3rd gear as the cutting edge of practice?

Once you are able to shift to 3rd gear should it be your cutting edge? Your streamlined path to enlightenment? Based on everything I have been reading on this site in the past month or two this is the message I think I have been piecing together. Could someone point me in the right direction if I have this mixed up?

According to my current understanding one should start with concentration and noting until the door is opened up enough (maybe post 1st path) to understand 3rd gear practices and then switch to them as your primary path to enlightenment (with down shifting when necessary).

In between my sitting meditations I have been taking a 3rd gear perspective as my main daily practice. Specifically I have been grounding tension and mind states in the body and, when done continuously, this brings me to a very acute awareness of this moment without much interference of self. Currently this takes a good amount of my mind's processing power to keep it up and I wouldn't say that I am brought to a pleasant state but rather my levels of suffering certainly drop quite a bit.

During my noting meditation yesterday I became bored with noting and was drawn to practicing the above grounding method instead. I wonder if this should be the main focus of my sitting practice now since I feel drawn to it.

If I had to answer my own question I would agree that every moment of awareness leads to more moments of awareness and this leads to liberation and I should shut up and just do it.

-Anthony

One thing you might want to try to get even more momentum is to make yourself stoked every time you realize that you were lost and are now back to paying attention. You can just think, "Awareness!" and feel a little rush of excitement. For me, this little dopamine hit, I believe, has encouraged finding 3rd gear much more often.

Anyway, it makes sense to me from an armchair neuroscience perspective - your brain loves little dopamine hits and when you combine the moment of recognition with that dopamine, you get "neurons that fire together wire together".

Also, Kenneth's reminder that "each moment conditions the next" was hugely helpful for me in increasing my 3rd gear momentum.

"During my noting meditation yesterday I became bored with noting and was drawn to practicing the above grounding method instead."

3rd gear, in a sense, is wordless noting, it is the biggest effortless note, a 360º note in all directions. Boredom is included, yearning to be entertained is included, excitement is included, yet everything is the same in its free diverse expression.

"Once you are able to shift to 3rd gear should it be your cutting edge? Your streamlined path to enlightenment? Based on everything I have been reading on this site in the past month or two this is the message I think I have been piecing together. Could someone point me in the right direction if I have this mixed up?"

Well, what are you looking to attain? (What precisely does enlightenment mean to you?)

I would like to get to 4th path and have mastery of non dual awareness. Essentualy I want to make it to the 8th stage. So doing both is required to make it that far right?

Well, what exactly do you mean by non-dual awareness?

It strikes me that the answer to the question depends on what you think of non-dual awareness as being. Also, it depends on your personal strengths and weaknesses.

I did a marathon first gear session last week (way beyond 4th path) and my experience now is permanently apperceptive, which seems to be what Adam West and Alex Weith would call 'recognizing rigpa'. Does that definition of rigpa match what you mean by non-dual awareness? (It doesn't seem to be everyone's definition of rigpa. Kenneth in particular seems to distinguish between rigpa and apperception.) If so, the answer seems to be...are you better at first gear or third gear? How is your concentration? Are you better at one at some times (e.g. daily life) and another at other times (e.g. formal practice)?

I haven't heard of anyone else here who has attained full permanent apperception (or even the partial permanent apperception that I have now) through first gear, but on the other hand, I haven't heard that anyone else here has ever stuck with first gear for so long...

""During my noting meditation yesterday I became bored with noting and was drawn to practicing the above grounding method instead."

3rd gear, in a sense, is wordless noting, it is the biggest effortless note, a 360º note in all directions. Boredom is included, yearning to be entertained is included, excitement is included, yet everything is the same in its free diverse expression."

Well spoken! I too have a hard time finding much difference between vipassana and recognition of awareness.

"I did a marathon first gear session last week (way beyond 4th path) and my experience now is permanently apperceptive, which seems to be what Adam West and Alex Weith would call 'recognizing rigpa'. Does that definition of rigpa match what you mean by non-dual awareness? (It doesn't seem to be everyone's definition of rigpa. Kenneth in particular seems to distinguish between rigpa and apperception.) If so, the answer seems to be...are you better at first gear or third gear? How is your concentration? Are you better at one at some times (e.g. daily life) and another at other times (e.g. formal practice)?

I haven't heard of anyone else here who has attained full permanent apperception (or even the partial permanent apperception that I have now) through first gear, but on the other hand, I haven't heard that anyone else here has ever stuck with first gear for so long..."

If it were permanently apperceptive it would be AF. If there is a sense of "being" there, then something is not being apperceived. Apperception is the PCE. Are you in a permanent PCE like condition?

"I haven't heard of anyone else here who has attained full permanent apperception (or even the partial permanent apperception that I have now) through first gear."

As a data point, I somehow got stuck in fairly hard first gear for many hours straight last Friday. I was doing fast noting and even when I was "done" sitting my mind couldn't help but frenetically note. It was actually quite uncomfortable (which was noted) as the experiential flavor was so frenetic and scrambled.

From this experience I am now seeing 1st gear as 3rd gear but with a lot of extra tension and effort.

I say this, but then on the contrary, it seems to be possible to do a couple of notes without a recognition of the awareness underlying the notes. Its very hard for me to tell.

"If it were permanently apperceptive it would be AF. If there is a sense of "being" there, then something is not being apperceived. Apperception is the PCE. Are you in a permanent PCE like condition? "

Nope. It's only partial apperception (just as a default condition). Think of a really strong EE that doesn't end.

There is no partial apperception, End. It's either PCE or not. You might wish to investigate what is keeping you from perfect non-stop apperception. What keeps 'you' (the flow of sankhara) around, no matter how refined and subtle it is? It may be key.

OK, a terminological problem. A permanent EE moving towards the direction of the PCE.

I'll let you know when I have the answer to your question! I would like to know, myself.

"I would like to get to 4th path and have mastery of non dual awareness. Essentualy I want to make it to the 8th stage. So doing both is required to make it that far right?"

Anthony: For me, knowing more specifically what I want has been helpful. The concepts of these maps are not going to be all that helpful in a specific moment. Do you want to stop suffering? Are you driven to know the Truth? Do you want to savor every moment of your life? Do you want to be a Dharma teacher?

By knowing what I want, I can more clearly go after it IMO.

I guess I should backpedal a bit and state what my current priority is: get to 4th path. I believe that from there I will have a better platform to move onwards, whichever direction that may be. And besides, Kenneth explained it to me that after 4th path everything is downhill from there

I guess to reform my question I would ask that if my priority is to get to 4th path should I stick mostly to 1st gear or can 3rd gear practices alone help to make solid progress with developmental enlightenment. There are several practices emerging here (grounding, the wheel, mahamudra, mahamudra noting, ect...) and I am uncertain which one I should focus on for my goal. Even if it takes me 20 years to get to 4th path I will be grateful but to be completely honest with you all I would like to get there yesterday.

To be even more simple in what I am looking for: I want to stop suffering. I notice that whenever I, ME or MINE has a problem with the way things are I suffer. If I could drop that for good then it would be all good.

Thanks for all the help!

For 4th path, I'd say it's probably a matter of figuring out your own skills and talents as a meditator, and also seeing what works best for the typical person, and seeing if you think that will apply to you. Kenneth thinks that 3rd gear is the priority if possible, and as a teacher, he has a better idea of how things work on average than most of us do (who more or less only know how things have worked for ourselves and a couple of dharma friends).

So, how do you feel about 1st gear vs 2nd gear vs 3rd gear?

" Kenneth thinks that 3rd gear is the priority if possible."

I feel strong about 3rd gear practice. If it can give me the best chance for attaining paths then I would like to cultivate it more.

Well, there you go.

More and more, I think Orasis is right (that 1st gear is a variation of 3rd gear, or at least that it can be). It seems that they come together after awhile. Not sure about "resting in awareness" types of practices, but other things.

Anthony: If you like 3rd gear, then the best advice I received from Kenneth on how to increase the frequency and length of 3rd gear is to realize that "Each moment conditions the next".

I also had very good luck with having some activities during my day where I would not give myself permission to be lost in narrative. You could make a resolution that every time you take a walk, or shave, or whatever that you will absolutely not give yourself permission to narrate. I started off very simple with this and just focused on my walks. I might still be lost in narrative for 50% or more of the walk, but the moment I realized that I was lost I would remember that I had no permission to be lost and would come back to 3rd gear.

For me, resolutions have been a big part of gaining momentum in 3rd gear.

Good luck man and have fun!

Thanks friends for the advice! I agree that the more you practice 3rd gear the more it opens you up to the next 3rd gear moment. I have seen this with my practice. I don't know why I have been so reluctant to just go with it and do it all day long. Maybe I feel like I am neglecting my old friend 'noting' who has gotten me so far or that I am skipping steps or something. But nothing is as important to me as opening the next door so time to surrender and shift into high gear!

Much appreciation,

Anthony
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Might be interesting that the tibetans teach 3rd gear practices depending on what kind of personality you are: anger-type: dzogchen, desire-type: mahamudra, confusion-type: umachen