up to him and the other masters, using the amulets as a connection to the lineage.

In 2011, with my two suitcases in my hands and Duran by my side, I arrived in Thailand. At this point I’d left HME — my first departure — to completely focus on meditation. We travelled throughout the country, in the back of pickups, on motorcycles, buses and boats, visiting masters in remote temples, sometimes staying for months at a time. Duran was about thirteen or fourteen at this point. Each day we’d wake at three or four in the morning to join the monks in chants and meditation, drive them into town for alms round, look after the temple, then continue meditation through the day and late into the night. Very magical.

It was just after this time that the concept and method of Dissolve was made clear to me, in 2012.

At this point I had been in deep practice mode since 2005. From the moment I met Adam, I dove headlong into training, spending most of the time practising — meditation, taiji, qigong and Hermetics — up to twelve hours or more a day.

He had changed my life, showing me a new way forward. I had a taste of freedom, and I wanted more.

In 2012, about a year after meeting Adam’s teacher, Luang Phor Jumnien Silasettho — Dissolve was born.

And within twelve months, I’d started treating clients in Chiang Mai, Phuket and Bangkok, Thailand.

Before this point, I’d been a little frustrated with teaching.

How do I transmit what I know? In the most concise manner possible. A new student walks in, I basically have an hour to show them what’s possible, what it feels like to release in a profound way. And if they don’t get it, I’ll probably not see them again.

And the methods I had at hand were, for a beginner, awkward and uncomfortable — the whole approach felt a little cumbersome, and long-winded.

I kept asking myself the same question: how do I show someone what this feels like? How do I transmit this?

That question became Dissolve.

In the beginning, when I started doing treatments, I would work without words. Just the process. And some people got it — they felt the release, they saw the effects, they understood. But the success rate was maybe 20 to 30 percent. Not bad. But not enough.

So after a while, I started talking people through it as I worked. Pointing to the process in real time. So they clearly understood. And of course, the success rate changed dramatically.

And here’s what makes Dissolve different from a regular treatment: I’m not just doing it to you. You are meeting me halfway. And that’s where the magic happens — in that meeting point. That’s where the monsters dissolve.

And this magic was not just mine. It was so transferable. Whether it was a treatment or a workshop, the result was similar. I could walk into a room of fifty workshop attendees, show them what to do, and they would be Dissolving each other right there, building their skills, building their joy.

There was clarity. There was transmission.

Meeting LP Jumnien was pivotal. Crucial. Incredible.

Before Jumnien, there were other teachers who shaped my path. Mark Rasmus — a now-famous Hermetics teacher — was one of the early influences; he was Adam’s teacher in the early days, so I spent some solid time with him.

I also spent many months in the forest temples of LP Tong, Kruba Noi, LP Plien and LP Anan from various Thai Buddhist traditions.

Each one added something beautiful. Each one pointed in a similar direction.

But after I found Jumnien, his teaching became my habit. It was so direct, so clear, so concise. I had found what I was looking for. It was all I needed. He became my guide — or rather, his method became my guide.

Jumnien’s method — See, Know, Let Go — is the clearest example of the spiritual path that I have experienced, and Dissolve is really an expression of that.

He’s the strongest illustration of the spiritual goal fulfilled that I’ve encountered. He radiates a deep and complete release, at all times. In fact, he’s like a bright light bulb — or a Thai monk-sized sun.

I’ll tell you what I mean by that.

He wears around his neck — twenty hours a day — approximately 78 kilograms of amulets. He started doing this to test his See, Know, Let Go skill. Sitting, walking, talking, eating — with all that weight hanging off one shoulder. And yet, he abides in bliss.

In that climate, in that heat, the contraction is ready to arise at any moment. The body wants to react. The mind wants to be pulled.

And for 45 years, his response has been the same: See, Know, Let Go. Again and again, without interruption. Without accumulation. Without a single monster getting fed.

That’s not philosophy. That’s a demonstrated reality. You can see it in him. You can feel it when you’re near him.

‘OK, you got me, Luang Phor.’ I was hooked.

Whilst living in Thailand, I’d visit Jumnien whenever possible.

The first time I met LP, the transmission was so strong that for the following 18 months, I had no thoughts.

I don’t mean I was blank or absent. I mean I didn’t cling. The method of See, Know, Let Go was established. Thoughts appeared, but they were down, over there — just ripples on the horizon of the mind — and as I looked at them, in the correct way, the pre-thoughts vanished before they could form into anything solid. For the first time, the separation was unmistakable: the mental plane doing its thing below, and the knowing quality above it — clear, still, untouched. Looking down at the ripples, over there on the horizon of the mind. It felt amazing. Purely comfortable.

And funnily enough, I wanted to test it. So I opened a coffee shop. There was no good coffee in the area — so that part made sense too. Now, if you’ve ever opened a business in Thailand, you’ll understand how tough this test was.

That realm — that effortless, unbroken cycle of release — is where Jumnien has dwelt for 45 years.

I’d had a taste, and that was it for me.

I knew implicitly. I was hooked.

That’s what’s possible. That’s what this points toward.

So would I recommend the path I took?

Honestly — no. Not the way I did it.

Years of dedicated, relentless training. Months in forest temples. Eight, nine, ten hours of formal practice a day. A life arranged entirely around the pursuit. And a good portion of it based on control, rather than surrender.

I don’t regret a moment of it. But here’s what became clear: the compulsion didn’t disappear. It just changed costume.

What drove me to work seventy-hour weeks in business life — that same grip, that same needing to get somewhere — became the thing that drove me to train 100 hours a week. The worldly obsession became a spiritual obsession. Different robes, same fist. I’d simply found a holier-looking thing to hold onto.

And that’s the trap nobody warns you about. We assume that if we redirect our intensity toward something meaningful — toward practice, toward growth, toward the path — we are moving in the right direction. And in some ways, we are. But the compulsion itself hasn’t been examined. The grip hasn’t loosened. It’s just found more respectable things to grip.

I live a fairly ‘normal’ life now. Work. Love and music with Kat. Playing with Francisco. Surf. Some training. And in the middle of and during all of that — I’m Dissolving. In as many moments as I can. Kat and I are Dissolving. Our life is Dissolve. And it makes it beautiful. Alive. Present in a way that’s hard to describe without sounding like a bumper sticker — but here it is anyway: we don’t miss a single moment.

Not instead of life. Inside it.

That’s what Dissolve is for. You don’t need to become a taiji master. You don’t have to become a monk to find what the monk found.

The crazy path was mine. Dissolve exists, so you don’t have to take it.

And one more thing — because this matters enormously.

The goal is not to release the whole body.

It is not to arrive at some perfectly, permanently released, blissful state. That approach tends to just build more compulsion, more contraction — and it is not what we are doing here. It’s almost the antithesis of what we’re doing.

Our game is far simpler. We use the body, the emotions, the awareness itself — whatever contraction or blocks are available, right now, in this moment — to find Dissolve, to release, just a bit. And then we enjoy the awareness that opens in that release.

That’s it. That’s Dissolve.

Not perfect release. Just this release. Right here. Right now… Perfect.

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