Beyond 4th Path?

"Hello Nikolai- Could you say more about this, and how this shows up for you in your experience? Curious. Thank you."

Hi, sure.

Trigger sensations, like ones that may arise in the chest and throat etc which depending on your practice, and perceptual baseline may trigger emotions, moods, selfing processes or not so much.


But even if 'emotions' have changed due to baseline shifts, why do such trigger sensations still arise? What is their cause? You find yourself driving your car, and a situation (an object) presents that triggers the part of the mind that runs the 'object' though the memory banks and evaluates it as good, bad, meh! for who else but 'me'. Sensations arise in the chest, sensations that would have triggered a reaction of irritation in the mind. A compounding of mental and physical factors that gave rise to 'irritation'. One has a baseline shift, and is able to see that such arisings are compounded, and is able to obsevre the physical factor seeing that a mental reaction may be more diminished or maybe even absent. But, the trigger sensations are still arising in such situations. There may be a subtler mental reaction still, and unsatisfactory movement in the mind. One can then start to develop a feeling of equanimity towards such trigger sensations. The mental irritation is replaced by the feeling of equanimity towards them. And this feeling of being equanimous will grow stronger and stronger as the same situations still occur and give rise to the trigger sensations that need to be seen equanimously. This may continue indefinitely.

But what of the trigger for the very trigger sensations themselves? Why do they keep arising in such situations? Depending on your intent, one can begin to pull apart why they do still arise. How does the mind focus in such situations that were the 'object' of such irritation? How does the mind 'read' the 'object'? How is the manner in which the mind narrows focus, drops focus, recognises more of the field of experience? Not recognise parts? Overlook parts? Segregate parts of the field of experience to react towards? What of the sense contact that is ignored in favour of a singular object that is reacted towards habitually with irritation (just now only manifesting as sensations)?

When causes are seen clearly, this is usually enough to bring about the cessation of the effects. Something one, if so inclined, should investigate themselves. What are the causes? How does the cessation come about?

Nick

Thanks, dude. Very interesting. I will have to read it over again a couple of times when I'm not as drowsy, but thank you for taking the time to respond so thoroughly.

Bill

Hi Ron, great to hear from you again and read your clear and informative descriptions.

The best way i can describe what emotions are like post 6th stage is to compare them with trees (stay with me), if emotions were like
trees, as in fully developed, then post 6th stage they have been rendered down to stumps. This may sound like a negative thing to
happen but it is very positive as it gives room for much peace and stillness. It would probably be better to compare them with weeds
than trees as this gives a more positive image. I describe them as stumps post 6th because they are still felt in the body, chest and
stomach areas as triggers, just as described by Nic. These trigger sensations can then be then seen into, watch them arise and
pass away and disintegrate into nothingness. Hope this adds something to the discussion.

Steve.

According to my personal understanding of Kenneth's 6th stage, the experience is identical to the one in which, pursuing direct mode, emotions are "grounded" as body sensations. The only difference is that, in pursuing direct mode, the "grounding" can flick on and off, depending on all kinds of factors, whereas as 6th stage, the grounding stays on all the time (as the default way the mind functions). I'm not aware of any difference beyond that. So, if you're familiar with direct mode, you'll be familiar with 6th stage.

I will stand corrected if Kenneth has a different perspective on this.

I think Nick's description is very accurate. As I have experienced these things they are not sudden in onset but occur over a longer period of time. The effect appears from the descriptions here to be the same. It seems to me (to reiterate what I posted yesterday), being able to deconstruct the processes at play is the key. It's vipassana!

Thanks, Nick.

Great stuff in this thread. I suspect I'm going through the same thing right now.

Check out comments #32 and #34 in my thread: kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/48...set=20&maxResults=20

Ron, I'd love to chat with you about this while it's fresh, if we can catch each other on Skype.

Nikolai: Is paying bare attention to the senses the recommended route to realize what you mention in #26?

"Nikolai: Is paying bare attention to the senses the recommended route to realize what you mention in #26?"

Hi Justin,

It depends on how 'bare attention' is approached. If one singles out specific sense contact to mentally focus on, what does it lead to? What if one drops all mentally forced focus and simply allows the brain to show (no-one) what it is cognising right now at whatever sense door maybe two or three or all sense contact doors simultaneously?

As far as I have seen in my own experience, the way the mind 'focuses', the way it lunges onto 'objects' in the field of experience, sectioning off and ignoring parts of it, is how it sets up the base for the whole naming, conceptualising, evaluating and reacting sequence that leads to 'trigger sensations' and whatever leaps off of that arising.

You find yourself driving a car, and you notice how the mind narrows onto the car in front of you. They are driving slow. The mind narrows the mental focus lunging onto an object (the slow driver) and passes it through the sequence thus evaluating it as 'irritating'. Aaaah, so it seems the way the mind lunges and grasps at 'objects' is triggering it all. What if I train the mind to relinquish such a habit?

'Bare attention' can still be practiced via the 'narrow mental focus' route and it may lead to a fabricated concentration but it is still a fabrication and as we know, they are generally if not always subject to end, impersonal and unsatisfactory. A fabricated 'bare attention' is not what I would utilize unless one is experimenting to see how an unfabricated 'no focus bare attention' compares to it. One can then learn how to relinquish that habitual tendency to 'objectify' parts of the field of experience ignoring the rest of what the brain is automatically cognising.

continued...

I have found all of the following approaches when applied together to lead to the 'bare attention' which will show how the mind without 'narrow focus' is not subject to 'irritation', nor the trigger sensations for such a compounding.

To show oneself how the mind 'lunges' and 'grasps' at objects and learning how to relinquish that via a very effective feedback mechanism: thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/...oolbox-floaters.html

Thanks to Mu for the following, this pointer shows how the mind may be habitually narrowing its focus and not recognsing what is cognised by the brain in other parts of the field of experience.
thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/...peripherycentre.html

Both previous approaches should be practiced with the following informing everything:
thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2011/...ent-riding-wave.html

Combining all of them, one will lead the mind to relinquish the deeply engrained habitual lunging and grasping at objects, in turn, allowing what is continuously, automatically and simultaneously cognised and experienced by the brain to be simply cognised without any interference from 'you', i.e. the desire to grasp at an object. Then there will simply be the ongoing experience of truly seeing in the seen, cognising in the cognised, at whatever sense door. Nothing is singled out, sectioned off from the field of experience, everything is recognised as it arises and passes without becoming fuel for any 'triggers' or compounding to arise.

The slow driver will just be part of the seeing in the seen as opposed to the mind habitually making an 'object' out of the them, and evaluating them as 'slow and irritating'.

This is based on own experience and 2 cents.

Nick

Thank you

I came across a very interesting recent talk by Thanissaro which relates directly to what I talked of above. If anyone post '4th' is interested it is more or less the same thing I'm referring to above.

START OF QUOTE: "In addition to equanimity, you find you sometimes you actually need to, as the Buddha says exert a fabrication, change the way you breath, change the way you are thinking about things, the topics you bring up, change the way you perceive and feel and this can actually dig out some of the causes of suffering so that you don't have to carry that suffering around.

So you've got these choices, either equanimity or fabrication and as it turns out, equanimity itself is a fabrication. A lot of what passes for mindfulness practice is basically equanimity practice the idea that you are just going to sit there and watch what comes up and not react in any way. Mindfulness is actually the ability to keep something in mind. Alertness is watching what's happening but mindfulness reminds you that there are duties that you have with regard to whatever is coming up.

For instance if the cause of suffering is coming up, you want to do what you can to abandon it which can either require watching or as I said fabricating things. But as I said equanimity itself is a fabricated state, you see this in many ways, the Buddha talks about how equanimity does not become pure until you reach the 4th jhana."

Continued...

"The 4th jhana just doesn't happen, you actually have to work at getting there you have to get the mind concentrated, you have to get it settled down and take it through many stages, but this observation works in both ways, the equanimity is itself is fabricated which means you have to learn how to be good at equanimity, and secondly, equanimity is not the goal, we are not trying to just be equanimous all the time, and that is not going to be the end of the matter. because after all the 4th jhana, you've already got pure equanimity and you are not there at nibbana yet, there is a lot more to be done.

The Buddha talks about many stages in the process of getting more skilled in equanimity , 1st there's what he calls equanimity coming from multiplicity in other words whatever comes up you determine in your mind that whatever you see or hear or taste or smell or touch or think about the mind is going to remain steady. Now this is the same kind of equanimity he was teaching to his son, when he was talking about making your mind like earth, water fire or wind, you are determined not to react, just to watch things coming and going, now the Buddha says this is equanimity based on multiplicity, which he said is not is quite as refined as the equanimity that comes from getting the mind into concentration.

When the mind is in concentration starting with the 4th jhana and going up that is equanimity based on unity. That is a lot more solid, but in order to get there you have work at getting there, you have to work with your breath, you have to work with your perceptions and feelings to get the mind to settle down."

Continued...

continued from post 38...

The Buddha actually says when release happens there are three appropriate reactions to the realization of your release, imagine yourself you finally gained the end of suffering, how are you going to react emotionally, he said joy will happen and then it will pass away, rapture will happen and then it will pass away, equanimity will happen and then it will pass away. These three things are responses to release but they are not the release in and of itself, there is something higher than that, we are talking about total freedom, now in this total freedom, the Buddha said, nibbana is the highest happiness, there is no place where he said it is the highest equanimity. But the happiness here is not a feeling.

There was one time when the Buddha himself addressed this issue, when someone says wait a minute we are told that all feeling are impermanent are inconstant yet the Buddha is talking about nibbana as the highest or the highest pleasure, isn't there a contradiction here? And the Buddha says not all kinds of pleasure and happiness are feelings, not all of them are aggregates, there is something that lies outside the aggregates which is the happiness, that is not conditioned in anyway, that is actually where we are aiming. So what this means altogether is that equanimity is overrated." END OF QUOTE

www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/3024.html

Then finally he says there's something he calls non-fashioning in which you realize that even with the equanimity there is a sense of clinging to the equanimity there is a sense of holding on, there is a sense of identity built up around the equanimity, and this can take many many forms, the grossest forms is when, you may have seen this if you have been on a jhana retreat, someone up to you on the 2nd day and asks '˜which jhana did you hit today?' And no matter how high your jhana is, there's gonna be higher, my jhana is better than your jhana, the Buddha said this is a sign of a person of no integrity, so if anyone ever pulls that line with you you've got a line to go right back at them.

When you attain these states if you think about well I've got this and so and so doesn't have this, already you've lost what you've gained by creating that sense of identity around it, that is one of the grossest ones, the more subtle ones the Buddha is talking at one point to ananada and he talks about getting the mind all the way up to the state of neither perception and non-perception and that is way up there on the jhana ladder, and ananda says when someone is there is that still clinging, and the Buddha says yeh there's still clinging there, and ananada says that sounds like the highest form of clinging, and the Buddha says yes it's the highest form of clinging, and then ananda says how can we hit that without clinging, and he says you have to look at how you are reacting to the equanimity right there, if you are feeding on the equanimity, if you are relishing in it, you are still clinging. You have to see that equanimity in itself is a fabricated state, and that your attachment to it is also a fabrication, it's only then that you can get beyond it. So equanimity is not nibbana. I understand somebody was sitting here a year or two ago saying that equanimity is nibbana, so please erase that from your memory, it's not true.
Continued...

Hi Everyone,

Beth and I had a great meeting and dinner with Chris Marti tonight when he visited San Francisco from his home town of Chicago. Chris asked me to publish my 9 Stage Map of Developmental Enlightenment, even though it is a work in progress. So I did! Here it is:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/A+9+...mental+Enlightenment

Looking forward to your feedback.

Thanks,

Kenneth

P.S. Ron, thanks for starting this thread and for posting your latest breakthrough, which does sound very much like the 6th stage. Thanks everyone else for participating in the discussion and for your dedication to your practice and to sharing it with others.

Hi Kenneth,

There are yogis experiencing baseline shifts via apperception/pre-symbolic awareness/pure presence type practices yet slight differences in results are presenting. Some are getting a more 'complete package' and some are getting bits and pieces with more practice. It would seem that the type of practice and combinations of certain practices are having a direct result on how the type of 'stage', or whatever it is called, plays out. I recognize the disorientation in the previous baselines I had post july last year, that dropped away a while back though. The no thought thing though, well it depends on what one means by 'thought'. You mean mental proliferation?Mental tensions? What of the compounding of emotions at stage 8 and 9? If stage 9 is mainly based off of Gary's claims, then his approach might need to be considered as a factor. I have had several baseline shifts within what you would consider stage 8 stage yet with periods of no thought and disorientation. Does 'tension' have a place within the stages? When does it cease to arise in the body? How does perception play out at your 8th stage for yourself?

I spoke to a mutual friend recently. He has similar thoughts having experienced a different sequence of baseline shifts, this seems quite far from linear and the type of practices one employs may produce similar but in some areas differing results. We both thought it would be good to hash this out with other yogis in the pragmatic crowd at some stage, as it really may come down to approach and technique even if two yogis are aiming for the same thing.

Congrats on the baseline shift. Apologies for any past misunderstandings. May I ask what type of practice/approach you were employing at the time of the April shift?

Kind regards,
Nick

Thank you for sharing Kenneth! ^__^

metta!

Justin

EDIT: P.S. Just wanted to thank RonCrouch for starting this thread, and mostly for the terrific practice threads that he's shared, with such excellent descriptions of his progress, really inspiring and incredibly helpful. metta!

Kenneth, if you could add some commentary on how "rigpa", as you understand / understood it, fits into this 9-stage model, that would be awesome.

Guys, it took a bottle of wine and lots of discussion to motivate Kenneth to post what he posted last night. Let's not go crazy.

Small steps.

Thanks Kenneth and Chris, this is wonderful and should offer some really good direction to people who are post 4th path.

P.S.

I had a dream about Kenneth last night. He was painting a big mural of a forest and talking to me about lack of agency and self contraction (these trees were sort of painting themselves). He said he had slept for 24 hours and then found himself wanting to paint trees. They were all very detailed and it was quite the work of art.

I was quite surprised to see this posted today.

Lol - silly eh?

Thanks Chris and Kenneth. This lines up well with my own experience thus far.

Finally...

Not a problem Chris. Kenneth can answer when and if he wants. Since I assume that I may be one of the 'former students' he mentions at 8th stage (and even if not that may be assumed by others reading into it) and since he groups Gary Weber in with all those other names at 9th, i have a few queries that I hope we can discuss without issue.

Gary Weber has said: "there's no attempt in me to suppress limiting emotions like fear, or some terrible hatred (...) your nerve centers aren't torn out". END OF QUOTE:
It seems he is still experiencing some level of 'emotion', an affective charge only perhaps without thought?

Do affective charges go through any changes in your 8th and 9th? Do they drop away?
Is there any change in the visual field at 8th?
What is a sense of 'agency' and 'ownership' exactly? Daniel Ingram reported that agency dropped away at 4th path. How does it differ at 8th?
If the 8th stage is the sense of agency changing, how does it change?
What does 'almost compete loss of agency' look like at 9th, and 8th?
What about changes in the fabricating tendencies of the mind? Does it seem different at 8th? How is 'tension' experienced?
How is 'desire' experienced at 8th? How does it manifest?
Is this model necessarily linear or are you describing individual selfing systems you have encountered along with way to shut them down?
Do you have an altered understanding of rigpa based on your current experience vs. your original take on the term?
Does each stage boil down to more and more subtle levels of craving/aversion?
How does craving/aversion change at each stage to 8th and 9th?

I do not relate to the model, thus all the questions. It is understandable as Kenneth has said he will add more details. but in the meantime..

Nick

I wasn't trying to squelch this conversation. You guys should ask away, and freely. I was referring the the fact that it took a long time and some amount of pleading to get Kenneth to post his latest theories, so we should celebrate that and not push too hard for more so fast. I was joking around.

Now that I've said that maybe he'll want to prove me wrong

And don't forget your sense of humor!