I come to the point in my practice where I really don't know where I am. I got to equanimity for the third path a few months ago and got many completed cycles after that. Is one of those for the third path? Maybe I'm almost there, and maybe I'm already there. I really don't know, but I also feel that it does not matter. All that seems to matter now is what happens in the present moment.

What seems to help me practice the third path is the posts by Daniel and Tarin in the "third path please help" thread:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/294901

I have found nothing here regarding fourth path. Do you guys fourth pathers have anything to say about it? It seems that Daniel got his fourth path on retreat. Is that true for everyone here? Is there anything I should pay particular attention to? Maybe I can periodically come back to this post in the future. Thank you.

edit: I have editted the subject line to reflect the discussion.

2nd edit: I have again changed the subject line. Thanks to Nick for the link, but after these couple of days, I highly doubt I have got to third. More fruitful suggestion at this point is probably what happens now! Thus, I have removed the subject line asking for advice for the fourth path.

And yet here you are on another thread saying: "Why not just die? ... good question. I don't think I can answer the question for you".

Can you see how unbalanced that looks? With all your attainments, you may be no better placed than the average Joe in the street. In fact the average Joe is probably in a far better place, because he enjoys and sees purpose to life.

If ever there was a good reason not to follow the dharma, it's posts like yours. In fact I'm fed up with the whole tone of this place. I've come to the conclusion it's a place for intellectuals and nerds to congregate and tell stories to each other, each one of them wrapped up in their own little world of words, missing out on what life is actually about. I'm writing my own dharma and living by that.

EDITED by CCC

Hi Julie,

I dont know if it will help, but here are my practice notes from last year. In the last couple of pages, I write about feeling like I dont know what to do and getting some good helpful advice to get to 4th from 3rd.

http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/3674102/Nikolai's+Practice+Notes

Nick

This post is not helpful and doesn't belong in a forum like this. Perhaps you could start a thread to air your grievances. But being rude is really not helpful in a place where we actually wish to talk about "special attainments" and how to go about getting them (although attainment is not the word I like to use these days). Be happy CCC!

Nick

project much?



i enjoy seeing julie's posts, just as i enjoy any sincere person's participation on this forum. and if by chance she is not sincere, she will leave, as many others have...



okay, have fun ... see ya.

trent

Could you say a bit more about what your waking, walking around experience is like?

What is your understanding of the theoretical differences between 3rd and 4th, meaning, what criteria do you personally use for 3rd, and what do you think you are looking for, specifically? This will help clarify some points of language to make any discussion more productive, I think, and help make it more personal for you in particular.

These will help bring some clarity to a discussion of this territory, which is not always straightforward in some ways and can involve all sorts of subtle and clever traps and pitfalls.

Daniel

Why do you continue to behave like this? Why do you even post on this site? You don't even practice the techniques most commonly used here, you have no interest in the Dharma, you demonstrate no experiential insight and behave like you know all the answers already.

I agree that the tone of this site can be rather intellectually biased at times, hence my absence from it much of the time, but you're out of line with your insults and childish attitude. If you're leaving this site then it's for everyone's benefit 'cause you offer nothing in the way of practical advice or useful information, preferring instead to suggest your own techniques, which have never been fully disclosed or empirically tested, and half-baked theories.

Missing out on what life is actually about? Ha! You wish, my experience of life has become richer and fuller than I could have ever imagined through working towards enlightenment. You seem like an angry and bitter young man who's had his fair share of problems in life but that's no excuse for acting like a fucking idiot, you have no idea what the people on here do when not posting here other than what you've read.

Stop for a moment.

1. Who's pursuing happiness outside of themselves?
2. Who's pursuing happiness which, to quote Kenneth Folk, is not dependent on conditions?

Sorry to derail this thread Julie, I felt obliged to butt in and address CCC as his response to you was uncalled for. CCC, you can message me privately if you wish to continue the discussion or open another thread, otherwise keep your opinions to yourself unless they directly relate to the thread and can be of benefit to the OP.

To CCC: I'm sorry that you are not satisfied with my post. Are you frustrated because you want to connect and communicate with people here better? Do you have any particular dharma topics that you want to discuss here? Maybe you can start a thread on the topics you are interested in.

To Nick: Thank you for the link. This should be really useful for my practice in the time to come.

To Trent and Tommy: Thanks for the support

To anyone else: please feel free to critique my posts. I'm still learning to comment on this place so that it could be as fruitful to my own and other's practice as much as possible.




I think this is part of the problem; I'm not sure what the difference between 3rd and 4th is. If possible, I would like to use the jhanic criteria. However, my ability to concentrate has been quite inconsistent. The insight cycles seem to interfere with my ability to concentrate; to make things more complicated, I also have a hard time assessing where I am on the Jhana practice.

The way I have been assessing my insight stages for the third path has been the overall qualities during days in general. For example, during A&P event, I would notice extremely high energy. All 7 factors of enlightenment were almost perfect, and in retrospect, I could remember some corruptions of insights that arose. With all these, there was still a sense that I still need to learn something from the path. Then, during dark night, of course I was quite miserable. Then, I thought I got to equanimity when I seemed to be able to see the world differently. Compassion arises more naturally, and I could see things (in life and through insight cycles) changing constantly and could mostly accept these changes.

Now, the only reason I have for thinking skeptically that I have attained the third path is that I did not get any fruitions for a couple of months before it suddenly appeared again about a month ago. Then, it seemed to appear at least once a week until now. The reasons I don't think I have it are the followings:

1) With other paths, with only dry insight practice, before getting fruition for the path, I always have high energy and perfect 7 factors of enlightenment for a couple of days before it appears. The concentration is definitely at the jhanic level. 45 min sitting seemed like 2-3 min sort of things. Before fruition this time, this did not seem to happen. Of course, this could just be because I cycled through other nanas while meditating. Also, to make things more complicated, I have just been doing samatha practice during the sit, and sure, sometimes it could feel like time flew by really quickly (not 2-3 min though).

2) While I stop getting frustrated with the cycling process which happened all days long, I could still see some subtle resistance for some of my daily life activities. I thought that the anagami should have no resistance for performing new spontaneous tasks (?)



I think I would log my experience of my daily life today.

1 h meditation in the morning: used breath as an object. This went with only intermittent thoughts. I could concentrate reasonably well on breath. In the middle, I could feel quite strong vibrations at the heart center as what happened lately and also some pressure at the eyelid.

After getting up, I still felt quite refreshing from the sit and general qualities were quite neutral/ pleasant. I could still feel vibrations at the heart center with slightly unpleasant quality, but it did not bother me. While this happened, I talked to my dad and he suggests changing my flight ticket so that I would not stop over at Japan anymore. I could feel subtle resistance to that comment. After lunch, I felt really tired with some slight shoulder pains and pain at the back of the neck. This also did not bother me; I have figured that it's better for me not to fight and just took a short nap in the afternoon when this happened. After that my former co-worker showed up, flying all the ways to Boston from India. This was the co-worker that I mentioned to my boss a couple of month ago that she probably did not like me very much. She seemed quite happy and we got along really well today with me cycling through A&P stage (maybe). This could be one of those strange events that happen during the path (?) After that, got to equanimity again, and slightly after that another fruition appeared. Felt bright and neutral until now.

Did I answer your questions?

With metta

First of all, I'm glad I post here. It's definitely good for me to write things down to get things straighten out. I have been pretty confused for the past few days, and now that I look back and after all these times, I think I have a better idea of where I am.

I highly doubt at this point that I have got the third path. My criteria for judging this is that I'm still greatly affected by the cycles, and there was definitely some subtle attachment and aversion to all these changes. I'm not sure, however, that I'm really in the equanimity phase now. The stronger dark night that comes up every 2 weeks or so could be the results of me falling back onto that stage or the more cycles that I have to go through.

To turn this post to be more fruitful for my practice, maybe someone has some suggestions/ comments for the following questions:

1) As you probably see from my last post, I have been feeling really tired during the afternoon while surfing the dark night. In general, I definitely could not think clearly during this stage, and my body just keeps telling me to take a nap, which I did. Because I could not think clearly, my Ph.D. work has suffered somewhat in the past many months. I have been trying to just take a break (if I'm not in the middle of my experiment) and relax and take a nap, and make up for my work during the time that I'm bright and awake. Is it a good idea to really not resist this tiredness at all? Do you think I will be better off staying awake during the dark night phase. I forgot to say too that I seemed to experience this at least once a day since I started the third path. This even happens during large cycles A&P.

2) Is it really a good idea to do samatha practice during going to this? I can't help wonder whether the fact that I have been doing only concentration practice while on the cushion has slowed down my progress somewhat. I would say though that I seemed to progress through stages anyway during the day.

3) I think this is mostly the question for Daniel. When you say that you must have cycled through at least 3 cycles before getting to the third path, do you mean at least 3 complete cycles with fruition?

Does this make this thread more beneficial after all the taboos ?