Third Path

Kenneth, you told me in the past that the Mahasi teachers in Asia teach their students jhana rather than noting after a certain path. I forget if this was after 2nd or 3rd and whether you received these teachings yourself.

Thanks, Nadav!

I kind of unhooked from anything progress-related after 2nd path (a year and a half ago). Partly I was heeding Daniel Ingram's warnings not to get fascinated with fractal twists and turns. Partly I was just confused. Partly I saw it as "a good thing" that I was losing interest in the notion of progress and a goal.

In recent days, mumuwu's posts on Laurel's thread have helped me re-connect the current state of my practice with the overall path. Some discussions with a Mahasi-tradition friend have got me studying some of the Mahasi source materials as well,

So I'd love it if Kenneth could weigh in a bit on the post-2nd territory, as well as the Mahasi teachings!

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Are you asking about third path or third gear?

"

3rd path. I don't have a clue about 3rd gear.

All these replies are very helpful. I'm sure I'll be rereading them as I muddle my way through this. Thanks, all.

Jason

Just a further question and a comment, the comment first. Rob, I get you. It seems, actually, that getting a path seems for me to be a green light to stop working for awhile, and then it's hard to start up again. I have the same problem following a retreat. It's like a retrenchment sets in, the old self wants to reassert itself, what have you.

So for awhile after 2nd I was casting around. Actually, for a couple of months after 2nd I felt like a new woman, with drastic reductions in greed and aversion. Then the stuff started creeping back up on me. Now I'm motivated to get cracking again and thanks to Mu I have a plan.

Okay, now for the question: I wonder about this cycling stuff. I seemed to be doing it in daily life for the month of September on the average of a path per week, based on my mood fluctuations throughout the week (whether this is really true or not is anybody's guess). Then I started descending back into my customary drama in November and got called on it. I thought, sh*t, I was supposed to be over all that (the typical spiritual bypass maneuver) and thought, what's the point, I'm no better than I was before I started (also typical). For awhile I'd been thinking I was Dark Nighting.

I guess I had a clearer idea of cycles on paths 1 and 2. So how do these cycles manifest on 3? I know the answer will be differently for different yogis, but what are some clues? And should I just ignore these cycles? Soldier on (I am thinking that's good, at least)? I keep promising the universe I'll work on metta to lubricate things, but then I keep avoiding actually doing it. I wonder why that is.

I tend to ask a lot of questions and want all kinds of certitude and get told over and over that things will clear up with time. But if there's anything helpful that anyone can say, other 3rd pathers might appreciate hearing about it as well.

P.S. Don't want to misrepresent Rob--he said he had lost interest in progress related thinking, not all practice. With me it's a bit of both.

p.p.s. When I say how do cycles manifest: on 1 and 2, when I was in Dark Night, my sits had a certain flavor, and I was going through certain kinds of experiences off cushion. The same is true for equanimity. In this case, I don't know what is path related and what is mental habits from my age-old patterns. I am handling the see-saw stuff by not taking any of "my" emotions too personally. I'll note that I'm feeling fearful or aversive and then just say, who is feeling all this stuff? And that seems to be helpful. I'm also in daily life working with the "guy behind the eyeballs" point of view a lot. It gives me a wonderful space of freedom regardless of what's happening.

Laurel, you ask all the right questions so I don't have to Thanks, and make that two people who'd like to hear what people have to say to that.

Among all the other confusions are the paradoxes of "none of this is me / absolutely all of this is me" -- "the patterns are all gone / the patterns never change".

I figure the lesson of this time in the desert is to keep pointing the arrows back at RIGHT NOW.

This will probably be very helpful. Try and see all of these phases (you'll be going through them all over and over for a while). Working with the arc will be most beneficial in the review phase.

"There are four basic patterns that I'd like you to become aware of in your sittings:

1. Development phase: Rise through the strata of mind naturally, allowing each stratum of mind to ripen. It's hard to tell where you are in the cycle during this phase. You may spend some period of days working on the 3rd ñana (3 characteristics), then rise quickly to the 10th ñana (reobservation), spend a few days there, then spend a few days in the 11th ñana (equanimity).

2. Fruition phase. Rise through jhanas 1-4, with brief rough spots where the intervening ñanas appear (see map of 20 strata of mind). If you have attained to First Path, you'll have fruitions/cessations while in 4th jhana/11th ñana, then you will fall back to 2nd jhana/4th ñana and repeat the cycle. Using jhana numbers, it looks like this: 1,2,3,4,2,3,4,2,3,4, etc.

3. Review phase: Ride the jhanic arc up and down. It looks like this: 1,2,3,4,3,2,1, repeat. Eventually, it will look like this: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, repeat. (In the 20 Strata of Mind model, there are 13 jhanas. The remaining 7 strata are unstable, so there is no place to rest there; that's why they contain ñanas (Insight Knowledges) but are not proper jhanas. When riding the jhanic arc up and down in a review phase, those unstable strata are experienced as rough patches between jhanas. Sometimes you will notice a little of the flavor of the ñana, e.g., you might feel a moment of apprehension as you quickly move through the fear ñana that lies between the 3rd and 4th jhanas, but all the ñanas are mere shadows of their former selves once you enter the review phase of a Progress of Insight cycle.)"

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4. Wallowing: This is where the yogi becomes intrigued by one particular stratum of mind and cultivates it to the exclusion of other strata, thereby stalling his progress. This is not recommended. We are interested in seeing all of the strata of mind that are available to be seen at any given time and also cultivating more strata until the structure of mind is revealed entirely. It's a package. I call it "dynamic jhana." If you think of a vertical axis of development upward through the strata of mind and a horizontal axis of development where each stratum can be infinitely explored, we are more interested in vertical development at this point. Life is too short to spend a lot of time on any one stratum. Once you have all 20 strata of mind in your repertoire, you can decide whether you want to become a jhana master as defined by Pa Auk Sayadaw or B. Alan Wallace. That would entail "wallowing" in one jhana for hours at a time.

When the mind gets tired of a review phase, which it will if you don't become attached to your new level of insight, the jhanic arc will accelerate until the entire arc is happening in a couple of minutes, then a couple of seconds. Finally the entire arc is experienced as a vibration. At that point, the observing mind seems to move up to the newly formed stratum of mind as its new baseline, from which point it begins a new development cycle.

Because there is a fractal-like structure to the strata of mind, it takes hundreds or thousands of full insight cycles to develop to the point where 20 strata of mind can be clearly seen. Don't let that discourage you. Every time through the cycle is valuable. "

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/Case+Study%3A+Alex

I just had a short conversation with Kenneth about this and I'll try to paraphrase some of what he said:

Sayadaw U Pandita offers to teach jhana to students that have attained 2nd path. He does this via the brahmaviharas starting with metta as a concentration practice. if the student is not interested, they'll continue to do vipassana. Kenneth did not attain 2nd path under U Pandita so he didn't receive this invitation. He got 2nd path under Sayadaw U Kundala who continues his students with vipassana (noting anchored in the breath, much like U Pandita's instructions in his book). U Kundala is another direct disciple of Mahasi who, in Burma, is as well-known as U Pandita.

Investigating is "the name of the game" if you want to make progress. Once you've attained path(s), investigation is second nature so there's no danger of getting stuck in jhana, no matter how concentrated you get.

Kenneth defines 3rd path as the ability to attain nirodha samapatti as he defines it and the 5 pureland jhanas as he defines them. He had heard U Pandita say that NS is only accessible to Anagamis and thinks this is a common belief within the Mahasi tradition. The pureland jhanas were inspired by the 31 realms of existence. This page www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html talks about 5 suddhavasa (pure abodes) that are only accessible to anagamis and arhats and are a subset of the 4th rupa jhana. As far as the actual experience of these realms as jhanas, no one really talks about them but Kenneth and Daniel Ingram.

Kenneth said that he thinks of his 3rd path definition as basically "arbitrary". He wanted a model based on attainable/observable experiences. Still supported by the tradition and texts, but more importantly stages that people can actually be expected to go through. Kenneth's definition of 4th path is based on "done is what needed to be done" from the suttas and this: Bill Hamilton recalled U Pandita implying that he was an arhat by saying that he had sat like the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, resolving not to get up until he was finished. Since U Pandita had gotten up, Bill took that to mean that he had attained 4th path. U Kundala was also thought of as an arhat by the lay practitioners in SE Asia. So, there is something attainable that could be called 4th path. However, going by the fetters model, you'll never find an arhat because you'll never find someone completely without ignorance, greed, or ill will for example. U Pandita seemed to be claiming arhatship, but was still "an angry old man". So Kenneth wanted to reinterpret the 4 paths model in a way that would actually be useful and attainable.

Thanks, Nadav. I want to add something that Leigh Brasington said. His version of NS is much deeper than what I see represented here or in Daniel's book; he himself specializes in teaching jhana, yet claims never to have attained it. I remember him saying that if a person tries to get into NS, that guy had better have an exit strategy b/c you could get stuck there. What a terrible thought! Kind of like Juliet after taking the death-simulating potion. I'm positive this is not what y'all are talking about.

I get the impression, Nadav, that at this point I could do noting, metta, or jhana practice and it would all be good, right?

Laurel, what do YOU want to do?

No idea. I want to get into a groove and groove there for awhile and feel like I'm making progress, as opposed to spinning my wheels. But what I intend to do tomorrow at my daylong is mix it up a bit. We'll see how that goes.

You and some others here are into territory where the concept (construct) of linear progress is going to be more of a hindrance than a help to you. I note how several of you are getting frustrated because you're comparing what you can see now, generally in third path terms, with what you used to see, and mistakenly judging your new vision to be wanting. You want to go back to the safety and security of firm footing. Well, you can't. What if this new way of seeing, the fractal nature of things, the bouncing around, the back and forth and up and down and this is that and then it's not, what if this chaos and confusion is the way things will appear to you from now on? What if you are waking up to the way things are, which isn't by any measure the way things used to appear?

There is no bottom to catch you, no floor. There is nothing to fear from the freedom of floating. In the end there is just THIS. This is all you get, all you have, what you see, all you can see. You can be equanimous, happy, even blissful, with just this, you know. No matter what happens, that's what's going on now. Satisfactory, unsatisfactory, happy, sad, angry, jubilant.... the human condition is a beautiful pain. That's all we get, you know.

Float, and be free.

I was afraid you were going to say something like that . And I know who my most obvious fellow-culprit is (Russell, are you reading this?). Sometimes I feel as if the two of us are a couple of unruly kids with a group of kindly but firm parents, uncles, and aunts patiently helping us along. We are goal-directed, looking to an ideal future where all will be well. Not there yet. Want to get there. Please tell us how. And we just plain have to wait it out. It's okay.

"We are goal-directed, looking to an ideal future where all will be well. Not there yet. Want to get there. Please tell us how. And we just plain have to wait it out. It's okay. "

The thing i find is you can tell someone how and where (so to speak) til one is blue in the face and watch as they say 'but, but, but...' and go right back to their favorite bad habit. That itself seems to be part of the process.

I'm listening.

I fought it all the way through just like you, and I have to tell you it makes it worse. I remember when the PL jhanas first started showing up for me. All I did after that was try to make them happen. But when I did that, they wouldn't come. I spent 2 weeks bashing my head against the wall until I stopped trying, and guess what. Right when I stopped trying I went right into the PL jhanas again. That was a turning point for me. Now, although I struggle like hell sometimes off-cushion, there is really no efforting when I sit to do anything other than watch what is going on. This isn't to say I don't need help or advice, or I don't get frustrated during dull periods, but it makes a big difference to pull back a bit and do what feels right.

Also, it's not that it's frustrating anymore, it's that all of this seems very simple now but there is nothing I can do at this point to make myself tip over the edge. No technique or method will get you to the final goal in the end, but letting it all go will. And sometimes us control freaks have to get whomped over the head a few times before we go "ohh duh!"

No one can tell you how. The fact that you think there is someone, something, some powerful, controlling person/thing available anywhere out there that can tell you "how" is the biggest hint, tell, cheat and clue that there could possibly ever be.

" As far as the actual experience of these realms as jhanas, no one really talks about them but Kenneth and Daniel Ingram." - I have seen it mentioned by either Thanissaro or his teacher, somewhere...I recall one of them mentioning something offhand about the '13th jhana'. Probably no need to talk about something if so few people have experienced them outside of KFD...

Just came across this quote from Daniel Ingram that I had saved from one the middle paths threads on DhO:

"If you are an anagami: either you saw things are empty, luminous, not you, not self, not other, natural, panoramic, clear, centerless, or you did not. That's the only game in town, really, and that's the challenge to the practicing anagami. Uncovering every single subtle and more subtle and more subtle and closer and more intimate and more you and more near and more vulnerable and more hidden layer of stuff that seems to be pretending to be subject and seeing it how it is: that's the job of the practicing anagami. It can be a long, complex, strange road with many plateaus and valleys along the way. Settling into and syncing with this moment, or better yet realizing it is already synced, regardless of how it presents or any of our ideals for it: that is the work of the practicing anagami."

wsh3 - I think what you are talking about was from his essay "jhana not by the numbers" and he said (jokingly it seems)

"This was why, as long as your awareness was still and alert all-around, it didn't matter whether you were in the first or the fourteenth jhana, for the way you treated your state of concentration was always the same. By directing your attention to issues of stress and its absence, he was pointing you to terms by which to evaluate your state of mind for yourself, without having to ask any outside authority. And, as it turns out, the terms you can evaluate for yourself '” stress, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation '” are the issues that define the four noble truths: the right view that the Buddha says can lead to total liberation."

"Just came across this quote from Daniel Ingram that I had saved from one the middle paths threads on DhO:

"If you are an anagami: either you saw things are empty, luminous, not you, not self, not other, natural, panoramic, clear, centerless, or you did not. That's the only game in town, really, and that's the challenge to the practicing anagami. Uncovering every single subtle and more subtle and more subtle and closer and more intimate and more you and more near and more vulnerable and more hidden layer of stuff that seems to be pretending to be subject and seeing it how it is: that's the job of the practicing anagami. It can be a long, complex, strange road with many plateaus and valleys along the way. Settling into and syncing with this moment, or better yet realizing it is already synced, regardless of how it presents or any of our ideals for it: that is the work of the practicing anagami.""

This thread was originally about how to attain 3rd path. These instructions are aimed at a practicing anagami.

As per Kenneth's original outline of what to do, for a 2nd pather looking to attain third path it's about getting all of the strata of mind (all 20) under their belt and, hopefully, Nirodha as well.

Nice to run into this tasty thread again. Here are a few more links I've rounded up:

This is a slightly more direct link to the media on Daniel's site that was mentioned:
integrateddaniel.info/podcasts-and-videos/

There was a mention of Tarin's "alternative" for doing second path, a good thread containing that is here:
RE: on way to 2nd path? also, tarin's alternative for doing second path
dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussio...ards/message/1334743

And here are some other practice threads mentioned a while back. Also some on the first page of this thread.

Antero:
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/39...B4s+practise+journal
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...7s+pactise+journal+2
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/44...s+practise+journal+3
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/46...s+practice+journal+4

Ron:
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...Stream-Entry+Journal

Mumuwu/Jayson:
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/40...27s+Practice+Journal

Cmarti:
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/31...the+Way+to+Cessation
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/35...n+the+Way%2C+Part+II
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/39...+Third?maxResults=20

Oh my, oh my. This thread is great. Just wanted to pop in here and say thanks to everyone contributing.

I got stream entry last year on a long retreat, did the same retreat again this year and have no idea where I'm at, and really don't care. For the past week awareness seems to always be present and I just rest in 3rd gear most of the time. I see emptiness everywhere when I look deeper (really interesting when talking to friends and family). There is so much peace and acceptance, so I just kick back and let things happen. As I heard on retreat "Don't force the river"

Anyway, I deviated there but again: many thanks! After my retreat last year I don't think I really knew the power of what had happened and went into a dark period and had a very rough year.

This is really all very useful, as I am in pretty much the same place as Lauren. Thanks everyone!