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The Last Step - Conversation Thread

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The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 11:50 AM
I was inspired by Tom Tom's practise thread.
It seems to be getting hijacked a bit and I also want to jump in and chat about his practise....but I feel that since I am not fourth path that anything I say will just be more hijacking stuff....So here is a solution that lets me yammer on and not feel bad.

There are very few 3rd path to 4th path theads on the Dho. I would be very interested in what people are doing to get to 4th.

Tom Tom, what are you doing in what order and for how long...On cushion and off cushion? ( I realized I have been pretty lax with myself across the board compared to earlier paths esp. concentration exercises)
Tom Tom:
Most of my investigation during sits has been going toward investigation of the sensations in and around the neck and the subtle dualities between these and thoughts.  The main investigation has been the impermanence of these sensations, but a few sits have gone towards the unsatisfactory (dukkha) nature of them.  

Analysis off cushion has been toward a continuous dissection of agency.  A subtle sense of agency seems to be all that is left, and as I have stated, I experience no sense of time.

Some sitting time has also been spent trying to analyze what is left of attention.  I seem to have little to no sense of attention. Investigation of neck sensations has been a priority, but this does not seem to exclude the other sensations much. There are only sensations and whatever arising and passing mental sensations that might be thought of as attention are seen as only more mental sensations.

I've noticed that a lack of attention does not seem to mean I lack the ability to tune things out if I'm not listening.  For example, if I'm reading and people are talking I won't always know what they're saying since the focus is on what I'm reading and not what the people are saying.  I've been looking at this, and strangely, I tend to hear some jumble of sounds but it is not processed in a way that makes it understandable if the "focus" is on something else.  Whether this constitutes some form of attention or not I'm not sure.

A kick to the left-over sense of agency is my top priority and since sitting I have noticed some significant diminishment in agency when not on the cushion.  I'm still not where I want to be in terms of a 100% lack of agency, but I seem to be getting closer (quantitatively, it's currently at about 85%).   To what extent some remaining sense of attention may be creating some small sense of agency is also a consideration and is an additional thing I'll be analyzing in future sits.

The Attention thing is interesting, as is Focus, Choosing etc....they all seem to combine to create the illusion of agency. I have been playing with focus of the eyes trying to stay in panoramic mode without a focal point as my off the cushion practice. On the cushion I have been playing with noticing sensations and whether there is an internal quality or external quality to them. I think there is some spacial relational aspect that creates some of the agency...lets say that at 3rd path the sense of self in space goes away but what about all the external "objects" that are still in reference to where this hollowed out circle is? I am trying to vipassanaize this internal/external duality.I notice what my eyes are doing when I move back and forth...they try to change focus which I find strange especially when I move back and forth between the Nada sound and an external sound...I also move from thoughts to external objects....I have not tried to find permanent objects and dissolve them....interesting...
Gotta go meditate....hope you don't mind me starting this thread.
Good luck
~D

RE: The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 12:49 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
Isn't non-panoramic mode with a focal point just as "anatta" as panoramic mode?

RE: The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 2:20 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
Dreamwalker, what I see in your post is a whole lot of doing, striving, changing technique.  This struggle is typical in 3rd path, but you have to remember, nothing that you can do with make it tip.  Try to relax a bit and let the letting go process unfold (as actively 'letting go' is still doing something)  Have you ever watched the video on youtube of Shinzen's 'Do Nothing' practice?

RE: The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 2:36 PM as a reply to Not Tao.
Not Tao:
Isn't non-panoramic mode with a focal point just as "anatta" as panoramic mode?

Is this a question?

RE: The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 2:46 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
For me 3rd path to 4th path was mainly practice as usual, by which I mean noticing sensations with as much continuity in daily life and meditation as possible.  However, as I got close to 4th path several notable things happened in my practice. 

One, as Daniel mentions, cycling started to become rapid as well as somewhat background.  By rapid I mean I would go through a cycle, maybe two in a 30 min session of sitting.  By background I mean they started to matter much less.  Where as prior cycling had been a major thing, fruitions were awesome and came with a sense of relief, near 4th path I began to care less and less about where I was at in the cycles.

The second major shift in my practice was an ability to note sensations regardless of external conditions.  Whereas before I would have much prefered a quiet space to meditate, close to 4th path I could simply note external sounds and disturbances and continue undisturbed. 

Also during this time I was practicing the Jhana's everynight as I went to sleep, kindof to put myself out, maybe the concentration practice helped..

RE: The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 3:01 PM as a reply to Russell ..
Russell .:
Dreamwalker, what I see in your post is a whole lot of doing, striving, changing technique.  This struggle is typical in 3rd path, but you have to remember, nothing that you can do with make it tip.  Try to relax a bit and let the letting go process unfold (as actively 'letting go' is still doing something)  Have you ever watched the video on youtube of Shinzen's 'Do Nothing' practice?
I have gotten a lot of this advice. Can you go into detail of what I actually should do?
Should I sit?
If so why?
What should I do while sitting?
How long should the sits be?
How often?
What should I do off the cushion?
If something, why?

I am really curious on what others have done/not done and what those results were.
I am quite frustrated in the lack of good advice after second path. I can't even really get some good old honest "I have no idea what I did"
I have explained exactly what I did to get third path and the results here - Looking for help getting to 3rd path
Now I am putting out there the things I am doing in an attempt to land 4th. There are very few threads that discuss this stuff and NONE seem to have people revisiting threads to update what happened....this "got mine" see ya later attitude sucks...{venting and ranting mode off}
Please help by answering if you would be so kind.
Thanks a bunch....team sport dharma
~D

RE: The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 3:22 PM as a reply to T DC.
T DC:
For me 3rd path to 4th path was mainly practice as usual, by which I mean noticing sensations with as much continuity in daily life and meditation as possible.  However, as I got close to 4th path several notable things happened in my practice. 

One, as Daniel mentions, cycling started to become rapid as well as somewhat background.  By rapid I mean I would go through a cycle, maybe two in a 30 min session of sitting.  By background I mean they started to matter much less.  Where as prior cycling had been a major thing, fruitions were awesome and came with a sense of relief, near 4th path I began to care less and less about where I was at in the cycles.

The second major shift in my practice was an ability to note sensations regardless of external conditions.  Whereas before I would have much prefered a quiet space to meditate, close to 4th path I could simply note external sounds and disturbances and continue undisturbed. 

Also during this time I was practicing the Jhana's everynight as I went to sleep, kindof to put myself out, maybe the concentration practice helped..
Thanks T DC for your straight forward approach of just noting sensations...have continued to note things but changed from 6 senses to proprioception spacial relational sensations/thoughts since second path.
The Nanas cycles are doing thier own thing in the background mostly with DN kicking me for a couple minutes to hours where they seem very in my face misery but nothing like in the past.  I sometimes get up to 4 cessations in a sit....sometimes none...they are not blissful afterwards and very much like a little blip and some clarity.
I practice at the gym every day with a ton of noise...been doing that for years...lately Ive noticed that the disturbing noises have a outside and inside quality to them.
I have been decoupling my concentration practice from my loving kindness practice and trying to get much more concentrated....I also have been practising concentration every night to fall asleep and naps...been doing that for years....If I wake up from a nap I am usually vibrating very hard in third jhana.
Thanks for the input,
~D

RE: The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 3:45 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
Russell .:
nothing that you can do with make it tip.  Try to relax a bit and let the letting go process unfold

The Last Step - Practice Log
Daniel Ingram:
simply went brutally for the heart of the thing using a very simple assumption: if no sensation is allowed to ever arise and vanish again without clear comprehension of the Three Characteristics of it, including everything that seemed to be left in that maddening little space warp, then eventually the last illusion will fall. This proved to be the case.

So here are two extremes... the "letting go process unfolding" and the "Brute force" method.
I wonder if there is a middle path to these approaches....I am exploring this idea. Is there a precursor to agentlessness that can be seen clearly and vipassanaized/noted?
A while back I had a 5 minute preveiw of some state...possibly 4th. The predominate shift was that everything was just where is was, stresslessly. Was there an agent? I didn't even look...it didn't occur to me to even try...I was just enjoying everthing being so absolutely ordinarily.
So things are not "just where they are" anymore....so I am investigating this....what makes things locationally where they are? what spacial relationship do they have to each other and to the "center"....
Can I see it clear enought to "let go" again? We shall see (pun intended)
~D

RE: The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 5:06 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
I've been thinking pretty much exactly what's written in this thread. I may be fooling myself in thinking I'm in anagami territory, though.

This part of the Hurricane Ranch talk might help
KF: Yes. It’s karma-sila. I feel like we’re gonna have to wrap this pretty soon, because I’m getting very tired, but there’s one thing I’d like to touch upon before we close. We’ve talked about license. And earlier, Tarin and I talked about permission. Giving yourself permission to be enlightened wouldn’t be possible to overestimate how important that is.
DI: Or even to concentrate. Or even to engage energy.
KF: Right. I agree. But I really wanna go, take this all the way to the end. At some point, in order to be done with the Insight Disease, you’regonna have to say, I give myself permission to be with this! The lack of permission can hold you up for decades, I believe. And it might be a nice idea to reflect on. For anyone infected with this pernicious disease, to consciously reflect upon this. Have I suffered enough? Have I suffered enough? Have I done enough work? Have I gained the credibility of all my peers? And then ask yourself: Do I care? Or do I really want to be done? If I really want to be done, I’m going to have to give myself permission. And it might not happen in one step. Most people are going to reflect upon this for some time.

I have the same questions as you, so,
http://i.imgur.com/RvbgtzE.jpg

RE: The Last Step - Conversation Thread
Answer
9/29/14 5:48 PM as a reply to Droll Dedekind.
KF: Yes. It’s karma-sila. I feel like we’re gonna have to wrap this pretty soon, because I’m getting very tired, but there’s one thing I’d like to touch upon before we close. We’ve talked about license. And earlier, Tarin and I talked about permission. Giving yourself permission to be enlightened wouldn’t be possible to overestimate how important that is.
DI: Or even to concentrate. Or even to engage energy. 
KF: Right. I agree. But I really wanna go, take this all the way to the end. At some point, in order to be done with the Insight Disease, you’regonna have to say, I give myself permission to be with this! The lack of permission can hold you up for decades, I believe. And it might be a nice idea to reflect on. For anyone infected with this pernicious disease, to consciously reflect upon this. Have I suffered enough? Have I suffered enough? Have I done enough work? Have I gained the credibility of all my peers? And then ask yourself: Do I care? Or do I really want to be done? If I really want to be done, I’m going to have to give myself permission. And it might not happen in one step. Most people are going to reflect upon this for some time.


I'm going to have to disagree with Kenneth on this one.  Why is 4th path so special that this applies to 4th, but not to any other path?  Would you say that stream-entry is reaching high equanimity and getting conformity, change of lineage, path, and then fruition or would you say stream-entry is when you "give yourself permission" to be a stream-enterer.  I'm going to go with the former.  However, this doesn't exclude the possibility that "giving yourself permission" might cause the former to happen.

Kenneth is coming from a different perspective where he sought enlightenment to the exclusion of everything else for over 20 years.  His model of what 4th path is is different than Daniel's.  In my thread that inspired this thread I specifically wrote that I was describing what 4th path is according to Daniel Ingram's criteria.  A 100% lack of all agency is not a defining criteria for 4th path according to Kenneth Folk   Kenneth Folk places the end of agency at a stage much farther along than what he calls "4th path." I feel that I more than meet Kenneth's 4th path criteria, and have for several years now.