Beyond 4th Path?

Thanks for posting this Kenneth, and thank you Chris for pleading him to do so.
It is great encouragement for me to read these accounts, whether they are universal or just a few people's experiences, because it shows that the enourmous effort put into the practice is well worth the time.
Obviously one sees the results for one's self but during hard times it is good to know.

Even though I am not 4th path (yet) I have always asked every 4th pather that I have met in person or talked to (Skype) what is after 4th path out of sheer curiosity. I am glad that these are starting to be talked about (documented) more an more by advanced practitioners because this is what we need.

I feel like it is always hard to put into words what happens after SE and 2nd path because things get more murky (fractals an many cycles). I guess thats why most of the information out there on the later stages is really in people's practice logs. I find, although everyone experience isn't exactly the same, reading other's practice journals is extremely helpful.

Thank you Kenneth and Chris for starting to get all this stuff documented. Looking forward to more in the future.

" I am glad that these are starting to be talked about (documented) more an more by advanced practitioners because this is what we need.
"

These sorts of conversations are helpful within the pragmatic dharma paradigm of taboo-freeness. Not talking about such things leads to the possible cementing of certain ideas into people's heads that a certain 'stage' will manifest the very same phenomena as 'a certain stage' that another yogis passes through. There may be more room for variation than what people consider.

I think the pragmatic dharma movement and the now growing number of people gaining motivation from it have been employing a number of differing approaches and techniques. We have seen over the past several years claims to this and that stage but with variations and differences in the results. I remember tarin once telling me how he thought all the 4th path claimants for example who he had talked to, the newer ones getting it done quite fast including himself, that they were not matching Daniel Ingram's descriptions of 4th path. I shrugged it off, but the more I talk with others the more I see this too, even between yogis there are differences.

continued...

The most common thread linking yogis being the dropping away of some 'centrepoint' experience was enough to have people relate, but if you speak to Daniel about it, his experience was quite different to many of the 4th path claimants I have talked with including myself. A sense of agency was what he investigated for quite a number of years according to him. And at his version of 4th path, it dropped away. Kenneth's version of 4th does not have a sense of agency drop away as it only drops away later on in the model supposedly. I've talked with Daniel and he employed some practices and objectives within practices that I never did nor saw advertised elsewhere. He did not focus however on investigating 'emotions' until recently. What if you went straight to investigating 'agency' and 'emotions' right off the bat? How different would a result look compared to focusing on only one of those phenomenon? What if you practiced direct mode right off the bat? I did something like that for many years in the goenka tradition.

You talk with enough yogis, you start to see that perhaps similar techniques were used or differing ones were used, or those same techniques were used for differing purposes, or differing techniques were used for same purposes, and it starts to seem like the way one practices, the techniques used, the way you use them, all leads to at times similar results but also differing results. Not just for post '4th path', but for '4th path' itself as well.

It would be interesting to really collect together how these things play out and see what practices yogis were using, what sort of techniques they used and how they used them, what was focused on, what was ignored?

continued...

It would really seem, putting aside all the naming of 'stages' and the attempt to make such things universal, that you truly do get what you optimise for.

I did a very difference practice to the practices offered here at KFD. I have been quite the rebel when it comes to things like this, and I've done it my way. And results do differ to others. Stage 7 points to exactly what I was able to do when i passed through mahasi stream entry stage on a goenka course. This to me does not seem linear at all. You choose a part of the field of experience and focus exclusively on it in your practice, you are optimising for a result that has to do with that part of the field of experience (call it your brain if you will). Not everyone is focusing on the same parts of the field of experience, but differing parts, and some are even dropping that focus for the whole field of experience, but how they do that , how they get to that place may differ too. Details may differ.

How does a technique/approach as well as objective really affect the outcomes? I would say a lot. Hopefully we can start to sort this out within this eclectic crowd. I'm nott just referring to KFD, I'm talking about the whole movement. It has evolved into a mass of differing approaches and objectives yet there is still the tendency to call this 'stage' and that 'stage'. We are going to see more and more differing results. We are already seeing it. This model is just another example of the differences as far as I can see.

Nick

"How does a technique/approach as well as objective really affect the outcomes? I would say a lot. Hopefully we can start to sort this out within this eclectic crowd. I'm not just referring to KFD, I'm talking about the whole movement"

I agree....after 4th I didn't know where to turn, I read practice logs here at KfD and DOg but it was the practical and down to earth descriptions at Hamilton project that most appealed to my personality. Months of focused Af based practice lead me to a shift as described in Ron's post #1. I am not inclined to use the sharp analytical skills (that Ron puts to use) to penetrate exactly what changes have occured but over these days I've come to see that Ron's descriptions in posts 15/16 match my current experiences in most situations i encounter day to day to a tee.

This discussion and Kenneths' map and references help immensely as I try to discern a path forward. I believe part of that path will be, as John Peacock points to, a strong Metta based practice. This aligns to my growing personal objective to connect deeply with people.

"The most common thread linking yogis being the dropping away of some 'centrepoint' experience was enough to have people relate, but if you speak to Daniel [Ingram] about it, his experience was quite different to many of the 4th path claimants I have talked with including myself." -Nikolai

Hi Nick,

While Daniel and I disagree on many things, the definition of technical 4th Path is not one of them. Based on our many conversations about it over a period of many years, I would say that he and I are on the same page about what that particular developmental stage looks like. And technical 4th Path corresponds exactly to KF5. That is the point; I built my model that way, based on my own experience and on the reports of others, including Daniel, as they go through this.

In order to build a useful model, it's important to distinguish between deep structure and surface structure. The concept comes from Noam Chomsky. And here is an example from Ken Wilber:

The basic human face has 2 eyes, a nose, 2 ears and a mouth. This is deep structure. You can pretty much count on this, and if you want to say what a face is, that is about all you can say.

But within that deep structure, there is so much variability among individuals that you can recognize virtually every one of the nearly 7 billion people on Earth. Eye color, hair color, nose size and shape, etc., are all surface structure.

Similarly, I believe developmental enlightenment has both deep and surface structure. Deep structure can be mapped. Surface structure cannot; it varies from one individual to another. The ability to tease apart deep and surface structure in yogi reports is a challenge that takes patience, an eye for nuance of language, and a willingness to suspend one's own agenda for awhile. It's a difficult and imperfect process, but it is precisely what I hope to do with this model, hopefully with your help.

" It's a difficult and imperfect process, but it is precisely what I hope to do with this model, hopefully with your help. "

Hi Kenneth,

I'm up for it. Anyone else?

Nick

Count me in

i'm down to ride with this

Update:

There was a pretty heavy "rebound" of some sort three days ago, in which I was really cranky for about a day and a half. It was so strange and came totally out of the blue. It came and went with no triggers that I could pick up (no stressful events or illness), so I'm thinking it might be part of this new shift. A bit of of an aftershock. Things settled down even more now, and I'm feeling very content and peaceful. Anyone else experience this?

"It came and went with no triggers that I could pick up (no stressful events or illness), so I'm thinking it might be part of this new shift. A bit of of an aftershock. Things settled down even more now, and I'm feeling very content and peaceful. Anyone else experience this?"

Expansion and contraction, followed by a gradual synthesis, seems to be the nature of every shift I've had. In short, yes. I'm really liking this thread, such great input. I too would be excited if we could flesh some of this stuff out.

Hypothesis:

While approaching the 8th stage, it becomes difficult, then essentially impossible to directly access jhana, even for jhana experts. Jhanic absorption may still arise, but only accidentally or in the natural course of doing some practice. Jhana jumping, speed shifting between jhanas, and similar direct manipulations of attention become so unappealing as to be literally painful and the mind just refuses to go there. This is part of letting go of agency.

This is what happened to me and it was a little awkward as I was scheduled to go to Yale to participate in a jhana study (had previously been scanned in a vipassana study) when I found that I no longer had access to the jhanas I had been effortlessly visiting for years. The only thing I could do with the mind was "let it be." So we cancelled the scanning session. This was in June of 2011. The jhanic abilities have not returned. I have talked to several people who reported similar experiences. Any thoughts? Is this indicative of this stage? Is it deep structure or surface structure? I would especially like to hear from the dissenters; are there any folks who believe they are at the 8th stage or beyond but still can direct the attention to directly access jhanas?

"@RonCrouch: It came and went with no triggers that I could pick up (no stressful events or illness), so I'm thinking it might be part of this new shift. A bit of of an aftershock. Things settled down even more now, and I'm feeling very content and peaceful. Anyone else experience this?"

My experience so far is that Bill Hamilton's "suffering less, noticing it more" quip still applies. Certainly worth mentioning that suffering is so much lighter than it was in years past that it's almost laughable to complain about it; my chronic depression vanished in 2004 and hasn't come back. And things continue to improve; life has been getting steadily happier and easier since June of 2004, which was when I crossed the tipping point at KF5. My wife says I am much easier to live with (and she already liked me even back then!). Still, I have not yet arrived at the place where there is no work to do. So, what you are reporting, Ron, sounds familiar. The timing of these little blips of apparent backsliding doesn't follow any pattern that I can detect.

My speculation is that at KF9, the "suffering less, noticing it more" dictum no longer holds up; when there is no self referencing at all, even via thought, it simply isn't possible to complain about your life because you cannot introspect at all.

This is one of the mapping questions I am most interested in resolving: is movement along the developmental continuum a kind of Zeno's paradox, in which Achilles approaches but never overtakes the tortoise, or is the better parallel that of escape velocity, where the rocket moves so fast that it finally leaves Earth's orbit forever? Funny thing is, if it is Zeno's paradox, I will never resolve it in my own experience. Only with the escape velocity situation will I ever know for sure.

Thanks for sharing your experience Kenneth.

Can you talk a bit more about the Zeno's paradox vs. the escape velocity?
I dont understand why you would think that you could get this far but never resolve it completely.
You said you consider yourself at KF8 as of April, so that is very recently..
Basically, you have always been on the 'it can be done' side of things, so its interesting to see you taking a different kind of stance, and im curious.

Also - do you sometimes experience peaks into what you consider KF9?

I relate to the phrase "suffering less, noticing it more." There seems to be a mechanism in play that keeps pushing attention toward smaller and smaller irritants. It's fascinating to watch this play out over time. I believe the "objective" is aimed at the processes that create the sense of self, and as they get resolved or seen through at one level attention is attracted to the next level, and so on and so on and so on....

"Hypothesis:

Any thoughts? Is this indicative of this stage? Is it deep structure or surface structure? I would especially like to hear from the dissenters; are there any folks who believe they are at the 8th stage or beyond but still can direct the attention to directly access jhanas?"

The shift I had in July last year left the jhanas still accessible but in a different way. Some of their qualities had shifted,dropped away.

The jhana I experience is not like that which became available after mahasi 1st path. It becomes cleaner, less an absorption and more a defined way the mind 'narrows' mental focus. However, i find it unsatisfactory still and there is preference to let even that 'narrowing' (which can still occur and be mentally manipulated) drop away to leave a fabricated-free seeing in the seen 'mode'(as anything with the mental focus, I see as fabricating some experience* actually this was the case pre-last baseline shift, I seem to have lost the ability to narrow mental focus on purpose). This 'narrowing' is more so for how the lower 4 jhanas were experienced post July baseline shift and still influenced the forming of the arupa jhanas to a lesser degree. But after recent baselines, something significant happened to the narrowing tendencies. The following is how jhana is currently experiecned by myself.

The lower 4 jhanas lost a lot of their qualities, and there is neither an urge nor no urge to delve into them. So i don't. They don't seem to fabricate at all as their affective qualities are no longer arising. Eye focus to narrow onto the aspects of the body exclusively has changed.

Continued...

The 7th jhana aspect represents when the mind is resting. Best way to put it.
I know this may not be something that others can relate to. I wouldn't have been able to before. But, I have access to a cleaner version of jhana which is less an absorption and more seeing the actual way the mind functions without an attention bounce/wave/narrow segregating focus.

The 8th has a sort of midpoint quality between the 7th's aspect and what comes after the 8th. What comes after 8th jhana is also available and happens without trying to while the mind attends to the 8th's signless quality. It is not the same as the cessation/fruition version of NS, but a conscious complete stilling of the mind to a greater degree that anything I've experienced before. The senses still work, though there is no movement of mind at all. Nothing cognising nor conceptualizing, nothing at all is moving. That is as far as I'd explain it.

There are those who are much more experienced than myself who profess to no jhana, and those who profess to jhana access. This may come down to technique approach and the manner in which you had baselines occur. If jhana was something you attended to in your practice of taking apart 'being' for example, the aspects of the arupas being the key element in that practice, then they will be easily recognized further down the track. If they were not attended to and ignored to a great degree while other aspects of the field of experience were attended to, then one may not know how to recognise such jhana aspects further down the track. So it would seem that it would depend on what techniques are used in the process. Is there more discernment of arupa aspects in the process? if so, they will probably be still quite recognizable, even when that 'narrowing' tendency drops away. If there wasn't discernment of them, then there may not be discernment of them afterwards.

My current two cents.

The arupa jhanas though are different. They represent more so how the mind 'pays attention' even when there isn't a mental ;focus', something I've noticed now. The arupa aspects of space, infinite consciousness (a name that does not suit this experience now), nothingness (or no mind) and the 8th which is a signlessness type experience (hard to explain). All of these do not need that 'narrowing' of focus as far as I can see, however that 'narrowing' of focus can overlay them and make them more 'absorbed' in my past experience. In the current versions, space, the 6th's aspect, the no mind aspect of the 7th and the signlessness of the 8th are all seen within the non-focus of a more periphery informed perception (which was a result of the 2nd to last baseline shift).

There are two different ways of directing the mind: a narrowing of focus which ignores parts of the field of consciousness. The other way: the mind directs attention to 'objects' that does not entail ignoring parts of the field of experience (sense contact), and no narrowing at all. For example, the 5th jhana aspect of space becomes part of the 'attention' of the mind and because it is naturally all pervasive, it matches somewhat the way the mind already perceives. The 6th jhana aspect has no witness experience nor 'mental focus' narrowing onto that area of head as a cluster of sensations with attention looping back onto them, but the space aspect is still seen to be part of how the mind is structured and the mind will be directed to pay attention to an object within 'space', the centre of vision, and it will have more detail suddenly become clearer, yet still experienced within that all pervasive periphery informed perception. The 6th's aspect represents how the mind takes in detail of perceived objects, yet without a narrowing of focus.

continued...

"
I relate to the phrase "suffering less, noticing it more." There seems to be a mechanism in play that keeps pushing attention toward smaller and smaller irritants. It's fascinating to watch this play out over time. I believe the "objective" is aimed at the processes that create the sense of self, and as they get resolved or seen through at one level attention is attracted to the next level, and so on and so on and so on....

"

This also is in accord with my current experience. The more you notice how the mind fabricates suffering or rather unsatisfactoriness (suffering is not a word i would use to describe it now), the more it ceases to arise as it did, and begins to diminish in degree, till the unsatisfactoriness (in my own experience thus far) is seen to be simply how the mind 'lunges' onto objects ignoring the rest of the field of experience. That is unsatisfactoriness for myself currently. The movement does not result in affect anymore, but it does give rise to rumbling sensations in the body, which only arise when the mind is narrowing focus. I wasn't able to see this clearly after the july shift. But after a more recent shift, it became extremely clear that this is what was causing all the trouble. See more,experience unsatisfactoriness less as one then sees the cause behind such arisings and is able to drop the factors that support the cause.

Jhanas such as the nosepinch style 1st jhana do seem like a bother to attempt to access and I haven't been working with them. However, if I tune into the breath in the sense of simply noticing it and then dropping any thought and keeping a wide panoramic focus while allowing any tension that has arisen to simply be there, I do see an unfolding of traditional jhanic factors.

This seems to work best when I'm furthest from something akin to 8th stage. This takes some form of decision to pursue, so it does require agency.

In any case, I don't have a sense of attention width and it leads to lesser and lesser tension overall and a reduction in the "attention wave" as it plays out.

Essentially, the body takes on a pleasant feel as craving for sensuality drops away, at some point thought stops and the pleasure and happiness kick up a notch. Eventually things become more subtle and eventually the entire sense of a body drops away (I suspect this occurs in 4th jhana).

In any case, the idea is that you are abandoning the 5 hinderances and letting go of clinging and aversion and in doing so the first jhana develops and if you continue to refine the experience the others play out as well.

The method I use is pretty much the same as Vilimaramsi talks about here.
www.dhammasukha.org/Study/breath.htm

It is very much a letting go approach vs. a fixing attention on something approach.

Jhana is not a part of my practice right now, however it is very possible to do if I decided to. It's a matter of intention I suppose. I will say, however, that unlike the holding on, directing, grasping approach this is pleasant all the way along.

Essentially - allow the breath to be noticed (used as an anchor to keep you in the moment, not as an absorption object). If thought (clinging) arises - let it go, then relax around tension (craving/aversion). Repeat.

I don't have access to jhana these days, at least not in the way I did before. Attempting to direct attention feels impossible, and it does not often occur to me to try. However, I do have the ability to "ramp up fascination" on the breath while letting go and aspects of jhana's 5-8 do appear. It might even be better to say that the ever present aspects of the arupas are made more obvious.

I'm going to try a jhana run before bed tonight and see where it goes, this discussion has me curious. Given that my sense of ownership of volition is as broken as it is these days, it makes sense to attempt to explore the question of whether or not the post facto ownership of action is a requisite for the conscious direction of attention. My hypothesis is that it is not, but given the fact that the constant urge to control experience does become enormously lessened in this territory it makes jhana seem a vestigial accomplishment at best.

Owen,

Do you have the ability to allow the breath to simply remain clear in the panorama of awareness, and to include anything negative in the body along with it simply allowing everything to be present? Does this lead to an increased sense of pleasure in the body? It should not feel as if attention is being manipulated in the sense of a mental mouse pointer or attempt to be absorbed in something.

The breath is simply allowed to be present (one knows whether one is breathing in and out) if a thought is noticed it is let go, and any tension in the body is also known in a receptive way (you also allow the body to relax, allowing any unrelaxed muscles to loosen).

It doesn't seem to matter if the tension is simply a physical pain either. I have been able to do this with a toothache and completely transform the pain to bliss without any narrowing of attention (panoramic awareness seems to be a part of this).

In any case, this may still be dependent upon manipulating intention/attention to some degree.

Also, of interest is the fact that you can't "run through" these sorts of jhanas. They arise in sequence as things are let go of. I cannot simply will the mind into these. They seem to depend on things shutting down or activating in sequence depending on letting go more and more of any sort of fabrication.

It might be helpful to think of it in the way visual fatigue occurs (not sure if this is the proper term), where if you stare at certain thing long enough without moving the eyes, because the brain relies on change in order to be aware of things, the thing will gradually disappear (see this for an example, www.coolopticalillusions.com/eye-tricks/...-disappear-trick.jpg ). Similarly, if you sit upright, and do not move a muscle, and relax while keeping a panoramic view of the tension in your body, using the breath as an anchor, the tension/pain in the body first begins to transform into pleasant sensations, before fading out altogether (this is dependent on a still, undistracted mind).

This seems to occur with emotional tension first, but later occurs even for things like the feeling of your body against the floor, various physical aches and pains etc. The progress seems to be pleasure arising fairly quickly, followed by thought stopping or at least almost ceasing completely (the visual field seems to stabilize and become bright at this point, it will change if thought arises again). Eventually there are no negative sensations in the body and at some point the bodily sensations are gone entirely.

It seems to me that if the mind is very still and there's nothing going on with attention at all (no shape, no center, etc.), it might be a very interesting exercise to simply sit with eyes closed allowing all of the sensations in the body to present themselves together (one of them being the breath -which is changing and as a result will not disappear) in such a way that there's no attention bounce going on and they are all just constant and unmoving like the body. Over time the brain will get fatigued due to the lack of change and those points will start to change in tone and eventually fade out (see the visual analogue to this at this link in the first paragraph) leading to a very pleasant abiding .

"Can you talk a bit more about the Zeno's paradox vs. the escape velocity?"-Yadid

Check out Zeno's paradox on Wikipedia. It's similar to the "law of receding horizons," which you can read a bit about here: www.theoildrum.com/node/2915

For us, the Zeno's paradox vs escape velocity question is just a way to contrast two ideals: absolute success vs relative success.

"I dont understand why you would think that you could get this far but never resolve it completely."-Yadid

I wonder because it's hard to find a case of absolute success in any other human endeavor. For example, there is no perfect tennis player. But some people are really good! Is Roger Federer a perfect player? Of course not. He still makes mistakes. But he is so good that most of us would consider ourselves successful as tennis players if we could get even close to his level of excellence. There are many such examples. The human body/brain is not known for perfection.

"Basically, you have always been on the 'it can be done' side of things, so its interesting to see you taking a different kind of stance, and im curious."-Yadid

I don't see a conflict. I continue to maintain that happiness independent of conditions is a realistic goal for everyone and my own experience continues to bear this out. Which, of course, is not the same as claiming perfection! Still, the possibility of perfection in this singular endeavor, which I would define as the persistent inability to access or even imagine a situation better than the one you find yourself in *now*, is intriguing, and I heartily embrace the possibility.

"Also - do you sometimes experience peaks into what you consider KF9?"-Yadid

I seem to have previews. But we have to be careful here, because a state is not the same as a stage. I won't know until I get there.