3rd gear equivalent to stream entry?

It is truly wonderful to see tathagatagarbha and vipassana perspectives presented in a non-combative way ... congratulations and thanks to Kenneth for this achievement.

This may be an unanswerable question but ....

there is a crucial turning point in the vipassana path, the point of stream entry, the point beyond which further progress is inevitable "even though he may be extremely heedless". I think of this as like puncturing a tyre ..... once the tyre (deluded mind) has been punctured with a moment of complete cessation, it is inevitable that the air will, eventually, all come out.

This threshold is extremely important as a motivator for practice .... "if i can just get to stream entry, the tide will change! it won't be this difficult for ever!"

So my question is .... is it possible to identify any equivalent turning point using an absolute awareness approach?

What an interesting question!
One difficulty answering it is that each individual who has experience of both non-dual awareness and cessation would have experienced one before the other, and therefore could interpret the whole thing differently depending on many factors, not least of which is their social conditioning vis a vis their main tradtional source of indoctrination, crossed with their ability for critical abstract thought-- i.e., susceptibility to indoctrination.
Should also mention some folks seem to equate cessation with being in non-dual awareness, without any "consciousness" activity, i.e., no phenomena arising, *just* awareness. My experience of awareness inclines me to this view, and makes me highly skeptical of completely negative descriptions of cessation, since awareness' indestructibility and frankly non-impermanence is so self-clear in the non-dual state that descriptions of cessation which would make it an utter blank seem more the product of a particular descriptive system, namely that of the Theravada and some other Sutric schools. I could be shocked by cessation, however, and have to give up my skepticism. Who knows!.

Looking at the broader tradition, using the five path model common to the earlier tradition and the Mahayana, the 3rd path- that of seeing-- is on first pass "stream-entry" and is clearly defined by some traditions as first cessation, or some moment inevitably associated with cessation, while in others "Seeing" is given a different meaning, as is ultimate or unconditioned dharma. Kensho could be considered a moment of the path of seeing in Zen, for example, and could occur with wide open eyes and a continuity of phenomenality quite different from cessation, yet still involve utter cessation of dualistic imputation.
Speaking for myself, access to non-dual awareness clearly has developmental implications best modeled as an inevitable process which can be blocked or facilitated, to some degree, but which is ultimately self-organizing and has nothing directly to do with any specifically developmental *method*, although is yet not incompatible with them. Nevertheless, development seems to occur spontaneausly as an "effect" of being in non-dual awareness, at least to me.
And frankly, it must be noted that many people report awakening-- in the sense of permanent transformation of their way of experiencing-- with utterly no reference to cessation, except in the sense of cessation of dualistic imputation, or cessation of grasping, etc, but not the complete cessation of all experience.
Basically if you're coming from a place heavily indoctrinated by Burmese Theravada, you have three options in reading or hearing accounts of awakening outside your tradition. You can generously assume the Other has undergone the process of cessation and its associated phenomena of the progress of insight but *simply hasn't noticed it*, you can assume they aren't enlightened at all but are just fiddling around with Jhannas and pre-path insights, or you can revise your model of what awakening entails!
---Jake

One very open minded, ecumenical suggestion:
perhaps folks with different ego-structures, different ego-styles, require different methods-- and the different experiences tied to them-- to shift into escape velocity, which latter woulnd't need to be tied to any particular method or experience, but would yet be self-evident- eventually!-- to anyone for whome it had occured.

I'm curious about why the original question was asked -- is it just a curiosity, or experience based?

"@Jake: My experience of awareness inclines me to this view, and makes me highly skeptical of completely negative descriptions of cessation, since awareness' indestructibility and frankly non-impermanence is so self-clear in the non-dual state that descriptions of cessation which would make it an utter blank seem more the product of a particular descriptive system, namely that of the Theravada and some other Sutric schools. I could be shocked by cessation, however, and have to give up my skepticism. Who knows!"

For me, this is really becoming a non-issue. But I can see how it would be somewhat baffling for anyone who doesn't have experience with both non-dual cessation and the momentary cessation of mind and body.

I think the difference between the two is in what it is that actually "ceases". The cessation described in the Visuddhimagga as the culmination of the Progress of Insight is the momentary cessation of the mind and body processes. When mind and body "blip" out, it becomes clear that what we thought was our abiding, continuous conscious self is anything but. The reason it is described in negative terms is because there's no way of remembering anything about what was left when mind and body winked out. Without the mind, there is no memory. No memory, no continuity.

The cessation which occurs from non-dual practice is not always a cessation of body and mind. Rather, it is a temporary experience of the cessation of clinging to the mind and body processes as self. One's identity briefly lets go of the conditioned processes (mind and body) and rests in pure awareness. It can be a feeling of being unhinged, and yet fully present while the mind and body processes continue.

So in one instance, we have Buddha Nature as experienced from the perspective of mind and body and their cessation. And in another, we have Buddha Nature as experienced from the perspective of Itself. Both are valuable.

"Is it possible to identify any equivalent turning point using an absolute awareness approach?"-ConfusedMaverick

Hi CM,

Your punctured tire analogy is excellent, and I agree that upon reaching stream entry as defined in Theravada Buddhism, that tire is destined to go flat; it's just a matter of time. Regarding your question as to "an equivalent turning point using an absolute awareness approach:"

1st Path as I understand it is a biological fact, similar to puberty for an adolescent. Any given human has either reached puberty or not. That person's (or any other person's) opinion about the situation has no bearing on the biology. In other words, puberty is not a social construct and neither is 1st Path. Much confusion can be overcome by embracing that single concept.

Accepting this, we can ask if there is a parallel attainment using an "absolute awareness approach." I would say that there is not. Dzogchen fruition, for example, is well understood to be available to anyone, at any level of development. This is the essential fact that makes it possible for Tulku Urgyen to teach that Ground, Path, and Fruit are the same. Since it is possible for anyone to experience Dzogchen fruition, it is NOT a developmental marker. Much better than a developmental marker, it IS enlightenment, in and of itself. Every moment of Dzogchen frution is a moment of complete and perfect buddhahood. This doesn't mean anyone has attained buddhahood. There isn't anyone there in that moment. There is just "buddha-ing."

One of the challenges of postmodern spirituality is to be able to synthesize the various streams without muddying them. The most important thing to understand about direct path teachings is that any development that goes on is secondary to the direct experience of enlightenment in this moment.

Kenneth

"One of the challenges of postmodern spirituality is to be able to synthesize the various streams without muddying them."

Yes, Kenneth! These schools (Zen, Theravada, Dzogchen, and so on) are all pointing to the same ultimate and wonderful thing, so why not celebrate that?

Here's an alternative view:
The dzogchen view may be available to anyone anytime, because in fact it is nothing but the self-clarity of our actual awareness right now. The practice, activity and fruit of Dzogchen are not generally explained in those terms, but rather in terms of a developmental process unfolding in the light of Rigpa.
( I know of nothing equivalent in Advaita, another 3rd gear tradition, although there may well be something like this)
However, this development is certainly a facet of Dzogchen, and insofar as it is the unfolding, in and from pure open awareness (view), of wisdom and compassion (meditation) which thouroughly transform behavior of speech and body, and the qualities and capacities expressed through the latter (activity), there is clearly a development in the literal sense of unfolding. This doesn't even touch on the Fruit(s) of Dzogchen practice. Where Kenneth uses the term "Dzogchen Fruition", read "View" as I have described here. This could be regarded as the starting point of the Path of Dzogchen. The Path unfolds through the meditation and the conduct, in which Rigpa becomes not simply more continuus but more to the point more multifaceted-- developed. This development is automatic, in the sense that it unfolds from/in Rigpa, and can be participated in by the body/speech/mind complex of the individual to the extent of facilitating or retarding the process, but never initiated or stopped. Blockages in this facilitative participation may be addressed by "lower" methods, such as Tantric meditation, Mahayana mind-training, Vipassana, or simply making life-changes which reflect and respect one's understanding (of non-duality, wisdom and especially compassion) rather than contradicting it. The process is not separate from its timeless ground, but is initiated and guided by it- and is it, all the while.
Reducing Dzogchen to its View is a misunderstanding.

As for me, I like Jackson's decription of cessations. It resonates with my personal experience in both cases. It's about perspective. Facets... all aspects of the same glorious simplicity.

I'd like to revisit CM's original question, leaving out Dzogchen for the sake of simplicity and clarity: 'Is there a 3rd Gear equivalent to 2st Path?'

3rd Gear, by definition, does not admit time. Using CM's term, 3rd Gear is an 'absolute awareness approach.' It is the recognition, in this moment, of that which is beyond time; it is not the past, nor the future, nor even the present. It is the Absolute. Where there is no time, there is no development. Each moment of recognition of the Absolute is complete unto itself. It has no need to develop and nowhere to develop to. There is no one here to develop. All talk of development belongs in either 1st or 2nd Gear, which are practices that work through time toward enlightenment. This is a very subtle point and may not make sense except to those who have surrendered to the Absolute, at least for a moment, but it is essential to understanding 3rd Gear and all true direct path teachings. Confusion arises because many systems of teaching, my own included, contain both developmental and direct approaches.

May all beings awaken in this lifetime,

Kenneth

"I'm curious about why the original question was asked -- is it just a curiosity, or experience based?"

Experience based. As Jake points out, we each have just one 'line of experience', and in my case, I went quite a long way into the developmental approach before discovering the 3rd gear approach.

From a purely personal, practical point of view, there was no 'problem' or controversy, just a satisfying complimentarity, but when it comes to trying to present a coherent view to others, many questions arise. I can answer questions on the developmental approach reasonably well from direct experience; I have a little to say about 3rd Gear approach from direct experience (though it is not my forte); but before discovering Kenneth's site, I was stumped about how to bring them both into the same conversation without just shrugging or, as Kenneth says below, muddying them.

Most particularly, people from a developmental background who are conditioned to be interested in stream entry are likely to wonder whether 'getting' the 3rd gear is 'the same as' developmental Insight. The answer to this is a clear 'no', but then, the question inevitably follows, 'well, will dwelling in rigpa lead to stream entry?'.

"Speaking for myself, access to non-dual awareness clearly has developmental implications best modeled as an inevitable process which can be blocked or facilitated, to some degree, but which is ultimately self-organizing and has nothing directly to do with any specifically developmental *method*, although is yet not incompatible with them. Nevertheless, development seems to occur spontaneausly as an "effect" of being in non-dual awareness, at least to me."

that is pretty much my experience too.

in order to 'do the nondual thing' one has to put aside concern for development, but (whisper this quietly) development seems to happen, sneakily, unbidden, as a result of this practice.

i guess it takes a bit of maturity to be able turn concern with development on and off, which is why nondualists and developmentalists generally polarise into different camps.

In my experience the two "kinds" of practice are very complimentary. In fact, Kenneth's first and second gear practices are a great warm up for third gear. Yes, you have to drop developmental concerns to access non-dual awareness, but then you have to drop EVERYTHING to access non-dual awareness. As I said on another thread here, "you" has to die.

"Kenneth: This is a very subtle point [...] Confusion arises because many systems of teaching, my own included, contain both developmental and direct approaches."

That is interesting, my impression had been that most systems fall on one side or the other, and that you were unusual in embracing both ... but then i am not very widely read! I've witnessed 'the controversy' mostly in terms of friction between Advaita Vendanta and Theravada, which seem pretty polarised. The Tibetans seem to have room for both approaches, but in theory, as I understand it, 3rd gear is only introduced after a lengthy developmental training. I have assumed this is partly because the views required to enter into 3rd gear practice are utterly corrosive to developmental practice (and vice versa).

I may not be properly picking up on your very subtle point; but would you agree that 3rd gear practice does actually result in development, ie the individual who surrenders to the Absolute is changed thereby, even though the Absolute is (of course) unchanged? But, as a matter of practicality, in order to enter into 3rd gear practice, one has to abandon all concern for development? So, in effect, one may be reluctant even to admit that 3rd gear practice will result in development, because engaging in such concerns will make 3rd gear practice impossible?

So if my aim in writing this was to introduce people to 3rd gear practice, i would be assiduously avoiding any discussion of development .... but while neither engaged in 3rd gear practice, nor attempting to introduce another to it, the observation that 3rd gear practice results in development of the 'relative person' is, erm, 'true'.

this awkwardness will remain, i guess, until one has the ability to consider what appears to be philosophy to be 'instructions in adopting an attitude', and can turn either attitude on and off at will, adopting wildly contradictory philosophies at different times depending on one's goal at the time

Be careful not to mistake the map for the territory. The end game is the same though the path can vary, not just from tradition to tradition but from person to person. I see a lot of philosophical distinctions being drawn and that's great if you are a philosopher and want to talk about philosophy. But here, I think, we want to adopt those practices that just work. In my experience (stating this one more time) first, second and third gear practices are complimentary, not contradictory or competing.

JMHO.

"Chirs: In my experience (stating this one more time) first, second and third gear practices are complimentary, not contradictory or competing.

JMHO.
"

in my experience too .... as i said earlier "From a purely personal, practical point of view, there was no 'problem' or controversy, just a satisfying complimentarity".

The only reason i've started concerning myself with this philosophically, as you put it, is that 'the controversy' crops up in the context of teaching.

thanks to you all for your thoughts!

You make an interesting point about the introduction pointing beyond time, Maverick. This is clearly the case. One may need to develop in order to have the confidence to "leap" out of time, and one may discover that the timeless naturally expresses itself in time as a process of transformation without recourse to any application of "method". This latter point is certainly controversial, and speaking of "methodless development" could be taken the wrong way by someone looking for excuses to act poorly, and justify bad behavior with a non-dual view.
The Tibetans have a spectrum of approaches, ranging from intensive pre-introduction development, to immediate introduction and subsequently applying methods of development in a linear fashion, to 99-100% relying on nondual awareness to drive methodless development. Important to note in this regard is that, unlike Advaita, the Tibetans emphasise that wisdom and compassion are built in to awareness, and thus development on the "methodless" path can be gauged by the demonstration of gradual transformation of body-mind. Of course, the Tibetans officially consider the applicability of these different approaches in terms of prior development in past lives, so there you are.
--Jake

ConfusedMaverick, you don't seem very confused to me, and you have grasped the "subtle point" clearly. Yes, development results from 3rd Gear practice once you admit the existence of time, which simply entails looking through any lens other than the Absolute (which is not a lens). And the reason direct path teachers often deny the possibility of development is because, as you point out, they don't want to muddy the waters; a student can only surrender to the timeless when s/he stops obsessing about development. It's very tricky to teach both time-bound and timeless approaches together, and sometimes I envy the teachers who have chosen to specialize in one or the other. When you do teach both, the ability to "turn it on and off at will" is one of the skills you try to teach. Context is everything here, and the rest is precision of language.

Kenneth

I'm a newbie here, though I've been lurking around a bit both around here and DhO (and OE, for those of you following the Baptists' exploits). I am coming from a Zen background, but am starting to explore the Theravadan Vipassana as well. I wanted to thank you for this discussion; I find it greatly informative, as it speaks to whats going on in my own practice at this time.

However, I was wondering if someone could offer a little more clarification on the parallels between 1st Path and Zen practice. Does a Third Gear practice such as Zen still allow for cessation at all, or is cessation purely limited to a more step-by-step path like Vipassana? And how intimately tied are cessation and first path?

Obviously in Zen you wouldn't have the step-by-step aspect, since the focus of the practice is different, but perhaps the moments of cessation still occur? Or perhaps not? Just curious as to how to relate this to some of my own experiences.

I guess I'm just echoing ConfusedMaverick's question: 'well, will dwelling in rigpa lead to stream entry?' Obviously during practice one is not concerned with thoughts of development, but when trying to contextualize experiences afterwords, some understanding of maps and models can't be harmful, so long as mindfulness of the maps incompatibility with actual practice is maintained.

For me cessation in Zen happen when there is complete manifestation of the Buddha nature, so there is a parallel with Vipassana practice.

see www.purifymind.com/Simplicity.htm

"Zen strongly emphasizes the need for total exertion, complete manifestation, as the path of selflessness..."

As for development marker like stream entry, in my experience there is a marked difference of long time zen practitioners that I can only ascribed to having crossed the stream entry boundary. And in parallel with Theravadan practice, I believe zennist only attain 'stream entry' in a retreat settings, as it is very hard to build practice momentum in daily life practice.

"Will dwelling in rigpa lead to stream entry?'"-IanReclus

Hi Ian,

This one is easy to answer. Any practice that leads to dis-identification of successive strata of mind will lead to stream entry and beyond. Rigpa, by almost any of the many definitions found on KFDh and elsewhere, can accomplish this if practiced diligently.

Stream entry doesn't belong to any tradition any more than puberty belongs to modern medicine. Both "stream entry" and "puberty" are just names applied by certain systems of thought. In both cases, the words refer to natural, organic, biological realities that arise spontaneously given the right conditions. The conditions for the arising of puberty have to do with the maturation of a healthy human body. As such, nearly everyone gets there. The conditions that lead to stream entry, on the other hand, have to do with consistently adopting a particular perspective in the mind. This usually requires training in a system specifically designed to foster such a perspective and therefore most people will not attain stream entry. We could say that stream entry is "optional human development," although some people do stumble upon it with no formal training.

I regularly work with people who have unwittingly attained stream entry and beyond through some training other than Theravada Buddhism, e.g., Jewish mysticism, Zen, or even poorly taught vipassana. In most cases, they were unable to diagnose themselves in terms of the 4 Paths of Enlightenment simply because they were unfamiliar with the map. There are also people who mistakenly diagnose themselves as stream enterers, again because they don't know the map. Such yogis are usually confusing A&P or jhanic attainments with stream entry. Bottom line, though, all of these "attainments" are normal, human, organic, biological developments and are not unique to any tradition.

Kenneth

Thanks Jin Lin, I wil check out the link when I have a chance (lots of text on that page!)

And thanks Kenneth, for the straight answer. This is really very helpful. So cessation and stream entry are connected, but on certain paths the experience of stream entry might not be noticed as a cessation?

Just to clarify why I am asking, I had an experience a while back that seems like it may have been stream entry (because of the before and after effects to my mood and my practice), but the event itself didn't match up with what I've read about it (no cessation at all that I noticed). I don't want to hijack this thread with any questions of personal diagnosis, and I'm not sure I actually need to pin down an exact definition of the experience anyway. But knowing that it MIGHT have been stream entry would somehow make it much easier to let go of and move on from.