The 112 Methods

Does the claim hold? We took each tradition’s core methods and asked of each: does it map into one of the 112?

161 core methods · 15 traditions · 136 (84%) map in · 25 found no home in the 112.

The large majority of the canon maps cleanly in: across attention, breath, sound, gaze, void and dissolution, the 112 are a near-complete atlas, and most schools’ signature practices land squarely on a method. The exceptions are not noise — they fall into a few families the VBT simply does not contain:

Cultivated, radiated affect — the Buddhist brahmavihāras (mettā, karuṇā, muditā) generate a chosen feeling and project it outward to widening circles of beings. The VBT only rides spontaneous emotion or dissolves the self–other boundary; it never manufactures and broadcasts an affect.
Analytic decomposition — the thirty-two body-parts, the four elements, the five aggregates: taking the self apart piece by piece. The VBT dissolves the body whole or affirms a witness behind it; it never catalogues to deconstruct.
Closed energy circuits — the Taoist Microcosmic Orbit conserves energy in a loop, up the spine and down the front. The VBT raises energy and releases it; it has no returning circuit.
Directed exchange — tonglen breathes in others’ pain and out one’s own merit, preserving the duality. No VBT breath method carries this transaction.
No-self — most deeply, Buddhist anattā negates the very witnessing Self that the VBT’s self-inquiry exists to reveal. Same first steps (neti-neti), opposite destination.

So Shiva’s claim is strong but not literal. The 112 exhaust the paths of attention and energy to the witness — but not the paths that cultivate feeling, analytically dismantle the self, or deny that there is a self at all. Fittingly, the traditions that map in completely (Advaita, Kabbalah, Sufism, Christian contemplation, Krishnamurti) are those that, like tantra, seek a witnessing ground; the one that maps in least is Theravāda — the tradition built on its denial.

Theravada Buddhism — 5/13 map in

No home in the 112

Metta Bhavana (loving-kindness radiation) — NO HOME confirmed after scrutiny. No VBT method deliberately GENERATES a specific affective quality (goodwill) and systematically RADIATES it in expanding circles (self -> loved -> neutral -> hostile -> all beings). 94 is the only method that deliberately authors an emotional state (7 days of imagined bliss) but it saturates one's own body toward cosmic essence, never radiating goodwill to categories of beings. 18 (loving gaze), 51 (permeate spontaneous joy), 54 (saturate satisfaction) all RIDE naturally arising emotion as a door rather than cultivating it. 106 dissolves the self-other boundary, the opposite of directed projection. The cultivate-then-radiate-to-beings mechanism is absent from the 112.
Asubha Bhavana / dvattimsakara (32 body-parts impurity contemplation) — NO HOME confirmed. The Theravada technique enumerates the 32 parts (hair, teeth, skin, flesh, bones, kidneys, heart, lungs...) to analytically dismantle sensual attraction via counter-perception. No VBT method performs part-by-part enumeration for disenchantment. 94 names 'bones, flesh, blood' but to SATURATE them with cosmic essence (the opposite, beautifying aim). 79 (burning) and 109 (empty skin-room) dissolve body-identity holistically; 84 withdraws attention from the body. None catalogues the body's components to undercut desire.
Cankama (walking meditation) — NO HOME confirmed. Theravada walking meditation applies bare noting to discrete movement-phases (lifting / moving / placing) sequentially, treating each step-sensation as an object of moment-by-moment attention — a standalone retreat practice. No VBT method does sequential bodily-sensation noting of stepping. 103 (Rinzai digging, 'no digger left, only digging') is total undivided ABSORPTION dissolving the doer — the inverse of analytic phase-by-phase noting. 53 ('be aware you ARE' while walking) is self-remembering of bare existence, not body-sensation tracking. 20 (sway with the cart) seeks dissolution of resistance into a vehicle's rhythm; 6 uses activity only as occasion for breath-gap awareness. The step-noting mechanism is not in the 112.
Vedananupassana (feeling-tone awareness, 2nd foundation of mindfulness) — NO HOME confirmed. The vedana practice notes, at the first moment of every sense-contact, whether experience is pleasant (sukha), unpleasant (dukkha), or neutral, sustaining that notation before craving/aversion proliferate, to intercept the dependent-origination chain at the vedana-tanha link. No VBT method classifies every moment into the three hedonic categories. 59 positions awareness equidistant BETWEEN pleasure and pain (the equanimous middle) rather than noting each tone as it arises. 64 catches only dramatic involuntary events (sneeze, fright, hunger) at their first stir, not the hedonic tone of all experience. The systematic, all-encompassing hedonic notation is absent.
Anatta inquiry / Five-aggregates analysis (pancakkhandha) — NO HOME confirmed after hardest scrutiny. The analysis examines each of the five aggregates (rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara, vinnana) asking 'is this permanent? controllable? can this be self?' — and rejects ALL of them, INCLUDING consciousness/vinnana, to confirm no-self (anatta). The technique superficially resembles VBT 86's neti-neti ('not this, not this'), but the decisive final move is opposite: 86 discards every perceivable image until 'what remains is the perceiver — you,' affirming a residual witnessing Self (and 82 culminates in the cosmic ME / 'Aham Brahmasmi,' 83 in 'the experiencer who lives in the gap'). VBT's entire self-inquiry family terminates in an eternal witnessing subject; anatta negates precisely that subject. Identical first steps, inverse endpoint — therefore not the same technique.
Karuna Bhavana (compassion radiation) — OMISSION ADDED. The second brahmavihara: deliberately cultivate the wish 'may beings be free from suffering' and radiate it to self, loved, neutral, hostile, all beings. Same radiation-gap as metta — no VBT method generates and concentrically projects a cultivated affect toward categories of beings. 106 (dissolve into every being, feel their consciousness as your own) is the nearest, but it works by collapsing the self-other boundary, not by cultivating compassion and directing it outward; its mechanism (dissolution) is distinct from radiative cultivation.
Mudita Bhavana (sympathetic / appreciative joy radiation) — OMISSION ADDED. The third brahmavihara: deliberately rejoice in others' happiness and good fortune, radiating 'may your joy not diminish' to all beings. No VBT method cultivates rejoicing-in-others'-good and projects it. 51 permeates one's OWN spontaneous joy at a reunion (a trigger surfacing one's own feeling), not deliberate gladness at another's fortune radiated universally; 106 would let one share another's joy only via boundary-dissolution. The cultivate-and-radiate mechanism is absent.
Catudhatuvavatthana (four-element meditation / dhatu-manasikara) — OMISSION ADDED — NO HOME. A core kammatthana (Vism XI; MN 10/28/62/140): resolve the body into earth (solidity), water (cohesion), fire (heat), air (motion), perceiving it as impersonal elements to undercut self-view and body-identification. No VBT method performs element-resolution. 79 uses fire only as dissolution imagery (burning, not analysis into dhatus); 94 names bones/flesh/blood but to saturate them with cosmic essence; 109 empties the body holistically as a skin-room; 70/72 resolve the body into light, not the four elements. The four-element analytic decomposition is not present in the 112.

5 that map in

Anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing) → #01
Samatha / Kasina / Jhana (single-object absorption) → #13
Vipassana (bare insight noting of arising/passing phenomena) → #78
Maranasati / charnel-ground contemplation (mindfulness of death) → #79
Upekkha Bhavana (equanimity, the fourth brahmavihara) → #66

Zen (Chan) Buddhism — 9/9 map in

9 that map in

Zazen / Shikantaza (just sitting; objectless choiceless awareness, neither following nor suppressing thoughts) → #62
Susokukan / Zuisokukan (counting, then following the breath) → #01
Koan introspection (sitting with an unanswerable question until conceptual mind collapses; absorbs Zen's 'Great Death') → #85
Hua-tou / wato ('Who is hearing?' — turning the light back to the source of knowing, huiguang fanzhao) → #88
Silent Illumination / Mozhao 默照 (Caodong/Soto: serene objectless awareness — silence plus luminosity) → #92
Kinhin (slow walking meditation between sitting periods) → #06
Samu (work practice — total absorption in labor as meditation) → #103
Sutra / dharani chanting (Heart Sutra, etc.) as meditative absorption → #39
Direct pointing — the shout (katsu 喝) and the stick (keisaku/kyosaku 警策) delivered at the peak of doubt → #25

Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana / Dzogchen / Mahamudra) — 13/14 map in

No home in the 112

Tonglen (Taking and Sending / Lojong exchange of self and other) — Confirmed no-home after testing the nearest candidate, VBT 106. Tonglen is a breath-borne directed exchange: inhale others' suffering as dark smoke, exhale one's own happiness/merit as white light, deliberately reversing self-cherishing. VBT's breath methods (1-8, 45, 100) carry no compassion content, and its compassion methods (105-107) dissolve the self/other boundary by MERGING into the other (106: 'become each being') rather than running a transactional give-and-take that PRESERVES the duality — I take your pain, I give you my joy — across the breath cycle. No VBT method pairs breath with this directed exchange; the mechanism is genuinely absent.

13 that map in

Deity Yoga (generation stage / Yidam practice) → #101
Tummo (Inner Heat Yoga / Chandali) → #70
Dream Yoga (Milam) → #75
Sleep Yoga / Yoga of Clear Light (of sleep) → #07
Phowa (Consciousness Transference at death) → #07
Mahamudra Vipashyana (looking at the nature of mind) → #86
Rigpa Recognition (Dzogchen direct introduction / pointing-out) → #62
Trekcho (Cutting Through to primordial purity / kadag) → #112
Togal (Crossing Over / sky-gazing for spontaneous luminosity) → #33
Chod (Severance / offering the body) → #79
Guru Yoga (merging with the teacher's mind) → #29
Shamatha / Calm Abiding (settling the mind, usually on the breath) → #01
Mantra recitation / Japa (deity mantra, e.g. OM MANI PADME HUM) → #42

Taoism (Daoist meditation) — 8/10 map in

No home in the 112

Microcosmic Orbit (小周天 — Xiao Zhoutian) — NO HOME (verified, held under scrutiny). The orbit's defining structure is a closed circular circuit: refined qi rises the Governing Vessel (Du Mai, spine/back) and descends the Conception Vessel (Ren Mai, front midline) in continuous, energy-CONSERVING recirculation. VBT 70 covers only the ascending spinal phase and RELEASES the energy out the crown into the cosmos (dispersal, not return); VBT 71 is the same ascent as a spark. VBT 2's 'breath is one circle' is about breath, not channel-circulation. No method among the 112 describes a descending front-channel return or any closed energy loop — the circular conserving circuit is genuinely absent.
Cunxiang / Cunsi (存想 / 存思 — visualization-actualization of inner deities and lights, Shangqing tradition) — NO HOME — OMISSION ADDED. A historically central Daoist method (the whole Shangqing/Highest Clarity school rests on it): actively construct vivid inner visualizations — the deified gods of the body and the dantians (the Three Ones / Sanyi), the sun and moon, colored qi/lights — and dwell in them until they are 'actualized' (cun = make-present). Scrutinized hard against the 112: every VBT visualization method (5 light-shower, 14 silver cord, 70 rising light, 72/74 cosmos-as-light/in-skull, 102 spirit within-and-around) visualizes only abstract light, energy, space, or formless essence — none ever populates the body with personified deities or actualizes named inner spirits, which is cunsi's defining feature (cf. Tibetan deity-yoga, equally absent). The nearest candidate, 102, shares only the premise that imagination actualizes, but its technique DISSOLVES forms into one energy-ocean — the opposite of cunsi's deliberate form-BUILDING. So this device-of-personified-inner-visualization has no genuine analogue in the 112.

8 that map in

Zuowang (坐忘 — Sitting and Forgetting) → #85
Xin Zhai (心齋 — Heart/Mind Fasting, Listening with Qi) → #63
Shouyi (守一 — Guarding the One / lower-Dantian concentration) → #13
Taixi (胎息 — Embryonic Breathing) → #03
Neiguan (內觀 — Inner Observation) → #30
Wu / Xu Void Contemplation (meditating on primordial emptiness) → #112
Neidan ascending refinement (Jing → Qi → Shen through the spinal centers) → #70
Open-sky / boundless-space gazing (waixing/yuanguan — outward contemplation of the formless) → #33

Patanjali's Classical Yoga (Ashtanga / Raja Yoga) — 11/13 map in

No home in the 112

Samyama (combined dharana+dhyana+samadhi directed INTO a chosen object to know its hidden nature / yield siddhis) — GENUINE NO-HOME (refutation attempted and failed). Samyama (YS 3.4-6, Vibhuti Pada) trains the three inner limbs on one object specifically to extract knowledge of that object -- the sun for cosmic geography, an elephant's strength for that strength, another's mind, past/future. It is an outward-penetrating, epistemological/power-yielding tool. I scanned all 112: every VBT concentration method (13, 18, 23, 52 'become the taste') uses the object only as a springboard back to the meditator's own center; 'becoming the roseflower' in 23 is an explicitly transient stage on the way to realizing one's OWN nature, then dropped. No VBT method aims at knowing the object from inside, or at siddhi. The directionality (into the object, for yield) is genuinely absent from the 112 -- consistent with VBT being purely self-realizational and silent on powers. This is a real gap, not a forced one.
Maitri-Karuna-Mudita-Upeksha (the four cultivated attitudes for chitta-prasadana / clearing the mind, YS 1.33) — ADDED OMISSION and a GENUINE NO-HOME (scrutinized hardest, refutation failed). Patanjali prescribes systematically cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the suffering, gladness toward the virtuous, and equanimity toward the non-virtuous -- a brahmavihara-style attitude-training whose purpose is to purify/steady the chitta. Refutation attempt: VBT supplies only fragments and never the method -- 66 ('unsame same to friend as to stranger, in honor and dishonor') covers upeksha/equanimity; 106 ('feel each consciousness as your own, become each being') is an empathic self-dissolution adjacent to karuna but aimed at oneness, not at cultivating compassion to clear the mind; nothing in the 112 corresponds to maitri toward the happy or mudita at others' virtue. VBT's entire path is dissolving the mind and finding the center, NOT deliberately cultivating prescribed feelings toward classes of beings as a purification discipline. The fourfold method as such is genuinely absent.

11 that map in

Kumbhaka / breath retention (the suspended-breath phase of pranayama) → #04
Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from their objects) → #15
Dharana (fixed one-pointed concentration on a single object/point) → #13
Dhyana (sustained, unbroken flow of meditation on one object) → #18
Samprajnata / savikalpa samadhi (absorption still bearing a seed/object) → #23
Asamprajnata / nirbija samadhi (seedless, supportless absorption; full nirodha) → #112
Pranava-japa -- AUM repetition with contemplation of its referent (japa + artha-bhavana, YS 1.27-28) → #39
Ishvara-pranidhana (surrender/devotion to Ishvara as a direct path to samadhi) → #29
Viveka-khyati (continuous discriminative discernment of Purusha the seer from Prakriti the seen) → #88
Asana (sthira-sukham asanam: a steady, comfortable seated posture as meditation's ground) → #98
Abhyasa-Vairagya -- specifically Vairagya (dispassion / non-attachment to objects of enjoyment, YS 1.12-16) → #26

Hatha & Kundalini Yoga — 8/14 map in

No home in the 112

Khechari Mudra (tongue folded back to the palate, sealing amrita) — CONFIRMED NO HOME. No VBT method folds the tongue back to contact the soft palate/uvula, nor seals/tastes the amrita (nectar) dripping from the soma-bindu chakra. VBT 43 places attention on the MIDDLE of the tongue and catches the inbreath's 'hh' sound, but has no palate-contact gesture and no nectar-sealing. VBT 21's 'nectar-filled form' refers to the inner self as nectar (pierced by a pin), not to amrita from the soma chakra. The specific physical gesture of Khechari and its aim (preserving bindu, inducing bliss via the nectar-seal) are absent from all 112 - a genuine gap in the all-encompassing claim.
Ajapa Japa / So-Ham (breath-synchronized self-identity mantra) — CONFIRMED NO HOME after hard scrutiny. The distinctive technique - the spontaneous, effortless mantra 'So' on inhalation and 'Ham' on exhalation, each breath recognized as 'I am That' (Soham = tat+aham) - has no counterpart. Its substrate exists in pieces (breath-awareness in VBT 1; the bare 'I am' recognition in VBT 53 and VBT 7's complementary method; a breath-sound + portable mantra + spontaneity in VBT 45 with an arbitrary 'ah'-word on the exhale only), but no single method fuses a meaning-laden self-identity mantra with the natural bidirectional breath. VBT 43 catches only the inbreath whisper. The 'ajapa' fusion itself is not among the 112.
Asana (the Hatha postural system) — OMISSION (no home). The defining limb of Hatha Yoga - the repertoire of dynamic physical postures (forward bends, inversions, twists, the named asanas of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika / Gheranda Samhita) used to purify the nadis, build steadiness, and free energy - has no VBT method. VBT presupposes only a comfortable meditative SEAT (VBT 19 'sit only on the buttocks,' VBT 98 'any easy position,' VBT 109 names Siddhasana) and uses it passively as a platform for inner work; it never teaches posture-as-practice. The physical-postural limb is absent from the 112.
Nadi Shodhana / Anuloma Viloma (alternate-nostril pranayama) — OMISSION (no home). Alternate-nostril breathing - closing one nostril, inhaling through the other, switching - to balance ida and pingala and purify the nadis has no VBT counterpart; no method touches the nostrils or channel-balancing at all. VBT's breath techniques (1-8, 43, 45) work only on the gaps, turns, and subtle sounds of the natural, unmanipulated breath, and VBT 1 explicitly says 'do not train or regulate the breath.' Regulated channel-balancing pranayama lies outside the 112.
Uddiyana Bandha & Jalandhara Bandha (abdominal & throat locks) — OMISSION (no home). Of the three great bandhas, only Mula (rectal/perineal contraction) appears, in VBT 46. Uddiyana Bandha (belly drawn up and back under the ribs on empty lungs) and Jalandhara Bandha (chin/throat lock) - which together seal prana between diaphragm and throat to force it into the sushumna - have no VBT counterpart. These two locks are absent from the 112.
Kapalabhati / Bhastrika (skull-shining & bellows breath) — OMISSION (no home). Forceful rapid breathing - Kapalabhati (sharp active exhalations with passive inhalation) and Bhastrika (rapid forceful in-and-out breaths) - used to cleanse the nadis, raise heat, and rouse kundalini, has nothing analogous in VBT. All VBT breath work is slow and observational, never pumped or forced (VBT 45 even stresses effortless release). Active hyperventilatory pranayama/kriya is not among the 112.

8 that map in

Kumbhaka (breath retention / pranayama) → #04
Shambhavi Mudra (ajna / third-eye gaze-lock) → #05
Sushumna nadi (central channel) visualization → #14
Trataka (steady, unwavering, non-blinking gaze) → #13
Nada Yoga (inner sound / anahata nada) → #38
Mula Bandha (root lock / perineal contraction) → #46
Kundalini awakening / chakra-ascent visualization → #70
Yoga Nidra (conscious sleep / hypnagogic awareness) → #55

Advaita Vedanta — 10/10 map in

10 that map in

Atma Vichara (Self-Inquiry / 'Who Am I?') → #88
Neti Neti (Not This, Not This -- via negativa negation of all identifications) → #86
Sakshi Bhava (Pure Witness Consciousness -- abiding as the uninvolved witnessing Self) → #66
Nididhyasana (Unbroken Felt Contemplation of the Mahavakya -- feeling 'I am Brahman' rather than thinking it) → #87
Drg-Drishya Viveka (Seer-Seen Discrimination -- distinguishing the seeing consciousness from every instrument and object seen) → #63
Pancha Kosha Viveka (sequential de-identification through the nested sheaths toward the Atman beyond) → #82
Brahma Bhavana / Sarva-Brahma-Drishti (seeing all phenomena as condensed consciousness -- 'all is Brahman') → #107
Nirvikalpa Samadhi / Sahaja Nistha (thought-free, supportless abidance as pure awareness) → #112
Turiya / Avastha-Traya Viveka (threading recognition of the witnessing fourth through waking, dreaming, deep sleep -- Mandukya practice) → #75
Shravana (hearing the mahavakya / supreme teaching from the guru in receptive silence -- first anga of jnana-yoga) → #34

Bhakti / devotional Hinduism — 8/8 map in

8 that map in

Nama-Japa (silent/mental repetition of a divine name — Ram, Om Namah Shivaya, Hare Krishna maha-mantra) → #42
Nama-Sankirtana / Kirtan (communal or solo singing/chanting of divine names; bathing in continuous devotional sound until absorbed) → #38
Saguna Dhyana (visualization/meditation on the personal form of the chosen deity — Krishna, Rama, Shiva — held with loving, devotional gaze) → #18
Sravana (total receptive listening to scripture or harikatha with absorbed, eyes-stilling attention — paradigm: Parikshit listening to Shuka's Bhagavata for seven days) → #34
Sharanagati / Prapatti (complete self-surrender to the divine will as the primary practice — especially in Sri Vaishnavism; no technique beyond total self-giving) → #29
Bhava cultivation (deliberately inhabiting a specific devotional relational mood toward the deity — dasya/servant, sakhya/friend, vatsalya/parent-child, madhurya/lover — and permeating it until it saturates all of being) → #51
Manasa Puja (elaborate ritual worship performed entirely within the mind: mentally building the temple, inviting the deity, offering flowers, incense, food, light; the imagined offering held to be as real as the physical one) → #102
Namasmarana during activity (keeping the divine name or remembrance unbroken throughout all daily activities — the Supreme Bhakti of the Sant tradition, Ramana Maharshi, and Sivananda) → #06

Sufism — 8/10 map in

No home in the 112

Nafi wa ithbat — breath-synchronized negation-affirmation of the Shahadah — NO HOME — gap upheld after adversarial refutation attempt. The defining mechanism is a BIPHASIC verbal formula synchronized with breath: 'La ilaha' (on one breath) actively sweeps away all relative existence, 'illa Allah' (on the next) affirms only the Absolute, often with directional movement through the chest. I scanned for a refutation: VBT 111 negates/affirms/transcends but is apophatic-philosophical with no breath synchronization and no active sweeping by a sacred formula; VBT 86 (neti neti) is pure negation only; VBT 45 emphasizes exhalation but has no negation structure; VBT 42/47/39 repeat a SINGLE phrase, never a two-phase negate-then-affirm. The combined biphasic, breath-directed, formula-driven negation-and-affirmation is a genuine gap.
Tafakkur — discursive contemplation of divine attributes and signs — CORRECTED from draft's 37 to NO HOME. Tafakkur uses the reasoning faculty itself as the vehicle: pondering God's signs (ayat) in creation and self, or dwelling on the divine attributes, until reflection ripens into certainty (yaqin) and presence — sustained discursive, meaning-centered reflection. No VBT method rides sustained discursive reasoning; the 112 uniformly treat thought as the obstacle to be stopped. The draft's VBT 37 is in fact the INVERSE: 37 deliberately strips meaning away ('words are mere agreed-upon noises'), descending letters→sounds→feeling→being to dissolve meaning into pure sound — whereas tafakkur deepens INTO meaning to extract realization. The other conceptual-entry methods are apophatic or dialectical (86 neti-neti; 111 transcend-the-poles) or contemplate a specific narrow idea (56 maya's undecidability; 69 bondage/liberation relativity), none being kataphatic reflection on divine attributes/signs. Sustained discursive contemplation as a path is a genuine gap.

8 that map in

Dhikr (Zikr) — rhythmic repetition of divine names → #42
Sama — contemplative listening to sacred music → #41
Muraqaba — heart-centered watchful (witnessing) meditation → #92
Sema — Mevlevi whirling / turning practice → #20
Fana — annihilation of the self in the divine (through devotional surrender) → #29
Lataif — sequential activation of subtle heart/body centers → #70
Rabita — bonding with the spiritual master by holding his form with loving attention → #18
Pas-e-anfas / Hosh dar dam — guarding awareness on every breath → #01

Christian contemplative (Hesychasm, Centering Prayer, apophatic) — 8/8 map in

8 that map in

Jesus Prayer / Prayer of the Heart (continuous invocation of the Name, descending from lips to mind to heart) → #42
Descent of the nous into the heart (bringing the mind down from the head into the heart-center and guarding it there) → #16
Nepsis (watchfulness/sobriety: intercepting logismoi at the prosbole stage, before conjunction or consent) → #64
Centering Prayer (Keating: sacred word as consent to God's presence, releasing every thought into open resting awareness) → #92
Via negativa / apophatic stripping (Pseudo-Dionysius, Eckhart, John of the Cross: negate every image and attribute of God) → #86
Cloud of Unknowing: naked intent of the will / blind stirring of love piercing the cloud toward the incomprehensible God → #29
Hesychia (cultivated interior stillness, inner silence, and freedom from conceptual supports) → #112
Theoria (contemplative vision of the uncreated divine light pervading all things) → #72

Kabbalah / Jewish mysticism — 11/11 map in

11 that map in

Hitbonenut — sustained loving contemplation of a single divine concept until absorption (hitpaalut) → #18
Hitbodedut — spontaneous personal spoken prayer/dialogue with God in solitude (Breslov) → #29
Devekut — cleaving to God; unbroken divine awareness maintained through all activities → #53
Divine Name meditation and Tzeruf — visualizing/vocalizing the Tetragrammaton and permuting Hebrew letters (Abulafia); also the meditative kavanot/yichudim on divine Names during prayer → #37
Merkavah / Hekhalot ascent — visualizing ascent through the seven celestial palaces to behold the divine throne → #70
Sefirot / Tree of Life contemplation — meditating on the ten divine emanations as the living luminous structure of reality → #72
Shema unification meditation — reciting the Shema with prolonged contemplation of Echad (One) → #39
Ayin meditation — dissolving into the pre-manifest divine Nothingness (Ein Sof / Ayin) → #112
Bitul — self-nullification before God; cultivating the felt sense of inner emptiness as a vessel → #109
Niggun — wordless repetitive sacred melody as meditative/devotional vehicle (Hasidic tradition) → #42
Avodah be-gashmiyut — serving God through the physical; sacred eating with intention to elevate the divine sparks in food (Baal Shem Tov / Hasidic) → #52

Gurdjieff's Fourth Way — 7/9 map in

No home in the 112

The Sacred Gymnastics (asymmetric, choreographed multi-center Movements) — No VBT home, even after scanning every physical-motion method. The Obligatories/Movements proper are precisely choreographed asymmetric sequences demanding simultaneous tri-center work — intellect counts shifting rhythms, emotion tracks the music, the moving-instinctive center performs asymmetric postures — the FRICTION among the three centers being the transformational engine. No VBT method uses structured multi-center choreography: the whirling (20) works by inner-whirl-to-centering, not tri-center friction; 27 (roam to exhaustion, drop) and 49 (become the shaking) are cathartic/spontaneous, not choreographed; 103 (totality in any act) dissolves the observer rather than coordinating the three centers against each other.
Conscious Labor and Intentional Suffering — No VBT home survives scrutiny. The 'conscious-presence-in-effort' aspect of conscious labor is already covered by self-remembering during activity (53/6), so it adds no new home. But the irreducible Gurdjieffian element — deliberately choosing difficulty and voluntarily bearing displeasure/friction (including others' unpleasant manifestations) as the primary fuel of transformation, the 'second conscious shock' — has no analog. The nearest candidates all use difficulty toward a DIFFERENT end: 021 (self-inflicted pin-pain) to dis-identify from the body, 027 (roam to exhaustion then collapse) to break the divided ego, 094 (seven days dwelling in sadness) as a staged contrast to reach bliss. None instructs sustained voluntary endurance of life-friction as a transformational strategy; the VBT works with what is already arising rather than seeking out hardship.

7 that map in

Self-Remembering (dual attention: hold 'I AM' while doing anything) → #53
Self-Observation (impartial watching of one's own functioning) → #88
The Stop Exercise → #25
Body Sensing (deliberate whole-body sensation / 'sensing of self') → #87
The Movements: Whirling Dances → #20
Working with Negative Emotions (neither express nor suppress; non-expression) → #64
Non-Identification (hold the inner center unchanged while the periphery changes) → #66

Jiddu Krishnamurti — 9/9 map in

9 that map in

Choiceless awareness → #62
Observer is the observed → #88
Passive/silent watching of thought without identification → #100
Complete/undivided attention (non-concentrative) → #89
Direct perception — seeing without the screen of the past → #32
Relationship as mirror for self-knowledge → #24
Inquiry through negation — understanding what is not → #86
Natural silence of the mind — not achieved by effort → #73
Observation without condemnation or justification (non-judgmental awareness) → #65

Modern secular (MBSR, Goenka Vipassana, TM, somatic / Reichian) — 10/11 map in

No home in the 112

Connected / circular breathing — sustained continuous breathing with no pause between exhale and inhale, used to mobilize energy, emotion and altered states (Holotropic Breathwork, Rebirthing, Reichian charge-building) — Confirmed no home (refutation attempt failed). Every VBT breath method — 1–8 (gap, turning point, fusion, pause, third-eye/prana), plus 45 (full exhale, let body inhale) and 100 (exhale and stop) — either OBSERVES the natural breath/its pauses or suspends it; VBT 1 explicitly forbids regulation ('do not train or regulate the breath'). Connected/circular breathing does the opposite: it imposes a sustained, pause-free, hyperventilation-adjacent rhythm to drive physiological arousal and mobilize emotion/energy. Active breath-pattern manipulation as the instrument is entirely absent from the 112, which are observational, not pranayamic. Genuine gap.

10 that map in

Breath awareness / Anapana — observing the natural breath at the nostrils without regulating it (MBSR, Goenka) → #01
Body scan — systematic sweeping of attention through body parts, noting whatever sensations are present with non-judgmental awareness (MBSR, Goenka Vipassana) → #11
TM mantra technique — silently repeating a personal mantra with effortless ease, allowing it to become progressively subtler until it dissolves into silent pure awareness (TM) → #42
Open / choiceless awareness — sitting without a fixed object, receiving whatever arises in consciousness without preference (MBSR advanced sitting, open monitoring) → #62
Metta / Loving-kindness — deliberately cultivating the feeling of loving-kindness and radiating it outward in expanding circles (Goenka end-of-course, MBSR extensions) → #18
Equanimous sensation observation / anicca — observing every arising body sensation with equanimity, neither craving pleasant ones nor averting unpleasant ones, aware of their impermanence (Goenka Vipassana) → #59
Shaking / tremoring — allowing the body's spontaneous tremor or vibration response to arise and spread rather than suppressing it (TRE, Bodynamics, Reichian vegetative discharge) → #49
Somatic tracking / entering held body tension — directing voluntary, curious attention into sites of chronic muscular tension or somatic sensation rather than avoiding them (Somatic Experiencing, Reichian character-armoring work) → #21
Mindful eating (MBSR raisin exercise) — eating very slowly with full sensory attention to taste, texture and the act of eating → #52
Mindful walking — sustained present-moment attention to the kinesthetic sensations of each step (lifting, shifting, placing), gently returning when the mind wanders (MBSR / insight walking meditation) → #103

Jainism (Preksha) and Quaker silent worship — 11/12 map in

No home in the 112

Bhavana (cultivation of maitri, pramoda, karuna, madhyastha) — CONFIRMED 0 after scanning the 112. No method prescribes the systematic cultivation of four distinct benevolent attitudes -- maitri (loving-kindness), pramoda (appreciative joy), karuna (compassion), madhyastha (equanimity toward the incorrigible) -- radiated in widening circles to all beings. VBT 18 is single-object, self-forgetting loving attention; VBT 106/107 are non-dual identification with all beings (compassion only as a byproduct, with no pramoda and no madhyastha). The brahmavihara-type four-fold bhavana as a trained, broadcast emotional discipline is genuinely absent.

11 that map in

Kayotsarga (body-abandonment) → #09
Shvasa Preksha (breath perception) → #01
Sharir Preksha (body-sensation perception) → #87
Antaryatra (internal journey / spinal traversal) → #70
Chaitanya Kendra Preksha (perception of psychic centers) → #05
Leshya Dhyana (perception of psychic colors) → #13
Anupreksha (auto-suggestion / contemplative reflection) → #101
Expectant waiting worship (gathered corporate silence) → #34
Centering down (active settling into interior stillness) → #85
Inward listening for the Inner Light / leadings → #108
Holding in the Light (loving intercessory attention) → #18