Question to those post 4th path.

Reading the "Beyond 4th Path?" thread I noticed a commonality in practice and it raised a question.
It seems that almost all of the yogis involved in the conversation began with a practice based on contraction of the attention(vipassana for instance). After reaching 4th path practice seems to shift in the opposite direction: release, opening, relaxing, letting go, etc. Knowing what you know now, would you have done it the same way? or begun with a practice not based on contraction? And, of course, why?
I recognize that this is how the 3 gears are arranged, but several practices, and many yogis seem to jump right into third gear type practice. First gear may be easier for a beginning yogi to practice, but is that reason enough to do it?
Thank you to anyone who feels like sharing there thoughts.

Hey B.- It seems like once yogis reach 4th path there is a variety of directions that practice goes depending on one's inclinations and projections about what is most desirable. For me, it was really at that point that I began to have the sense that wherever my intuition was directing me was trust worthy. Is trust worthy one word? Anyways, this trust in the process has not left since that point and it wasn't really there before. I spent a couple of years before I started working with Vince Horn just doing whatever and though there was definitely benefit, it was when I was introduced to noting that I really noticed signifigant process. Because of this I continued to use the noting and used it far after 4th path as it is such a good tool for deconstruction. I also spent several months after hitting 4th path doing metta almost exclusively and pretty rabidly. This doesn't mean this is right for everyone, but it was appropriate for me at that time. My own experience and observation is that noting works very well and lead to progress in a way that other practices were not. I think a more stable mind is somewhat necessary for 3rd gear. I just would not have been ready for it if I had started with that and I don't think it would have worked as well. I think that the three gears become more accessible and show up naturally as they become more applicable to our practice and I have seen such good things with first gear that I would not have done it any other way. Hope I have been of some help.

Bill

I'm currently guiding others via simply the HAIETMOBA route with some emphasis on certain perceptual factors along the way, using a variety of approaches (one's I've used) to guide them continuously back to the point of pure sense contact. So far the results have been quite positive. Touching wood, so far we have avoided the darker elements. This is different to practicing with the aim to pull apart the self-narratives or simply note them after they have already arisen. Rather than than noting them one is interrupting them via practicing a little further up the chain of dependent origination than say just hanging out at the vedana link developing equanimity towards it and seeing the three c's in that and the links that follow (craving, clinging and becoming links). This latter approach seems to lead one to nana territory as far as I have experienced. Investigating a little further up at the point of sense contact interrupts the arising of all the rest of the links. I'm not knocking this latter sort of approach but it does entail some hardship at times. Though some people may be primed for the former type of practice, I think it is simple enough though for beginners to start right off the bat, and it seems to lead to relief in a much quicker way (thus far in what I've seen in others). Touch wood!

Concerning 'intuition' which is generally an 'affective feeling', I have other ideas about.

Nick

"Concerning 'intuition' which is generally an 'affective feeling', I have other ideas about.

"

Please explain these "other feelings" rather than leaving us on the edge of our seat, haha. Seriously though, could you elaborate? I find your recent posts to be valuable and am curious what you mean.

My practice after 4th path has not shifted away from vipassana (although I do other kinds of practices, too) and I don't think others would say theirs has, either. I label as "vipassana" most kinds of investigation via meditation, and I know most of the folks posting on that other thread are or have been doing some form of mediative investigation post 4th path. In that vein I also include Nick's "how are you experiencing this moment of being alive?" process.

JMHO

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had I used another approach, one where I focused particularly on letting go of craving and relaxing, etc.

However, hind-site is always 20/20. I'm not sure if I would have had the clarity and proper relationship with things that would have made that as simple to me now as it seems to be post technical 4th path.

So, personally, I have my theories, yet I know what I did works. So it's hard for me to make a decision either way. I do know that I started out doing just the sorts of practices I am doing now before learning from Kenneth, however I seem to be doing much better these days with some paths under my belt.

This is a good question - I can tell because when I thought about it I discovered that I'm surprisingly very opinionated about it! Usually I don't take a strong stance on things (I'm typically wrong whenever I do that), so take this with a grain of salt.

I'm wary of folks doing 2nd or 3rd gear practices prior to stream entry, and the deeper my practice gets the bigger a fan I am of noting as ones primary practice initially (and as Chris says, some form of vipassana thereafter). I really didn't understand 2nd gear until after 2nd path - but here is the thing - I thought I did. This is a big problem, because the mind is more than happy to fabricate some experience that you can label as 2nd or 3rd gear. luckily I had a teacher who corrected me and steered me back to noting until I was ready to have a direct experience.

I suspect that the techniques people are drawn to after 4th path probably do produce the biggest changes, but they also seem to require a very mature practice. I also suspect that, and again this is only my opinion, a lot of folks in the mushroom culture get stuck for years doing advanced techniques that they have read about but not laid the groundwork for. These techniques seem to point to a direct seeing of something, just being aware of something and letting that awareness ripen, rather than an effortful deconstruction of moment to moment experience. But that deconstruction may be the necessary foundation for the direct seeing later on - at least for most people.

The caveat here is that there are tons of really advanced people who disagree with me. Nik's technique seems intriguing and I can totally see how it would work. And none other than Ramana Maharshi told folks to start off with enquiry practice. Still, I'm a noting fan and recommend it for beginners.

"I'm wary of folks doing 2nd or 3rd gear practices prior to stream entry, and the deeper my practice gets the bigger a fan I am of noting as ones primary practice initially (and as Chris says, some form of vipassana thereafter). I really didn't understand 2nd gear until after 2nd path - but here is the thing - I thought I did. This is a big problem, because the mind is more than happy to fabricate some experience that you can label as 2nd or 3rd gear. luckily I had a teacher who corrected me and steered me back to noting until I was ready to have a direct experience. "

Exactly what is happening to me right now. I thought, pre-stream entry, I was doing something related to 2nd gear during equanimity but I wasnt even close. Now after 2nd path, I realize that I was wrong. I'm glad you kept me noting.

"Exactly what is happening to me right now. I thought, pre-stream entry, I was doing something related to 2nd gear during equanimity but I wasnt even close. Now after 2nd path, I realize that I was wrong. I'm glad you kept me noting."

This is why Kenneth seemed to introduce 2nd gear to students who had access to 6th jhana already as it's an easy way to point out the witness and make sure the student is seeing the same thing as what he was pointing to with those instructions.

Flushing out the jhanas and stuff to enable the diagnosis for 3rd path is done very effectively by using the witness to ride the jhanic arc and so it's a good practice to switch to post 2nd path.

Noting seems to be the best practice for getting the first two paths down, so I see where Ron is coming from for sure.

It seems like there can be many sub-practices under a given practice. Inquiry can have a first gear flavor if the focus is on watching sensations of being a body, or a second gear flavor if the focus is "I", and I assume a third gear flavor, too. I'll bet the same thing can be true with HAIETMOBA -- a teacher can gently nudge the investigation into the types of experience most condusive to practice at a given stage (sensations of body, sensations of "self", actualizing arupa jhanas, etc.) . Vipassana, too, seems to have lots of nuances.

I'm curious if, title of practice aside, if the best objects of inquiry are similar across practices.

(p.s. I'm definitely not claiming 4th path by participating in this thread!)

Yes, betawave, I agree when we are talking about self inquiry in general - it has a very broad application and can have several flavours. However, in the context as it was originally taught on KFD, it was associated with the focus of the 6th jhana which, when clung to, leads to what Kenneth called riding the Jhanic arc. In particular, it was associated with "The Witness" perspective and that's what was equated with the perspective of 6th jhana.

This focus was called "trans-jhanic" as it could be used as a way of experiencing all the jhanas one has access to, in order, by simply dwelling in it.

Because of this it was used as a particularly good tool, post 2nd path, to flush out higher and higher jhanas until one had access to all 13 as described by Kenneth. Access to Jhanas beyond 8th fulfilled the criteria for 3rd path as per Kenneth's definition of the technical paths.

After this, one could then start working toward fourth path (which generally involved a talk from Kenneth with some hints as to how to do that).

Thanks Mumuwu -- I see now that it looks like my post was partially in response to you, but I didn't mean it that way. I was asking a more general, untethered question. Thanks for the reply.

Not to be too contrarian or anything, but I hope that everyone holds out the possibility that there are actually other entirely different paths. I think this group follows one in particular, and that path may come to us because we all tend to practice the same way, speaking in general terms. I think we're dealing with the ultimate in complexity here, and there are many, many roads to follow that lead to many different awakenings. Humans all have similar hardware and software but like any general purpose computing machinery, we are capable of infinite variation.

"
Not to be too contrarian or anything, but I hope that everyone holds out the possibility that there are actually other entirely different paths. I think this group follows one in particular, and that path may come to us because we all tend to practice the same way, speaking in general terms. I think we're dealing with the ultimate in complexity here, and there are many, many roads to follow that lead to many different awakenings. Humans all have similar hardware and software but like any general purpose computing machinery, we are capable of infinite variation.

"

I hope that's not too contratian. Well put.

"
Not to be too contrarian or anything, but I hope that everyone holds out the possibility that there are actually other entirely different paths..."

Leave it to Chris to help us take a step back! I'm in total agreement.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful answers. The idea of different practices "breaking" different links on the chain of dependent origination is one I'll definitely give some thought to(thanks Nick). I'm leaning towards self inquiry practice myself having begun reading about it via An Eternal Now's e book and Ramana Maharshi. I got Stream Entry about a year ago, and then began moving my practice more towards an open style of practice influenced by Zen and Ajen Chah. As a result I've abandoned the idea of maps and stages so really have no idea where I might be located from that perspective. Progress has been obvious however so I'm not at all worried about it. Thanks again.

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B.