"Awakeness" vs 3rd Gear

Hello,

I am very new to all of this but have been quite touched by Kenneth's teachings. So thank you very much.

With some work I have been able to go into 2nd gear a couple of times and this has been a pretty profound state for me with a very different sense of self as Verb rather than Noun.

What I'm wondering is that I am also able to, when i remember to, pop into a state where I am strongly awake to the present moment with very little if any "monkey mind" thought occurring and an ability to witness impermanence and the sense of nowness and pretty much a lack of judgement. However, I am still definitely having a sense of self and if I am to ask "Who Am I?" in this state, the answer comes back with my name. So to me this feels like some sort of positive present "Awakeness" state, but it doesn't feel even as strong as 2nd gear.

I first had this state a couple of times 15 years ago when I was a teenager and I thought it was pretty far out at the time. I forgot about it for years, then stumbled upon meditation and the first time I popped back into this awakeness it was like a long lost friend that I had found again.

I guess I am trying to figure out if I am having some sort of 3rd gear experience or if this is some sort of 1st/2nd gear experience since comparatively 2nd gear seems so much more interesting than this state.

Also, is this "Awakeness" dwelling a good practice or should I focus on trying to get into a 2nd gear state? The only problem with 2nd gear is that I need time and space to do it since I become pretty detached. This Awakeness I can pop into whenever I think about it, so just walking down the street or whatever, so Awakeness is much more amenable to informal, unstructured practice.

Thanks!

Have you gotten the sense of how almost everything is known in the visual, auditory, etc. fields instantly but you are unable to work with individual things (like be able to tell someone what kind of traffic sign you are looking at) without narrowing the field of attention to that object and then letting a mental impression of the thing arise with a name on it? It's almost like there isn't enough trust in the bare awareness so you have to create a mental version of what's out there so you can have a greater sense of control, but in doing that you are discarding a lot of what's going on in the moment.

If you ask who am I and you get an answer back "This is me" then ask then to whom does this answer arise.

I should also note that the field of attention for me is primarily visual when in this state unless I make an effort to note some other sense. Also the field is quite wide and I have a stronger sense of being in my eyes.

mumuwu - your idea is very interesting. Yes, when I look at something in particular, I am now focusing on that thing and not in the present moment. Also, it could be that when I am making a thought such as asking the question "Who am I?" I have actually shifted out of the state to try to think the thought and then I shift back in again pretty quickly.

Its weird though, because in the 2nd gear state I'm really not interested in much anything rather than staying in that state. But that could be because 2nd gear is new and interesting to me and this awakeness state is less novel to me now. I just don't find the state itself that marvelous so I am not strongly compelled to stay in it unless I remind myself to go back in whenever I fall out of it.

One other data point is that in the very small amount of formal sitting I have done, I find concentrating on the breath to be quite difficult and thoughts are constantly arising. In this awakeness, thoughts really don't arise that much but things can definitely still steal my attention even if they don't create some sort of verbal thought in my mind.

Playing around with that idea made some things very clear to me in terms of the 12 fold chain.
(1) Spiritual Ignorance --> (2) Constructing activities --> (3) (discriminative) consciousness --> (4) mind-and-body --> (5) the six sense-bases --> (6) sensory stimulation --> (7) feeling --> ( craving --> (9) grasping --> (10) existence --> (11) birth --> (12) ageing, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair.

I think when you dip into the stream of experience (due to ignorance) your mind starts doing things (2) and you pick a piece of reality out (3) which then gives you a foot hold to create the sense of mind and body interacting with that thing, etc.

You can see how it is boredom/craving/suffering that makes you engage the senses (including mind) and start making up mental stuff about them. In this instant until you think about it you don't have a body or a mind. Does that make sense?

"However, I am still definitely having a sense of self and if I am to ask "Who Am I?" in this state, the answer comes back with my name. So to me this feels like some sort of positive present "Awakeness" state, but it doesn't feel even as strong as 2nd gear."

Can you elaborate on why you consider this to be "awakeness"?

First, I am struggling to find the vocabulary to describe this. Typically it arises as an intentional, sharp transition from being fully absorbed in my thoughts and disconnected from reality to being fully absorbed in the unfolding of the present moment, in my body. It is highly visual, there is definite sense of being in my eyes. Often I am not focused on anything and very little thought is occurring. if I do focus while still in the state, it is often on something in motion that provides a strong example of the fleetingness of present moments.

The feeling of this state is one of lucidity. I am experiencing some aspect of reality, the "Nowness", that is much more real than my default state of thinking. In this way, I feel "awake". When I go back to thinking, and then kick myself back to this state, I felt like I was "asleep" and lost time while thinking and now feel awake again.

While writing this note, for example, when I am doing the typing, I am not awake. Then I pause for a second, wake up, try to feel the experience of it, then go back to thinking to describe it, write more. I've probably switched in and out of this state 20 times during this note. Typically I don't do it that frequently and slip out of it after a minute or two then maybe don't think to do it again for a couple of hours.

The whole thing reminds me of Eckhart Tolle's writings, but it seems like such a shallow and weak wakefulness compared to what I understand can be developed. Again, the 2nd gear state feels like a much stronger state, however in 2nd gear I really do feel detached and have no desire to respond to anything.

Thank you guys so much. I am so glad that you all exist and are going on this crazy journey.

"Then I pause for a second, wake up, try to feel the experience of it, then go back to thinking to describe it, write more."

Can you explain the process you use to "wake up." Can you describe the first time you found yourself awake? How did that play out?

cmarti: The first time was probably when I was 15. I am 31 now. I was riding down an escalator and became enthralled by the process of the escalator teeth disappearing at the bottom. I then popped into this state, and that first time it seemed like hours passed as I was riding down that escalator with a super sharp perception of the present moment. I remember going to my friends and saying "woah, like right now is right now" - which of course they didn't get.

It happened a few more times during that year, then I became absorbed in software development for years and never experienced it again until I started reading Buddhist texts about 9 months ago. I can't really remember what triggered it first in this most recent phase, but lately I can easily go into it whenever I can remember that the present moment is right now.

Another way that I could describe this state is "Defocusing my attention, then becoming absorbed in the present moment".

Perhaps this word I am using "Awakeness" is making it sound more profound than it is since there is such a small amount of vocabulary I can think of to describe this.

I am not sure if my experience is what you are describing, but I will put it out there in my words in case you can relate.
To focus directly on the sense perceptions is quite different from thought processes that flow for most of experience "without effort". However the focus and lock to the sense perceptions can happen for no apparent reason. For example as a teenager I once sat under water and lost all concept of time, feeling the water and hearing the muffled sounds, it was only for the fact that I know I could not have been there more than a minute or two I know how much time went by. I think, maybe via concentration, meditative practice gives access to this whereby the attention can lock directly on the senses at will. The visual field is the most noticable because of the abundance of stimuli but the other senses are just about as easy to access. I have spent 20 years in software development so there might be an outside chance it comes from a mind spending a lot of time in abstracts .

To summarize there a 3 rough stages, here and now equates to a focus on bare perceptions for a bit, then the mind quietens and the few thoughts are detached. From here the sense of self can merge or seem hollow. Each of these having distinct flavour.

Gary slipped in...

Orasis, I'm just trying to understand what you're focusing on in this state. There is a state called "flow" that involves attention being focused rather narrowly on a particular thing, or task, and in which (it's a state of mind) we can get very blissful and lose our sense of time and sense of self. That state can last for quite some time but gets "broken" the second we turn our attention to something else. I can get into this flow state when I'm working on a problem in a very focused way, or reading a very interesting book, or just staring at something. What you describe sounds like flow at times (you first experienced it in a classic focus situation) -- but then you describe it as the opposite of flow at other times (you say you lose it when you focus on writing or on your software development).

And I , too, am curious why you are calling this "awakeness."

garyrh: This rings true to me. A theory could be that the strong lucidity and awakeness I feel could simply be accessing a completely separate part of my brain that I am not used to, since most of my life I have been locked into grinding on hard abstract problem solving with nearly complete ignorance of time and sense perception.

As an aside, I find my software problem solving has a very strong visualization component to it, do you find the same is true for you?

cmarti: I definitely wouldn't call this a flow state. I experience flow in snowboarding, Jiu Jitsu, and software development. And usually time passes quickly when I am in flow. In this state time passes much more slowly.

The state has a primary flavor of being defocused and objectless with maybe the only object being nowness itself. This makes me think of Kenneth's wording of being embedded in something versus making it the object and perhaps I am just making nowness the object and trying to observe it.

Since I can't observe nowness directly I tend to look for change or movement. If I myself am moving, the strongest sense I get is how my field of view is changing, the angles and visibility of things are changing. By defocused I also mean that I am not labeling or judging things but am aware of true shape and color as they exist now. When I am not in this state when I walk through a room I am seeing objects through my labeling and memory and not actually *seeing* them as they exist in this moment.

Maybe instead of being awake vs being asleep I could describe this as perceptiveness vs ignorance. But again, the dominant flavor is the present moment nature of that perceptiveness.

"As an aside, I find my software problem solving has a very strong visualization component to it, do you find the same is true for you?
"

Not sure what exactly what you mean by visualization. Picture like images occurr when recalling an image from documentation, but I would say this is dominant. The strong or dominate "visualization" I would say is in working or visualizing the relationships between objects. A relationship is always abstract, hence this is the nature of software development.

It sounds like 1st jhana to me. When I go into 1st jhana and look around it is like what you describe.

Try very hard to discern what is being identified with. Is there some sort of subtle, hard to place, wave-like sensation that is associated with the state you have been entering? Like for instance, but not limited to, ripples going across your visual field?

Hi Orasis,

I think I know exactly what you are talking about. I call it dis-embedding from experience. It's very much like finding yourself sitting in front of the television, realizing that until just now you were absorbed in the show. You "wake up" and find that you are actually sitting in a darkened room watching lights flicker on a screen. Except that the kind of waking up you are talking about isn't limited to television. We can be embedded in any experience. In fact, I have the impression that many people spend their entire lives embedded in experience.

So, the kind of waking up that you are doing is an excellent practice. In fact, I recommend that you do it as much as possible. You will never lose your ability to lose yourself in a good TV show or a good life situation, but you will have the option of dis-embedding whenever you notice the suffering in that particular embedded perspective.

overmyhead: Yikes! I just tried concentrating on a portion of my field of view and I am totally seeing ripples and splotchiness. Though now I wonder if I am fooling myself because I am now looking for something since you pointed it out

Then, if I just relax my attention again, the ripples kind of go away.

Looks like I really need to catch up on my understanding of the jhanas.

Hmmm....your guys' perspectives are so awesome to hear and try to get some bearings! Thanks!

kenneth: That makes perfect sense to me. I suspect that many of the minds of the digital generation, especially those that live in an urban environment, suffer from this persistent total embedding much as I did.

It is definitely a relief to operate from this level as much as possible and it seems like a nice, quiet, undistracted platform from which to launch a lot of this investigation.

A couple of final data points for the archive: I eat a Primal diet and have been taking the nootropic Piracetam lately, which seems to have a somewhat visual effect for me. I think its possible that it might be augmenting the experience and ease of disembedding.

Don't fuss over the fact that I called it jhana. I probably shouldn't have.

I'm glad you are able to see ripples. Now observe as you go from resting in this state to looking at something in particular. Look at the waves that this creates.

Its been almost a year since I made this original query, so wanted to post an update.

With some more experience under my belt I am more comfortable stating that this Awakeness was/is a 3rd gear practice.

The primary difference is that a year ago I was experiencing so many amazing new mind states that I could only remain in 3rd gear for a very short period of time before my mind went looking for some novelty:

"But that could be because 2nd gear is new and interesting to me and this awakeness state is less novel to me now. I just don't find the state itself that marvelous so I am not strongly compelled to stay in it unless I remind myself to go back in whenever I fall out of it. "

At that time, 2nd gear was profoundly interesting compared to 3rd gear. Now I view 2nd gear as more akin to bubblegum flavored ice cream - interesting and unique, but not something I'd choose every day. In the future I will likely find the place for 2nd gear in my toolbox, but so far I've mostly marveled at it for its sparkling newness rather than put it to work.

At this point, 3rd gear grows stronger as the default. The profundity of karma is not lost on me as this process unfolds. -- Obstinant Buddha