Third Path

Everyone: I am opening a discussion about third path, because a number of us have recently gotten second path, and I am curious to find out what more advanced level yogis can tell all of us about what's immediately ahead. There's a lot of buzz around getting Stream Entry, and then second path seems to follow just by keeping up one's practice. But third path is kind of a mystery (I won't even get into fourth yet). So I'd like to hear from people who've done it, people who are trying to do it, and anyone else who wants to chime in. How does it differ from earlier paths? What are some of the things we can expect? Are there particular difficulties we should be on the lookout for? Are there certain competencies we will experience as we make our way along third path? For example, what is typical in terms of reduction of suffering as people finish second and work on third? I've heard a bit about jhanas, and wouldn't mind hearing more about that as well.

Thanks in advance to whoever chooses to post something illuminating!

As a recent sakadagami, I'm interested as well.

Have you listened to the Hurricane Ranch dharma summit from 2009? Daniel says a lot of useful, interesting stuff about how third path differs qualitatively from first and second. I jotted down some notes. I could post them up when I get to work tomorrow.

In my experience so far. Getting to third is all about ramping up concentration and letting go. However, this does not mean abandoning vipassana because at this point it is almost impossible to not examine phenomenon as it is needed to do this practice. To me, surrender is the hardest part, but I have had most insights so far (3 months post 2nd path) when I finally let go. It is counterintuitive to the previous 2 paths, but you almost have to drop the mapping stuff too in my experience. Cutting edge changes so fast its almost impossible to track. You will have fractal cycles within cycles. It is frustrating, but that's something to let go of too.

2nd to 3rd path is pretty similar. The game changes after attaining 3rd path - it's less about navigating the insight stages and more about whether you can see emptiness/stillness/vastness/whatever right now or not which deepens as 3rd path matures.

So, you might complete multiple cycles before attaining 3rd path, but not necessarily. I think I completed one cycle a couple of weeks after getting 2nd, and then another cycle afterwards within a few days which was 3rd path.

3rd path as Kenneth defines it is a jhanic attainment. I'm going to use some of his language for this. If you can access the 5 pureland jhanas and nirodha samapatti, then you are a 3rd path yogi. As you sit and gain concentration, you will go up the jhanic arc to the highest stratum of mind available to you. As you do this over time, your cutting edge gets a little higher each time until you get access to the next stratum. You already know this, as this is how we go through the nanas which you know how to do.

Kenneth defines 20 major strata: the nanas up to equanimity (which includes jhanas 1-4), the arupa jhanas (jhanas 5-, and the 5 pureland jhanas. When you have access to all 20 of these, you are technically considered to be 3rd path. (There's also the subjective component of being able to tune into the emptiness of this moment, the vast stillness in the background, etc which deepens with 3rd path, as I mentioned).

OK, that was a little geeky...

More to come.

So, this is a great time to do some concentration practice and explore the jhanas. 2nd gear practice / the witness becomes more accessible after 2nd path and is a great thing to do at this time, and fun to do while walking around. As you learn your 'handles' for the jhanas, you can learn to go through them quickly by willing the mind to go to the next one. Kenneth called this his parlor trick or speed jhana. It's not as clean as letting them unfold on their own using the witness or anapansati or just sitting, but it's fun to get the jhana juice in a couple of minutes.

Everything you have done up to this point is still great and will continue to work, but try adding some 2nd gear practice and concentration practice (whether anapana, kasina, counting exhalations) and see what works for you. Follow your intuition as to what's appropriate in any given moment. If you can be awake right now, and now, and now, and now... you're golden. See what's going on in the body. You've gotten this far, which means you know how to do this. Trust that you do.

You will likely experience some energetic stuff in this territory. Unpleasant pressure in the 3rd eye and crown is common aka the "iron skullcap". Maybe some kriyas too if you're prone to those. You will likely have doubts about the path and your newly enlightened identity. You'll go from feeling so freaking enlightened and awesome to wondering if you've made any progress at all since you started. It's all good. Don't forget to disembed from that stuff too.

Let me try a quick pointer for the witness:

Paying attention to the visual field, notice the feeling that there's something behind the eyes which is doing the seeing. You can see a bit of your nose, maybe some eyebrows or some other fuzzy stuff around the face, and of course everything "out there". But what is it that sees all of this? This is the witness. You might notice that your attention doesn't bounce so much from object to object when you're staying with the sense of the witness. It's relaxing because you're not so concerned about everything going on 'out there'... it's just kind of passing by.

Another good way to get there is to ask "for whom does this arise?" as things arise, as a kind of 2nd gear noting. Whatever arises, trace it back. Tension in the chest. For whom does this arise? The noise of the computer fan. Who hears that? Self-doubt. For whom does this arise?

And of course, "who am I?"

Once you get a feel for it, you won't need the inquiry questions as much and you can just go straight there.

As for the jhanas, there are some resources that can give you an idea of the jhanas as we describe them. There's a recording of Kenneth going through all 20 strata of mind somewhere on the site. There's the video of Kenneth and Nick going through them on youtube (and the videos tab at the top of this site). There are 2 podcasts on the hamilton project website of the guys talking through their experience of the jhanas. If you're working with a teacher, it'd be best to have them take you through the jhanas, but the videos/podcasts were very helpful for me as well. I could clearly tell which of the jhanas they were talking about I could or could not access, which alleviated some of the worries about scripting. You will likely have access to some of the arupa jhanas at this point, or can quickly develop it.

There's a section on the dharma overground for the middle paths which has some good stuff (some more for after 3rd path): dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussio...oards/category/89621

The hurricane ranch talks apperception mentioned were helpful to me as well. Listen to them now, and again after you have 3rd path and struggling and don't know where to go. Available here: www.interactivebuddha.com/podcasts.shtml

Whew!

*EDIT*: Well, one final comment... you'll continue to look for "the answer", some new trick or secret knowledge you're missing. This got really intense for me at this point, and even more so after 3rd path. Remember that there's no such thing. That too is just phenomena arising and passing within a vast, empty field. Ignore everything else I just said and remember that. Haha.

Everything that Nadav said is pure gold. I will add, that the sooner you can just hit the eject button from the path and be done, the better. Quit now.

Laurels post is spot on.
I just reflected yesterday evening that the place seems filled with "new" 2:nd (and also 1:st) pathers. That's fun!

My impression is that the practice going to 1:st and then to 2:nd is straightforward. Do this and then do that. Simple!
But when it comes to getting 3:rd all instructions we find are incomprehensible poems about emptiness of phenomena and luminocity of the mind.
It seems like new cycles does nothing. I've had around 10 complete cycles of insight since last summer, including mini-reviews. No real change.
(Well, Nadav is a bit more specific with instructions here, thanks!)

Thank you so much Nadav! That was brilliant and just what we (or at least I) needed.

Wow. What a useful thread.

What's the connection between being able to tune into the emptiness of the moment (the stuff Daniel talks about), the jhana side of things, and the 2nd gear practice? I have no experience working with the witness, but seeing emptiness while high up in EQ has been essential to both my path experiences. I'm wondering if these are related.

Interesting stuff in here:

www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...oards/message/294901

"Wow. What a useful thread.

What's the connection between being able to tune into the emptiness of the moment (the stuff Daniel talks about), the jhana side of things, and the 2nd gear practice? I have no experience working with the witness, but seeing emptiness while high up in EQ has been essential to both my path experiences. I'm wondering if these are related. -apperception"

Great question. The witness can help with jhana development because you get out of the way a little bit and let the arc do its thing. thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/01/...-jhanic-arc-via.html

The emptiness/luminosity stuff is pretty confusing as PEJN mentioned, haha. For me that stuff didn't make sense until later in 3rd path. My experience was that my baseline became something like the witness (actually, this could've been before 3rd... it's probably in my journal somewhere). As this deepened, my impression was that while everything "out there" had remained the same, on the internal/subjective side there was just utter stillness. There's all this stuff happening, but the "I" is totally uninvolved and unaffected and not exactly a thing. And also huge, like infinitely vast. So for me the experience of emptiness at 3rd path was experientially related to the witness, and also to equanimity/4th jhana.

Apperception, I'd say that "seeing emptiness while high up in EQ" is indeed related to 3rd path as that will be your practice after 3rd. See if you can see things in the same wide perspective right now. Also check out tarin greco's instructions for 2nd path that are around DhO... similar thing IIRC. If you can do arupa jhanas, it's interesting to play with those while walking around too. In the month before I got 3rd path, I was basically doing jhanas all the time. Great fun in summer classes.

One of the most interesting parts of the Hurricane Ranch discussion is when Daniel and Kenneth are talking about this act of turning consciousness against itself. Daniel describes his own "low-brow, Theravada" way of doing this, wherein he takes all phenomena inclusively and evenly. This results in a perception of the universe as manifest awareness, and this is done with the intent of debunking the localization of consciousness as a particular thing, as a "me".

And I thought Kenneth's response here was interesting. He said, "I have to completely endorse that." Which makes me think that at the end of the day there's not that much difference between the 2nd gear Witness work Kenneth advocates and the total, 100%, universal application of three characteristics to everything that arises, no matter how it arises. If you apply 1st gear universally and completely enough, 2nd gear naturally arises. This matches my own experiences from up in high EQ, where the relative flatness of everything makes any privileged phenomena stand out like a mountain the middle of a plain. The mind naturally inclines toward "Who am I?" here, because there's really nothing left for one to do.

What do you think?

Reading Nick's post on the Hamilton Project, it seems I have this ass-backward. LOL! Whatever. I'll leave this here as a discussion starter.

The witness, for me was confusing and hard to understand until you have access to the 6th jhana. Once you see this 'spot' in your head you can then take that on as your object. However, this is taking some time to develop and get a feel for. It takes some concentration for me to be able to lock on to it as an object and it is hard for me to do during the day. The best way for me to access it now is to concentrate on the breath after a few rounds or counting, my 3rd eyes starts buzzing like crazy. I lock onto that as my object, and once I am locked on I pretend that that buzzing turns around and looks at what/who is noticing it and BAM - absorbed into the witness. I immediately feel 1st/2nd jhana aspects right when I lock on. I'm not saying I can stay with it the whole time, but usually asking the "who am i?" question brings me back.

Side note: 2nd gear is something I thought I was doing in High EQ before SE and 2nd path but I was wrong. There are some people that can do 2nd gear pre-path, but for most, I don't think it becomes clear until after 2nd path. However, it still takes some time to get a grasp on what dwelling as the witness is or feels like but it is extremely useful.

Interesting. I haven't learned 6th jhana yet, but I probably will very soon. I'll revisit all this stuff about the witness once I get there.

Makes me wonder what else I think I understand but don't.

There is more gold buried here on these message boards but it requires some mining to get to ti. I suggest a reading through the practice threads of folks who have left detailed chronicles of their path. Those chronicles are from folks like Nick Halay, Owen Becker, Clayton Lightfoot, Jackson Wilshire, Nadav Spiegelman. The interface on WetPaint makes it hard to find those threads but they are narratives written by people who traversed the path you guys are now contemplating, WHILE THEY WERE TRAVERSING IT. They are real time logs and diaries and as such they are priceless.

"
There is more gold buried here on these message boards but it requires some mining to get to ti.
...
They are real time logs and diaries and as such they are priceless.

"

And that is the reason a new board need to get all the treads imported of course.
Another thing is that these threads needs to be re-read over again when things happens to oneself.
I remember reading Antero's log a while ago and I could recognize myself almost exactly all the way until one certain post (around his third path) and then lost track completely!

Just to say thank you, Nadav in particular, but all of you who have responded so far. I'm still in review from 2nd so I'm anticipating myself a bit, but this is great feedback.

"
There is more gold buried here on these message boards but it requires some mining to get to ti. I suggest a reading through the practice threads of folks who have left detailed chronicles of their path. Those chronicles are from folks like Nick Halay, Owen Becker, Clayton Lightfoot, Jackson Wilshire, Nadav Spiegelman. The interface on WetPaint makes it hard to find those threads but they are narratives written by people who traversed the path you guys are now contemplating, WHILE THEY WERE TRAVERSING IT. They are real time logs and diaries and as such they are priceless.

"

I've read a few but I figure I could read a few more. I pulled out a few links here:

This is an interesting starting point that I didn't know about before:
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/forum/Practice+Notes
(Site moderators can feature threads to show here)

Below are at least some of the threads mentioned. I think I have the correct Jackson, but I'm not sure.

Nick
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/36...i%27s+Practice+Notes
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/40...ce+notes%2C+Phase+.2 .

Clayton
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/37...ther+Sitting+Journal
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/40...ournal---by+ClaytonL

Owen
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/40...27s+Practice+Journal
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...e+Journal%2C+Part+II

Jackson
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/36...r%27s+practice+notes
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/38...notes+%28part+two%29

Nadav
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/40...v%27s+practice+notes
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/48...ice+notes%2C+part+II

Thanks, Eric. It is so bizarre to read the earlier threads of these turbo-charged yogis (). They sound almost like ingenues! And it wasn't all that long ago.

Also Chris Marti (way back in the depths of wetpaint), Ron Crouch, Antero, Jayson (Mumuwu)...

I have said this before - Thank you to all that keep (have kept) their journals here.

A reminder to all of you here still working your way up the ladder (myself included) keep posting on your journals no matter if it seems relevant or not. It will be relevant to someone, sometime. Even traversing back through your old journal can be a great reminder of how far you have come when the going gets rough.

"keep posting on your journals no matter if it seems relevant or not."

So true- and in theory, I completely agree... But, speaking for myself, a little while after second path, I totally lost the vocabulary to describe my experience, and I stopped posting. (Not to en-noble my motives too much... I also just got lazy ). For me a model of "paths" and "progress" totally lost meaning, even though in retrospect, I do see lots of "progression".

This thread answers a lot of the questions I have been unable to even find words to ask for the past year. Thanks, Laurel, for asking, and thanks, Nadav, for providing a beautiful and concise guide to this wide-open territory!

"So true- and in theory, I completely agree... But, speaking for myself, a little while after second path, I totally lost the vocabulary to describe my experience, and I stopped posting. (Not to en-noble my motives too much... I also just got lazy ). For me a model of "paths" and "progress" totally lost meaning, even though in retrospect, I do see lots of "progression".
"

Ohh I hear ya. But it may even help people that are as confused as I am to see that being confused is part of the game. So I post it.