Comments about 3rd Gear, The Direct Path, Eckhart Tolle, and the PCE

Basically, Shikantaza means sitting 'allowing everything to be as it is'. One is mindful of the posture, while allowing sensations, feelings, thoughts, good or bad experiences, whatever, to arise and pass away.

Maps do help because after the happy A&P phase, most tend to give up thinking that they are regressing when they are actually making progress. Another problem is that most teachers don't talk enough about observing impermanence. As a result Zen students tend to doze off instead of observing the arising and passing away of phenomena.

Those who have read Brad Warner's first book "Hardcore Zen" will see that he describes many of the stages of insights, which is one example demonstrating the fact that Zazen works like Vipassana.

Then what happens at the time of Satori (abiding awakewning)? One realizes that there is no essential difference between Zazen and the awakened natural state (of non clinging). We realize that our first Zazen was already awakening. That Zazen is the expression of original enlightenment. From then on, Zazen become the natural expression of this realization.

LOL. You should hear the new note I came up with on my guitar. It's the best

"
Maps do help because after the happy A&P phase, most tend to give up thinking that they are regressing when they are actually making progress. Another problem is that most teachers don't talk enough about observing impermanence. As a result Zen students tend to doze off instead of observing the arising and passing away of phenomena.

Those who have read Brad Warner's first book "Hardcore Zen" will see that he describes many of the stages of insights, which is one example demonstrating the fact that Zazen works like Vipassana.

Then what happens at the time of Satori (abiding awakewning)? One realizes that there is no essential difference between Zazen and the awakened natural state (of non clinging). We realize that our first Zazen was already awakening. That Zazen is the expression of original enlightenment. From then on, Zazen become the natural expression of this realization.
"

Hmm-- this is helpful. Harking back to BW's recent 'kensho is bunk...' pronouncement, I can see how referring to maps could have avoided the box canyon he's galloped into. His first book spoke naively-- and movingly-- about his kensho. Subsequently, in his embarrassment* at finding himself in the company of what seem to him to be crass marketers of enlightenment, he has aligned himself with the [equally one-sided] debunkers and exponents of the 'just sit there' line.

Myself, I've got a very ambivalent take on maps: my first encounter was with Adi Da's 7-stage map, which seemed to serve to make achievement ever-more-distant and impossible for anyone but ADD himself. Then, AFTER my own experience, I started scouting around for what descriptions of the process were out there-- physiological, conceptual, behavioral all grist for the mill.
*

I have been doing a third gear/shikantaza/dzogchen type practice for the last three years. A few comments and reflections to add to Alex's above.

Someone once taught me that these practices contain all other practices. This has been born out somewhat in my experience.Sometimes it feels like a goenka style body vedana, sometimes like a metta practice, sometimes like more broad satipatanna, sometimes like a reflection on non-self, sometimes like a surrendering to a yidam.

I know quite a few people who got into 3rd gear type practice and used it as an excuse to run down their practice and then give up completely.

I wonder if there are tempremental factors here too. I have always been quite sharp, a little wired and high energy, and wilful. The inclusive, non-choosing aspect of 3rd gear balances this quite well.

I know others who are quite vague habitually and have spaced out by not being precise enough in the practice.

It can also be little alienated and cold if the practitioner imposes a kind of non-dual overview on the practice rather than opening to the vivid dynamic awareness it is pointing to.

Ridgzin Shikpo has written an excellent book on the practice called openess (ie:inclusiveness) clarity (precision) sensitivity (heart and warmth) where what he considers to be essential factors are included in the title.

Overall I think the quality of aliveness is very useful in this practice: to oneself, to others, the whole play and movement of life> I fear that agendas about eradicating things is actually killing off this aliveness some how. At the same time the peace and non-reactivity of the direct path is attractive and useful in a feverish world. I am still learning how to move between these different worlds, a life-times work perhaps?

[cont.] One of my teachers, in keeping with his tradition, keeps pretty mum about this stuff. At first, I suspected he was being irritatingly evasive. But he made a good argument for 'not wanting to pre-empt the student's experience.' And the more I consider the matter, and the more I check out some of the rowdier forums-- the more responsible that stance looks. It is demonstrably possible for someone to have a 'self-evident' certainty about a bit of insight, backed by being rhetorically adroit, and create more heat than light. And to make things MORE, not less, confusing for fellow aspirants.

This is where continued study, continued relationship to teacher, and continued 'just sitting' comes in, I think. But BW seems to be saying that no attainment is possible, so you just sit. It seems more accurate to me to say that you just sit as BOTH the means to attainment and the expression of it. 'Assume the position.'

I sit in an open surrendered state. I breathe in and make a make a gentle mental note "rising." I let go of that and note "stopping." I let go of that and notice that I am breathing out and note "falling." Each section of the rising stopping falling is gently noted and let go of. My awareness gets more and more inclusive, open and relaxed and I notice everything that is going on while disembeding from and letting go of all of it. I am aware of more and more detail and aware of awareness being aware.

Is this first gear practice? Third gear?

First I guess but elements of all the gears are there I think.

The utimate goal is still I think to be able to completely surrender and one can get better and better at doing that if they get the 3 C's down one way or another.

Sure, granted that this might all derive from a different use of language, and it takes some time until one is able to quickly separate the philosophy (world-is-wonderful, peace-on-earth) from the practice (which is cultivating the sense of wonder). The AF site is big, and not well organized if one just wants an executive summary, and less so if one would just like a comparative summary

But on one hand, this difficulty also shows up in most buddhist sources I've come across (with MCTB, KFD, Shinzen Young, and the "Baptist head" being the sole exceptions so far), and on the other hand, I personally found that Tarin, for instance, is very clear in explaining what he means, and that even the actual freedom website, once one knows where things are, is well written. With regards to the fact that it pushes away the previous 2500 years of contemplative practice, without giving it the proper treatment, I suspect that is simply because of the specifics of Richard's life-story. This story is fascinating by the way, and explains very well why he strived for such a radically unperturbed peace-of-mind. It also explains why he might simply be a bit ignorant of buddhism practice as a whole, but then again, so are many buddhists, wouldn't you say?

I personally found that my previous annoyance at the site had more to do with fear of loosing my affective faculty, and general emotional reactivity to its contents.

(contd.)

Now to the point: by sense of being I am referring to the (seemingly non-manifest) sensation, or recognition, often associated with 3rd gear practice, of "pure being." You used this term here on KFD: "Rigpa is what happens when you stop doing anything and rest in pure being" ( kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Q+%26+A+on+the+Non-dual ). Or Chris, for instance, in Owen's practice journal ( kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...,+Part+II?offset=100 ), writes "There is nothing but pure core processing going on - just awareness being aware of itself with nothing to distract. Pure IS, no subject-object whatsoever."

The question is whether this "sense of being" disappears in direct mode of experiencing, or, put in different words, whether this recognition is possible during the direct mode of experiencing, or if it will somehow interrupt the mode.

(Edit: again, this question is derived from making the simple conjecture that when the AF dudes talk about "the absolute" and the "sense of being," they are talking about the same thing as this "pure being", which is reportedly absent in the PCE)

Bruno, thanks for working with me to clarify the language. First, and above all, we must recognize that any three people who use the phrase "pure being" may and very likely do mean three different things by it. I cannot emphasize this enough; if you assume that people are saying the same thing just because they are using the same words, confusion is inevitable.

If, on the other hand, we specify whose language we are parsing, check with them personally for clarification and have consensus in both directions that you are indeed using the words the same way, it's possible to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

Why am I being so picky about this? Because Richard's use of overly complex, confusing, or obfuscatory language is EXACTLY the problem here. If he had not attempted to claim discovery of direct path enlightenment and if he had not claimed that it was somehow other than everybody else's direct path enlightenment, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Again I would point you to The Power of Now. I believe you will find in the first chapter enough to convince you that Tolle and Richard are talking about the same thing. The similarities are striking. You might even be tempted to believe there was some cross-fertilization between the two authors. In any case, the mode of experience they are pointing to is no mystery, is not hard to learn when properly taught, and I will happily teach it to you next time we talk. (Just got your email requesting a session and I'll get back to you later today to arrange a meeting.)

Thank you all for your interesting comments.

-Roomy: in fact Brad Warner says that there is something but that it takes years of dedicated practice. His main point is simply that one cannot (or should not) sell kensho like a cheap commodity. In general, I have seen that everyone tends to follow the stages that look more of less like what Daniel Ingram called the 'A Simple Model' in his book. When it gets to detailed and technical, people tend to get discouraged for the reasons mentioned in your example about Adi Da's model.

- Bruno: from what I can tell, the sense of being can shift in the sense that, in direct mode, is it not anymore identified with what we assumed to be our identity as a subject, but with the totality of 'what is'. The result is an impression of pure objectivity without a subject. Or the impression of being one with everything. But even during deep dreamless sleep, there is a sense of being, even if memory doesn't record the experience.

Just for clarification, everyone:

The overall category of 3rd Gear is only loosely defined because we want to leave enough room in the 3 Speed Transmission to incorporate the whole broad spectrum of contemplative practices. The system is intended as a kind of skeleton to give shape to and thereby help us make sense of contemplative experience and practice. So 3rd Gear is what happens when "I" stop running the show. There are several variations on this theme.

The topic in question, that of the direct mode of perception, can be seen as a 3rd Gear (surrender) practice or a 1st Gear (object-oriented) practice. But there are several things that set the direct mode of perception apart from the filtered mode:

1) Jhanas and nanas do not arise. Instead of riding the wave, you *are* the wave, which means that one part of the mind cannot fold back on itself to reveal another part.
2) Development through stages is a non-issue; this experience is the only relevant experience in this moment.
3) The idea that getting enlightened sometime in the future would be better than the current experience makes no sense.
4) One aspect of experience is not seen as separate from another. Awareness as awareness, for example, makes no sense from this point of view.
5) There is no emotional charge. Anger, anxiety, ecstasy, agitation, longing, etc., do not arise. The initial urgings of these coarser emotions may be experienced as what might be called "proto-emotions," but they are immediately grounded in the physical body and do not become fully fledged emotions.
6) The emotional content is one of simplicity, well-being, and good will.
7) Boredom does not arise. The simplest things, e.g., gazing at trampolines, unlit television screens, yoga balls, or listening to the sound of a fan are completely fulfilling activities.
There is no suffering; suffering depends upon the emotional charge.

Even for the most experienced yogis, I would not assume that you know what is being pointed to here unless you apply yourself to this practice for a few days. Once you isolate the particular mode of perception in question, you very likely will find that it is one you have seen before, but before you have clearly isolated this mode, you will probably have a fuzzy or poorly-defined idea of what we are talking about.

The best thing would be to follow the instructions in my essay and see just how revolutionary is the direct path. If you think it blends into your other practices or is somehow a subset of shikantaza, you have not yet identified the direct mode of perception. Try it out in earnest and let us know what you find!

Kenneth

Instructions here:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/3rd+...Tolle%2C+and+the+PCE

Further clarification:

What is left when the coarser emotions and their corresponding emotional charge do not arise? Metta, mudita, karuna, and uppekha, to use the Buddhist terminology, along with a sense of happiness and fulfillment. In other words, these more fundamental mind states are exposed when they are no longer obscured by coarser emotions.

This is the direct path. You don't have to do anything to "get" enlightened; you only have to be as you are without manipulation or complication.

"

The topic in question, that of the direct mode of perception, can be seen as a 3rd Gear (surrender) practice or a 1st Gear (object-oriented) practice. But there are several things that set the direct mode of perception apart from the filtered mode:

1) Jhanas and nanas do not arise. Instead of riding the wave, you *are* the wave, which means that one part of the mind cannot fold back on itself to reveal another part.
2) Development through stages is a non-issue; this experience is the only relevant experience in this moment.
3) The idea that getting enlightened sometime in the future would be better than the current experience makes no sense.
4) One aspect of experience is not seen as separate from another. Awareness as awareness, for example, makes no sense from this point of view.
5) There is no emotional charge. Anger, anxiety, ecstasy, agitation, longing, etc., do not arise. The initial urgings of these coarser emotions may be experienced as what might be called "proto-emotions," but they are immediately grounded in the physical body and do not become fully fledged emotions.
6) The emotional content is one of simplicity, well-being, and good will.
7) Boredom does not arise. The simplest things, e.g., gazing at trampolines, unlit television screens, yoga balls, or listening to the sound of a fan are completely fulfilling activities.
There is no suffering; suffering depends upon the emotional charge."

I'm a little confused by the paragraphs prior to the 1-8 list. Does the list describe 3rd gear or practice or the direct mode of perception or both?
So interesting though. If you are describing third gear it completely challenges a lot of my notions.

"
Sure, at least as far as I can tell from my own practice as well as from what I hear from my Soto Zen dharma-brothers. We experienced many of the stages of insight knowledge as well as several Jhanas, but didn't have a clear map to know what they were and what was likely to come next. And how could it be otherwise, considering that Shizantaza is very similar to the reputed and well-tested Vipassana methods of Sunlun Sayadaw or U Ba Khin. The only difference is that in Zazen the attention is more focused on the body as a whole.

I must say that noting practice always felt -and still feels- like adding unnecessary mental noise to what is. Is Shikantaza 3rd Gear or 1st Gear practice? I would say both. It is 1st Gear Vipassana until one realizes that Zazen is and has alreays been the expression of original enlightenment (3rd Gear).

My conclusion is therefore that Shikantaza can be a single practice method taking one all the way, especially if we approach it with a pragmatic attitude and a general knowledge of what is likely to happen.

"

yes, I can really relate to this. i think Dzogchen at least as Norbu teaches it includes physioenergetic development, but rather than being concieved in terms of attainmant this development is regarded as a natural decompression of the energetic system which is best facilitated by frequent resting in the natural state (3rd gear proper) or when that's not "happening" by working with simple practices similar to shikantaza such as zhine and the other Semde practices which are like concentration/insight methods with a 3rd-gear twist. Similarly, bodily practices such as yantra yoga approach energetic cultivation within the umbrella of a 3rd-gear approach (i.e. that development isn't so much a process of attaining something new as divesting ones' bodymind of the habitual tensions which seem to block resting in the natural state).

"
Maps do help because after the happy A&P phase, most tend to give up thinking that they are regressing when they are actually making progress. Another problem is that most teachers don't talk enough about observing impermanence. As a result Zen students tend to doze off instead of observing the arising and passing away of phenomena.
"

brilliant. this describes what was off in my practice, where I became confused several years ago. Especially having 3rd gear arise strongly during a&p but not understanding that the dark night follows.... totally confusing.

I went for a walk this evening after cultivating this for a while. It was wonderful. the sky was a beautiful dark blue, the moon was a bright white. There were a couple of crisp bright stars starting to shine. Every now and then the attention started to contract onto a separate part of experience but this was felt and I did the grounding technique with it. A gas station, lit up in the distance was heavenly. Smells were just there as well. Grass, flowers, burning gas. All wonderful. I noticed insects flying by, wonderful little yellow flowers in the grass, and oh how wonderful trees are. I strolled around a prayer garden outside a local church and gazed on the brightly colored statues.

It was wonderful. One of the key things i thought about after was how by not looking at anything in particular everything was streaming in all at once. So I was seeing, hearing, and smelling all without directing the attention. I think I'll take another slow walk before bed. Good times!

"Every now and then the attention started to contract onto a separate part of experience but this was felt and I did the grounding technique with it. A gas station, lit up in the distance was heavenly. Smells were just there as well. Grass, flowers, burning gas. All wonderful. I noticed insects flying by, wonderful little yellow flowers in the grass, and oh how wonderful trees are. I strolled around a prayer garden outside a local church and gazed on the brightly colored statues."-Mumuwu

Thanks for this beautiful report, Mu. It so gratifying to a teacher when a student actually does the assignment instead of thinking about it. ;-D

Welcome to the direct path!

Kenneth

Just did it again. Walked by a pond near my girlfriends house. Telephone poles are astounding on a clear moonlit night. The way the light plays off the grain in the pole and the stark shadows against the deep blue sky are beautiful. The sound of the ocean played out in the background as I just strolled around looking up at the trees. Houses, gardens, my shadow, a dog barking in the distance - all beautiful. It felt as if I was walking around in a Japanese Zen painting. It is so pristine and calm though. There's nothing flashy or gaudy about this. Taking a slow stroll outside seems to be the perfect vehicle for this practice.

It feels like these two walks are a couple of the nicest moments in my life. I can't thank you enough. The metaphor of the sunspot just made things so clear. Wonderful!

Ok. So I've got a question, and hopefully it will be taken in the right spirit.

Assuming someone were able to develop this particular ability consistently--that negative feelings can be essentially dissolved or released, as reliably as other meditative skills or points of view--aren't we headed right back to the perspective of people being to become "perfected" in the old way that has gotten the whole tradition in so much trouble and been contradicted so often? Is egoic obliteration back on the table? I can intellectually guess at answers based on some things, but I am curious what folks here (and particularly Kenneth) would say because I'm not sure I get how all this meshes.

Mark

I'm reflecting on comments in particular Kenneth made about staying in a consistent state of AF (or vipassana consciousness), now direct path, is childish and perhaps even irresponsible. So what's the proper place and balance to all this?

"I'm reflecting on comments in particular Kenneth made about staying in a consistent state of AF (or vipassana consciousness), now direct path, is childish and perhaps even irresponsible. So what's the proper place and balance to all this?-mdaf30

"

Hi Mark,

Anticipating the question, I have been running the experiment. On Tuesday, I dedicated myself to the continuous cultivation of the direct mode of perception. It is now early Monday morning, and I have not suffered from greed, hatred, or delusion for six days.* Notice the asterisk. Further clarification is required. Every day, seven days a week, I talk to yogis on Skype. Depending on the yogi and the circumstances, we may talk about the direct path or we may talk about developmental meditation. If we talk about developmental meditation, we will note together; I will abandon the direct mode of perception in favor of the filtered mode, and I will note mind states as they arise, including anger, aversion, fear, desire, longing, anxiety, shame, self-loathing, etc. The fact that I am willing to do this is precisely the answer to your question. I am inspired by the spirit, if not the letter of the bodhisattva vow; I am ready, willing, able, happy, and eager to fully embrace the world of suffering in order to meet students where they are. When I note together with a student, I allow myself to tune into whatever mode or stratum of mind they are currently passing through. This is not such a great sacrifice on my part because after all, freedom in heaven and freedom in hell is my specialty; I go to hell to meet people where they are. To be unwilling to do this would be, in my view, "childish and even irresponsible."

The ability to leave the world of suffering behind once and for all does not equal the will to do so. I am not the only one here.

Quick question: When in "direct mode" how do you relate to your body? Do you still have the feeling that this is my body? Or does it look and feel alien and suddenly fascinating?

Point of clarity: when Kenneth describes the direct path method and its attributes it would be easy to think the "courser emotions" he refers to are all "bad" emotions or "painful" ones like greed, anger, hatred, and so on. Not so. Please avoid that trap. You cannot have some of THIS. It is one taste, all of it.

I find this practice really works and I have been doing it instinctively for a while.
Whenever I am controlled by mental suffering, I am not really 'grounded' in the physical world, most of the attention is on the mental-land.

So if I direct my attention to the physical world, the face of the person in front of me,the feeling of my physical body, 'lala-land' loses its grip on me and I am again 'here now'