Help Required for 3rd Path

Blue Jay, modified 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 6:26 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 6:26 AM

Help Required for 3rd Path

Posts: 95 Join Date: 1/19/14 Recent Posts
Greetings,

I'll try to keep this as short as I can.

Best guess at current stage: Low equanimity before 3rd path.

The problem: I need to confirm if I am following the right strategy, because this is on a whole different level of experience.

My practice: Idealy one meditation session has two parts. One is 40 minutes of jhanas with metta as the object. Then, in the vipassana part of the session, I relax each of the frames of reference (body, feelings, mind, and ideas) and accept whatever is happening, just as it is and without being disturbed, for 15 minutes. Then I release control of each frame of reference. This takes about 10 minutes. And then I release ownership of each frame of reference for the rest of the session. I do this by discarding the body, feelings, mind and ideas, as if I am throwing garbage away (it feels wonderful, btw, to not own them).

The question: I think that, when I eventualy get good at not owning the body, feelings mind and ideas, it will be a lot easier to directly know these as totaly conditioned by interior and exterior circumstances. When this is understood, the "I" that I still feel I am, will not be found anywhere and this will culminate in 3rd path. Do you think this is a good way to proceed?

Thanks!
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Dream Walker, modified 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 12:30 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 11:29 AM

RE: Help Required for 3rd Path

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Blue Jay:
Greetings,

I'll try to keep this as short as I can.

Best guess at current stage: Low equanimity before 3rd path.

The problem: I need to confirm if I am following the right strategy, because this is on a whole different level of experience.

My practice: Idealy one meditation session has two parts. One is 40 minutes of jhanas with metta as the object. Then, in the vipassana part of the session, I relax each of the frames of reference (body, feelings, mind, and ideas) and accept whatever is happening, just as it is and without being disturbed, for 15 minutes. Then I release control of each frame of reference. This takes about 10 minutes. And then I release ownership of each frame of reference for the rest of the session. I do this by discarding the body, feelings, mind and ideas, as if I am throwing garbage away (it feels wonderful, btw, to not own them).

The question: I think that, when I eventualy get good at not owning the body, feelings mind and ideas, it will be a lot easier to directly know these as totaly conditioned by interior and exterior circumstances. When this is understood, the "I" that I still feel I am, will not be found anywhere and this will culminate in 3rd path. Do you think this is a good way to proceed?

Thanks!
I do not understand what you mean by "release control" and "discarding". You have only sensations...what are those sensations and then what do you "do" with them?

There are specific boundaries that hold the center/self in space together. To get third path I explored these boundaries and noticed with great focus and concentration the permanent nature of these boundaries until they dissolved. I would work on the sensations that imply a center and stay on that for a while then move to the boundary right above the skin then move to the personal space around me. The goal is to feel into this space and lock onto the permanency and feeling of self/ownership/possession of these boundaries until they no longer are permenant and yours.

Best thread on this stuff - Looking for help getting to 3rd path I assume you have mined the middle paths threads but I would reread this again.
Msg me if you wish to video chat
Good luck,
~D
Alexander Rice, modified 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 12:06 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 12:03 PM

RE: Help Required for 3rd Path

Posts: 36 Join Date: 2/20/15 Recent Posts
I've just (like, last weekend) done 3rd path and I've written about it quite a lot recently, so you may find looking at my recent posts useful.

You're basically dead-on but my main pointer would be that for me it was not that the self was nowhere to be found (that's probably 4th path) but that I could see clearly that it was an object of the mind, I could see how it was created, maintained moment to moment and how it could be allowed to evaporate. I did it by using a candle flame to create an afterimage and then keep jumping 'deeper' into the layers of that image, occasionally going back to breathing if things got a bit unstable. At some point I had a definite sense of distance between me and some hazy blue flickering fractal'y stuff and then I used deliberate calling up of as much 3Cs nastiness with contemplation of death as possible to push myself out of my current frame of reference and into the one 'out there'. Alongside trying to puzzle out what 'timelessness' would be like. Stopping time being the essence of 'the deathless'.

Willing to chat on skype: alexjrice
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Dream Walker, modified 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 12:22 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 12:22 PM

RE: Help Required for 3rd Path

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Alexander Rice:
I've just (like, last weekend) done 3rd path and I've written about it quite a lot recently, so you may find looking at my recent posts useful.
Alexander,
You may wish to consolidate your information to a practice thread where we could read about your paths in a cohesive way. I went back and tried to read exactly what you did, what you focused on, what the results were and I have some questions that would be answered if it was a play by play narrative.
Thanks,
~D
Alexander Rice, modified 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 12:45 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 3/7/15 12:45 PM

RE: Help Required for 3rd Path

Posts: 36 Join Date: 2/20/15 Recent Posts
Yeah, I've started sort of doing that but it turned into trying to write down about two years of interesting experiences which is a fair bit of work so it's not done yet. I have taken a somewhat unconventional route though so I suspect it would be useful to someone. I'll put some more work into it later.