4th Pathers Unite!

So, I have noticed many 4th pathers have stopped posting about their practices recently. I say let's come together and unite, and go wild writing about anything and everything we have found relevant to the post 4th path experience so far. Let's see how much cool stuff we run into!

Yeah, I've been pretty lazy about posting. A lot of it is that I don't want to confuse people given that there are not a lot of good maps for what happens post 4th. The difference between the definitions of the Mahasi 4th and the Pali 4th was confusing enough - I'm kinda gun shy about the site getting all drama queen again.

I'd also like to avoid the edge of my practice (which is now basically psychology and noting mind states) being seen as appropriate for people trying to get 4th. I'm thinking this might be the mistake that gave rise to the mushroom culture. I don't want it to get replicated here.

But in the spirit of openness, I'll say that my current practice is trying to deeply love and care for myself. This appears to be a requisite for the findal ending the self contraction (conceit), but it is also the blocks that are the most deeply rooted. I'm also spending a lot of time dealing with my neurotic crap and bad habits.

Hi Jorge,

It might well be related to the whole spiral experience post-4th, but at times I just don't want to talk about myself. It comes in spurts and has always been that way. I feel a sudden urge of energy and enthusiasm to share my practice and thus I post one of my long winded rants of what I am currently doing. One time I did that, it ended up turning some people away from KFD. So like Owen, I am reluctant to talk about my practice for fear of causing more trouble than its worth. I think some things may be best kept underwraps because practices seem to differ for each path, especially post- 4th path and that can cause, like Owen mentioned, some confusion in those who aren't there, or who have different ideas on what an appropriate 4th path practice should be.

I'm , one, avoiding causing anymore trouble, and two, in a phase of "I don't want to talk about myself!" and would prefer to help from the sidelines.

Could get worse, could get better, could stay the same. Thus is life.



Nick

P.S. Like Owen, I aim for the end of the self-contraction. If you want to chat about 4th path stuff, we can do so off the board on skype or PM.

Shockingly I agree with Owen and Nick in this regard. Post (the technical model's) 4th path things get different. The instructions appropriate for someone at my stage could seriously derail someone else working on an earlier path. Ergo my near complete silence. Things are going well, like Owen lots of Neurotic deep rooted psychological stuff has been bubbling up in the last 2 months or so. Please PM me your skype name and we can have a chat sometime if you want...

Owen, Nick, and Clayton,

Thanks very much for your input. Certainly there is a common pattern. From trying to avoid all the unnecessary drama that aroused a while back around here, to the sudden bursts of either enthusiasm or apathy towards talking about practice post 4th path, particularly the concern about causing confusion among the less experienced yogis in regards to their practices.

As we are all aware, there does not seem to be a lot (or even little to be honest) on the practice post 4th path, even though (I'm certain a lot of fascinating stuff must be taken place behind closed doors regarding post 4th path practice in many monastic circles. There is certainly a need for an advanced post 4th path Sangha to be created IMO. We can definitely take the whole "4th pathers Unite" concept to a place free from unnecessary drama and where it does not create confusion to yogis working towards 4th path.

I think it's safe to say that, although not in a conventional sense, this post has served its purpose.

Thank you guys again for your input!

Jorge Freddy

P.S. My Skype name is "jorge_freddy" if you all want to add me. I'll go ahead and make sure I have Owen and Clayton added (I already have you, Nick)

Relevant aspects I've bumped into after 4th path:

Obstacles while practicing:
- Reflecting too much is an obstacle.
- Debates are obstacles.
- Talking without a reason or purpose is an obstacle.
- Being "Alejandro" is an obstacle.
- Trying to cause anything in practice is an obstacle.
- Wanting anything is an obstacle. (Same thing with "not wanting").
- Keeping the "unconditioned happiness" for myself and not sharing it is an obstacle.
- Not dropping my will is an obstacle.

Hey Jorge ,

If you havent gotten in contact with Kenneth recently, now would be a good time. He would have some good instruction for you if you want to take it further.

Nick

Oh, and "not paying the toll" with anything I perceive is also an obstacle.

One thing that might be useful to talk about, and I think this might be a common post 4th thing is that my practice has become far less desperate than it was before. I find it fascinating that the questions that drove me mad before never wound up getting answered in an intellectually useful way - but the bodily experience of emptiness made those questions irrelevant.

I also can't remember what it was like before to think of myself as a "being a self". It feels like the ego has been reformatted, I can't convince myself that the stories or the old scripts (that are still going on) are all that important. This moment is enough.

That being said, I can still get my head dramatically jammed up my ass every once and a while.

Just to add--I totally agree in spirit and content with Clayton, Owen, Alejandro, and Nick about post 4th path. I don't know what to say about my experience or practice that isn't immediately recognized as contradictory, partial, incomplete, and fleeting. I also don't know what I would say that wouldn't be confusing, as the terrain post 4th just feels so wide open and vast. Similar yet very different. I feel pretty confident giving some advice to people on their way to A&P or 1-4, but have nothing of value to offer in the other domain. Very much the village idiot.

If someone is interested in post 4th path, just consult the great teachers and great traditions. In my mind, all the usual suspects--all those folks who everybody talks about--have that world figured out.

Just wanted to say that I am not even a 1st pather, but I really look forward to reading the messages on this board even though I mostly don't understand them. Sometimes it hits just right, sometimes it'll be 2 years later and it'll be 'aha that's what they meant' . But the thing of it to me is reading all of your commentary keeps 'the eyes on the prize' if you will. Truth beyond name and form. It seems to me that the words of an awakened teacher are just a fraction of the teaching. It's alot just being able to be around and experience the awakened in mundane activities that can point the mundane(unawakened people like me) towards awakening.So please keep posting and being mundane and confusing because every bit of it(even the troubled portions) can help point to where we need to go. People may take you to task on some finer spiritual points bs, but I would submit that they are too interested in laying responsibility for their own spiritual lives on somebody elses shoulders. We all know that that aint gonna do the job.

There are many of us out here who are interested in taking on that responsibility and really appreciate the lofty and mundane chatter and goings on on this message board. Please stay verbose AND awakened. Thank you for all of your efforts.
refred

"
That being said, I can still get my head dramatically jammed up my ass every once and a while.
"

Right there with ya! I can get my head so far jammed up myown arse I can't see daylight. But there is truly soemthing to the "no stacking" process". Habitual patterns galore but they seemed to have been freed up to arise and not stay and multiply in strength. I too cant remember how it was to have a concrete "self". For the life of me, I feel so damn normal, yet, whenever the mind stops, and there are no responsibilities that need my attention, then those moments generally make me realise that I seriously changed my brain with all that insight practice. THere ain't no-one home. Nothing but the aggregates! Quite the trip indeed!

My new pointer : "Head out of Arse!!!!!"

Adyashanti has a nice line: "Consciousness always comes back for itself." This basically means that whatever elements in your consciousness are awake, they will return to engage (i.e., interact with, grapple with, expose) those aspects of consciousness that are not. In a related way, his student Moksananda put it to me once: "Just because 'you' wake up, it doesn't mean all of 'you' wakes up."

This seems to be at least part of the drill post 4th.

Mark

Hi gang,

There are two distinct attainments that come after 4th Path as we define it in this community. One is the transformation of the emotions and the other is the end of self referencing. I assert this from my own very recent experience, so I have not yet amended the maps published here to include this information. But I am already teaching it to my advanced students.

The two attainments I am referring to are natural, organic changes that follow 4th Path. In other words, just as 2nd Path follows 1st and just as 3rd Path follows 2nd, etc., these two attainments are a natural consequence of continuing to practice post-4th Path. None of this changes the map up to 4th Path, it just adds to it. Think of it as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree black belt.

One way to model all of this together is to nest the technical 4 Path model within the ten fetters model. If you then add the A&P as the first stage (thanks Owen for the A&P suggestion), you get a detailed and comprehensive map of awakening in 7 stages. This avoids the weaknesses of both the technical model (ends too soon) and the ten fetters model (lack of detail). The KFDh map of the Seven Stages of Enlightenment looks like this:

1) A&P
2) 1st Path by the technical model
3) 2nd Path by the TM
4) 3rd Path by the TM
5) 4th Path by the TM
6) Emotional transformation
7) End of self-contraction

The emotional transformation means that you no longer glom together a specific set of mental and physical phenomena, invest it with self and call it an emotion. The information still comes in the form of raw materials (5 physical senses and mental impressions) but is no longer mistaken for a "thing" called my emotion.

The end of self-contraction is similar, but more subtle: the group of phenomena that was previously seen as the "I" is no longer recognized as "I". There is only object.

This is the type of discussion I was hoping we would get into in this thread! If you build it, it will come

Kenneth, the KFDh is making a lot of sense. Everything up to 4th path has been so documented in the past, but not a lot (or little until recently) had been said or written (at least that I knew of) about post 4th practice. It certainly feels like these 2 other attainments do not interfere and are not related to the practice post 4th path (which I always felt it was funny (not funny "haha") how so many people felt it was interfering with their practice pre-4th path).
I look forward to discussing this new practice with you kenneth, and some of the other 4th pathers via skype soon enough. One of the great strengths of KFDh in my opinion is great sangha we have created here!
Thanks to everyone who has provided their opinion on the matter here: Nick, Clayton, Owen, Alex, Mark, Refred. A special thanks to Kenneth for continuing to guide and provide invaluable input to our practice.

With metta,
Jorge Freddy

This is nice stuff Kenneth!

Mark

Edited P.S.

Kenneth--A question: Why would 6 necessarily come prior to 7? A number of teachers I know--Adyashanti or Byron Katie, for example--seem to think that emotions arise based on the felt reality of thoughts. The felt reality of thoughts rests ultimately on self-contraction. I've heard Adya say, for example, that 95% of feelings arise first/as a result of thoughts/conceptions. So could it be that a person learns to undo self-contraction and then the emotions follow? Or could they be co-arising movements?

Hi Mark,

In my experience, it has been quite tough to stick with coming out of self-contraction when at times I am bombarded with some emotional unheavels which result. So i have begun to focus on calming down and putting out those emotional fires, so that coming out of the self-referencing mechanism will be a lot easier. In fact, today i discovered that by constantly noting all affective feeling as either "craving" and "aversion", which they all seem to boil down to, I have been amazed at the results. Due to this way of noting, I had an attack of multiple fruitions this morning, which lead to a long period of calm and collectedness, and DM mode resulted with ease. Then while doing that I tried disembedding from that self-referencing which is experienced as a twisting around of attention in the head and some mental imagery and it seemed to work wonders.

Plus I think it makes sense to deal with the emotions first then self-contraction. Think about how the limited emotion model of the pali canon arhat is. The sakadagim reduces craving and aversion but does not dispell them fully. Then the anagami gets rid of both craving and aversion completely. Then the arhat (of the pali canon) gets rid of conceit, restlessness, ignorance and lust for rebirth. I see all this related to the self-referencing habit.

Anyway, maybe its possible to bypass it straight to dealing with the self-contraction, but it is a hell of a relief and easier for myself to first deal with the emotions then the self-contraction later at perhaps the "anagami" stage of the limited emotional model of awakening.

Nick

"This is nice stuff Kenneth!

Mark

Edited P.S.

Kenneth--A question: Why would 6 necessarily come prior to 7? A number of teachers I know--Adyashanti or Byron Katie, for example--seem to think that emotions arise based on the felt reality of thoughts. The felt reality of thoughts rests ultimately on self-contraction. I've heard Adya say, for example, that 95% of feelings arise first/as a result of thoughts/conceptions. So could it be that a person learns to undo self-contraction and then the emotions follow? Or could they be co-arising movements?

"

Hey Mark,
Tried that. Man how I tried that. It didn't work. The emotions seem to have some gravity to them. I can spend a while without self reference, but the emotional glomming yanks me back pretty quickly when I hit one of my issues.

The challenge for me now is metta. Specifically, metta directed right at the self contraction. Kenneth and I chatted last Tuesday about this and he spoke about Nisargadatta's (henceforth known as "The Nis" as per Mu) comment that goes something like "Whatever the self is, it hates itself". I'm paraphrasing.

So to move from the 5th stage into the 6th, the attainment of permanent emotional grounding needs to happen. My current strategy is a touch algorithmic:

Attempt to ground continuously.

if I can stay grounded for an extended period of time and the emotions don't glom,
then declare victory.

else if coarse emotions arise:
note them until they become transparent and employ metta meditation directed at each of the 5 skhandas in sequence. Once the universe feels safe and loving again ->

Attempt continuos emotional grounding until the glomming ceases.

This way I don't have any wiggle room. It's clear what needs to be done next. Another tool in the yogi toolbox.

" Kenneth--A question: Why would 6 necessarily come prior to 7? A number of teachers I know--Adyashanti or Byron Katie, for example--seem to think that emotions arise based on the felt reality of thoughts. The felt reality of thoughts rests ultimately on self-contraction."

Hi Mark,

I think the onion analogy works here. The 7th stage is deeper into the onion, so it's easier to see it clearly and thereby dis-embed from it from the standpoint of already having dis-embedded from the 6th. This is what we see all along the way, as the 4 Paths unfold in order. But this is not to say that some gifted or fortunate people might not get to the heart of it all at once. Ramana said that the I-thought is the thought from which all others depend, so to see the deceptive nature of the self contraction would automatically allow you to see through the rest. This is especially clear if you consider the origin of "depend upon," which is "to hang from." So think of a string with a series of knots in it, hanging from the ceiling. If you snip it at the top, all the knots fall at once. But it is easier to snip it one knot at a time, from the bottom up because the lower knots are easier to reach.

Also, consider the difference between timeless realization and development through time. It is possible, in any given moment, to see that the self contraction is a composite and and thereby be free in that moment. But this is not the same as abiding freedom from self contraction, which is an attainment; before the attainment, the self contraction can arise, but not after it.

And finally, there is the difference between the "I-thought" or self contraction and an ordinary thought. The self contraction is the momentary misperception that some constellation of phenomena is "I". It is still possible to think normally even when the self contraction does not arise.

Hi all.

Thanks for your detailed answers! These are very much appreciated and great food or thought; chewing through things intellectually has always been helpful for me regardless of how long I arrive to a place experientially.

Currently--as long as we discussing post-4th path stuff--I don't know where I am or what's going to happen next. Sometimes I feel a serious pull to deepen 3rd gear, sometimes to re-engage 1st or 2nd, and sometimes to let it all go and just sort of integrate what I've already learned on a pretty human level, like feeling feelings. It's pretty all over. I see the hubris on my part thinking that somehow I am in charge of the process, at least at anything but a very superficial or momentary level. I don't think I ever was. I am mindful of my own Western sense of rushing things or trying to push . I am also mindful about not spiritually bypassing things this body-mind is not ready to bypass (if you'll forgive me for referring to myself as an object).

This is by way of saying I don't know when I'll be ready to engage any of the above as consistent practice commitments--like I made trying to get paths--or whether such practice commitments are at this point out of my hands. The thought arises--I need to do X or Y-- and I see it driven by a "ride-like" anxiety that I can't sustain well anymore. The thought doesn't catch hold in the same way, or if it does it now has a much shorter half-life.

Yours,
Mark

" It is still possible to think normally even when the self contraction does not arise."

That, to me(ironic), is an earth shattering stand! But also very affirming. The implications are... beyond...

Kenneth,
I'm interested to hear how this model relates to suffering.
Would you say there is no suffering after what you are calling the 7th stage?

"Think about how the limited emotion model of the pali canon arhat is. The sakadagim reduces craving and aversion but does not dispell them fully. Then the anagami gets rid of both craving and aversion completely. Then the arhat (of the pali canon) gets rid of conceit, restlessness, ignorance and lust for rebirth." -NikolaiStephenHalay

Nick, in order to be precise with the language, I think it would be better to refer to the "ten fetters" arahat in this case, since both the technical model and the ten fetters model find their support in the Pali canon. In other words, one is not "more Pali canon" than the other; they are just two different ways of interpreting the 4 Path model.

In the seven stages model, I synthesize the two models into one. Although there is some potential confusion caused by the same words (arahat, anagami, etc.) being used twice, this confusion has been around for centuries and we have no choice but to deal with it now.

Everyone: On a similar note, it was not Mahasi Sayadaw who came up with the technical model of the 4 Paths. He seems to have gotten it from the Visuddhimaga among other sources within the Pali canon. I request that in differentiating the two 4 Path models, we adopt the convention of referring to them as the technical model and the ten fetters model respectively, since labels like the "Mahasi model" and the "Pali canon model" are ambiguous and/or inaccurate. Thanks in advance for helping to clarify an inherently confusing system of terminology!

"I'm interested to hear how this model relates to suffering. Would you say there is no suffering after what you are calling the 7th stage?" -Yadid

Hi Yadid,

The suffering related to the despair of believing that you are a separate entity goes away at the 5th of the 7 stages.

Emotional suffering goes away at the 6th stage.

The suffering caused by the momentary self-contraction goes away at the 7th stage.

The physical discomfort associated with pain, fatigue, hunger, sickness, etc., along with the physical component of what was previously taken to be negative emotions, persists after the 7th stage. (This last part about the emotions deserves clarification. At the 6th stage, the emotional life is transformed. The physical sensations, thoughts, and mental impressions are no longer glommed together to form emotions. Instead, they are seen as individual phenomena that don't come together to form an entity called an emotion. So the information that we normally associate with emotions continues to come in, e.g., you can still get out of the way of a speeding car and you still know when you have offended your wife. In the case of having offended your wife, you can still think the thought, "That was a mistake and I will try not to do it again." And you can feel the physical pain of that recognition. But it is not glommed into an emotion. In the moment of feeling this pain and having this remorseful thought, if you ask yourself "Do I feel remorse?" the answer will be, "No." If you note mind states even during times that would normally cause emotional suffering, you will only find equanimity, contentment, well-being, love, metta, compassion, etc. Sounds hokey, I know, but there it is. In fact, this inability to find fear, anger, dissatisfaction, greed, excitement, etc., in the mind is the test for whether one has gained the attainment of the 6th of the 7 stages.)