"It could be argued that third gear, in its purest form, is not really a practice at all; it is complete acknowledgement of and surrender to the situation as it is. Such is the intention behind the “justsitting” practice of Soto Zen as well as certain practices within the Tibetan Buddhist traditions ofDzogchen and Mahamudra.
 
Understanding that the best practice is the one that is most beneficial in this moment, we can leave behind a big bucket of unnecessary suffering. When a practitioner laments the fact that he is not able to sustain herself in third gear all the time, for example, a quick detour to second gear would call into question this “self” who needs to have a particular experience. And down shifting to first gear allows for the invaluable feedback loop of noting (labeling) in order to stay on track with minimal space-outs while also reducing experience to its bare components, devoid of unnecessary rumination and worry.” From Comtemplative Fitness (Kenneth Folk)”
 
Third Gear is where the effort and struggle of spiritual seeking stop. Every practitioner of any tradition needs to find their Third Gear. I’m not sure if K.Folk really understands this potential or what he is pointing to fully. In recent times he seems to have demoted Third Gear to ‘just one of the gears’ with no hierarchical or primary importance over the others.
 
Third Gear is the Realization itself; the other gears are the ones you use when you are not in the Realized state. They are the seeking and striving gears.
 
Third Gear in its most profound form comes with a paradox: “You can’t move directly from first or second gear to third gear.” How can this be? In despair of the failure of the first two gears to fully or ever end your suffering, you may surrender or let go completely and slip into ‘Overdrive’ or true Third Gear. This is the indirect way of reaching Third Gear.
 
So if you are reading this and Third Gear makes no sense, you may have to keep maxing out the first two gears, rev the motor to the redline, until all those attainments or lack of, reveal a profound insight : None of it was ever necessary. The Primordial State or Buddha Nature or Inherent Being cannot be attained or lost. That understanding or insight is Third Gear taken to its most radical and subversive position.

Yes, it's an interesting point, on how Kenneth regards 3rd gear currently.  I think it relates to the difference between Daniel and Kenneth's criteria.  Is enlightenment about how the mind is "like weather" and all states are relative, or is enlightenment about the removal of specific perceptual elements, which, in a sense produces a permanent special state?

The "weather"/relativity would be Kenneth's version and the special state would be Daniels version.  I suspect that most usage of the terms MCTB 3rd/4th Path are erroneously referring to Kenneth's version.

Just to loop back around to OP, your focus on the significance of 3rd gear remind me more of Daniels criteria.

Alternatively .... the experience of the Dzogchen tradition is that the key to getting started on Third Gear is Direct Introduction from a teacher who is already there.

Noah do you have have links to this sort of dialogue? 

One of the Direct Paths..


“ ..by allowing your attention to turn naturally and gently towards the one who is aware of this state—the one who is not thinking—you discover the pure awareness of rigpa, free of any movement of thought, beyond any notion of outside or inside, unimpeded and open, like the clear sky.
Although there is no dualistic separation here between an experience and an experiencer, still the mind is certain about its own true nature, and there is a sense that, “There is nothing whatsoever beyond this.” When this occurs, because you can not conceptualize it or express it in words, it is acceptable to apply such terms as: “free from all extremes”, “beyond description”, “the fundamental state of clear light” and “the pure awareness of rigpa.As the wisdom of recognizing your own true nature dawns, it clears away the blinding darkness of confusion, and, just as you can see clearly the inside of your home once the sun has risen, you gain confident certainty in the true nature of your mind.” by Mipham Jampal Dorje  

I think Third Gear when taken to the radical edge is the direct knowing of the True Nature ( no need to put an 'I' in it) . Kenneth has done a great job of bringing together disparate methods and insights into a wide view, available to many. I don't think it's quite finished yet. There may need to be another gear branching from the third, an 'Overdrive' of sorts--The truly subversive, or that which removes all need for practice to attain any state or path--that is not to say one would ever stop mind training as a useful execise ( for self and others) but the " need " to do it, is gone.

My own view ( and use) of the gear analogy, could be useful to others if we share sympathy along these lines :

Ist gear :  Any mind training, in any tradition (including vipassana)

2nd gear : The use of conscious mental  enquiry in intelligent and specific forms, not limited to "who am I"  but may be along any line related to furthering understanding or insight. 

3rd gear : Direct knowing or Intuiton of the True Nature, beyond "self", this is the intersection and fruition of the Direct Paths and ultimately all paths lead here, often 'kicking and screaming' against such a thing. This is the gear voiced by the spiritual subversives, radicals and heretics and crazywisdom teachers, freely available to all even now. It may be pointed to, but never fully contained or owned by any tradition. The ultimate, ''get out of jail free card".

http://meaningoflife.tv/videos/35626

Recent interview with Kenneth where he talks about mindstates being like weather/ relative.

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2715189#_19_message_2718243

Daniels description of 4th path criteria.

Haha are we reviving "the direct mode" in this thread?  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6WiCXn87BF4

"Pragmatic Dharma Flashback Fridays"

Is this why I keep seeig non-duality teachers saying "I meditated for thirty years, experienced every altered state there is, and in the end liberation had nothing to do with any of it ? Shinzen Young said that too. Head fucker.
But is it a coincidence that these people just happen to spend so much time as hardcore devotees of one sort or another ?

Hi John, Shinzen is a very compassionate and effective teacher and helpful to many, much respect to him. But, he is not really a Third Gear teacher or influence, as far as I can see. He teaches from a 1st and 2nd gear viewpoint. which is what people want, generally.

I quote a comment left by someone on that youtube video.


So he moves through a mechanistic model, that's the future of the 1st/2nd Gear approach, perhaps.

Shinzen does teach 3rd Gear when he emphasizes staying in the state of Samadhi after meditation, and eventually all the time. See his audio book for reference.

Noah, I think we are talking about two different things, what you are calling 3rd Gear is not what I call it. It’s more than a nuance; it’s a big jump in different understandings of the term. To be fair, your understanding and usage is closer to how Kenneth uses it (I think).

I’m idealising somewhat and pushing it further than how it was intended to be used. So from your viewpoint when you say Shinzen teaches 3rd Gear, you may be correct.

I will try to use another analogy: There is story I heard that the (ancient) master rug weavers had a special thread in all their carpets, called an escape thread. If called upon they might simply pull this thread and unravel the whole rug. That’s how I view 3rd Gear, now does Shinzen teach something like that, or Kenneth? You tell me. There is a bit of Zen (in this parallel), for sure, but it’s more than that also. It’s the more than that, which puts it in the radical mode outside of the Traditions.

My root-teacher speculated for a time, that a man or woman could be in any formal spiritual tradition and still stand perfectly free of the dogma, ritual, striving, and methodology and even perceived attainments of any such path. He further speculated that there has been and always will be such people. To me it is a beautiful and naïve vision. He saw them as a special class of aspirants or adepts. If it is true, it would be rare. Here I’m pointing to the true radicals and subversives who have unzipped the rug in situ (you could say)<----Another attempt at clarification

Http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2715189#_19_message_2718243

hai -

i do get it.  You are talking about rigpa/ the natural state/ awakened awareness/ pure citta etc.

Please refer to the above reference, where Daniel describes it vividly.  Also refer to the below reference, where Dream Walker explains how to get there:  http://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5800908

its all on a scale, thus the Shinzen reference does apply:  degrees of recognition 

cheers!

https://youtu.be/cZ6cdIaUZCA

This is Shinzen's take, I believe

Well, isn't stating that his enlightenment had nothing to do with the previous contemlative endeavours because it "just is" something of a problem for all the ideas of following a path ? I know this isn't a new thing, krishnamurti said something similar, as do non-duality teachers. I've watched a lot of Buddha at the Gas Pump, and the guy Archer notes the same thing, that a lot of the people who said it (liberation) had nothing really to do with all the practice - but it's common that they say this after decades of that practice. Correlation or causation ?

I get the idea that practice, the phenomena of practice and all that goes on as a phenomena in awareness, like the drama of life on a neutral screen, and in the end just recognising the screen is the realisation that was needed most. I've always got that idea, although sometimes it becomes extremely obvious as a moment of direct insight. I don't think it's that mysterious, and probably most people intuit it. Basically that there is a fundamental level of awareness that makes all the other stuff possible to be conscious of.

Not sure what Shinzen means by technology, because Americans tend to use that word in the same way British people say technique. For most Brits technology is gadgets and engineering products, and techniques are stuff like pranayama and mindfulness - skills.

If he means gadgets then there is a problem of right living because material acquisition for technology industries, often, isn't done in an "ask nicely" kind of way, and I doubt if Silicone Valley really cares enough to change that. But there may be positive changes ahead in technology development. Either that or resource wars and Imperial collapse
But it's OK, Wim Hof is here to show you how to survive without clothes and heating.

Good find Dada, there is quite a lot of useful information in that video, You can see how Kenneth was inspired to his 3 speed from Shinzen. The comments give a lot away also : many people find this gear the hardest to 'get their head around' a lot of confusion expressed in the comments. Someone noted this, which I think is correct ( as an aside).

I meant to add, I've been using the exact method described by Shizen in the video, all morning as a test to see exactly how useful it is ( it's not new to me by any means) and so far after 5/6 hours constant practice (in life) in a work situation, it leads to deep ease and equanamity and much less stressful reactivity.

Still think there is a deeper  gear shift linked from 3rd (perhaps hyperdrive), more like Sahaja, no effort whatsoever, or need for effort.


"Sahaja is free of them all. For there is neither desire nor absence of desire, nor a middle to be obtained"


 "There is then no sacred or profane, spiritual or sensual, but everything that lives is pure and void."

Hey John have you read Bankei ? This zen monk from the 17th century one of the geat subversives, he may make it clearer if you are interested ( or less clear, even) . Shinzen does mean meditation technology, such as apps, modern biofeedback devices, binaurel beats (I'm guessing) etc.

Hi Marty,

In the video I linked Shinzen does relate "Do Nothing" to Dzogchen. Why do you think they're fundamentally different? Don't you think that in time (as Shinzen emphasises) the 'technique', at least, most closely resembles Dzogchen?

Dada perhaps someone who really knows and practices Dzoghen could chime in, but just comparing this treatise to what Shinzen is saying it would only be at the periphery (at best) and may not lead to the depth described. 

"The Soto Zen practice of Shikantaza is very similar to the practice of Dzogchen." - Lama Thubten Gonpo Tsering

I'd further say that the difference of do nothing/shikantaza and atiyoga is in the way they are taught and pointed out. Experience- wise it's the same natural state, same awareness. How could the nature of mind be different between sects? Some zen pointers are fantastic (!) but in general, as rinzai zen teacher John Denko Mortensen once said that "While zen masters say weird things, dzogchen masters actually explain things". Someone said online: "My first buddhist teacher was Kobun Chino Roshi. In one class, someone asked him how to get closer to his lineage or more involved with his lineage and his answer was to look into dzogchen."

As Mipham Dorje, as others like Jigme Lingpa point out, people should be careful not to think substrate consciousness (alaya) for being home (rigpa). That's a big one. Alan Wallace made the point that one can either get a direct introduction from a lama or just do the practice. Personally, I prefer the first option because it has the potential of saving a lot of time.

Shinzen Young instructs: "Let whatever happens happen. As soon as you are aware of an intention trying to control attention, drop that intention".  

I've used the terms of intention and attention too trying to describe rigpa practice but lately I started to feel that attention and awareness does it better, as in: As soon you are aware of attention trying to control awareness, drop that attention, in one way or the other.

Not meaning to repeat (linked the same vid in other thread) but this might be useful.

Hi Marty 

On the overdrive / hyperdrive beyond 3rd gear thing you are talking about. I’ve run into something that might be similar. For me the ‘location’ / inquiry was more of what’s left when everything has fallen away.  Not looking for a thought as an answer but just feeling into the sensations that came after the question. There was/is a recognizable bundle of sensations in that encounter. There was/is no good label for it but it was and is distinctive and recognizable. Part of my practice now is looking to see: Is that here in this moment? It doesn’t have to be the same but is it recognizable? Just being curious about how it is present in each moment.

It was and is entirely beyond anything I had imagined and yet in my experience this is a very simple, very basic. For me the glory of the thing is its sheer simplicity. Definitely not the stuff of many descriptions of rigpa. So it may not be what you or they are pointing to at all.

Marty G

I had not heard of Bankei, no, and I will look.

I have, though, got here something by Richard Sylvester
"Then at a central London station on a warm summer evening the person, the sense of self, suddenly completely disappears. Everything remains as it is - people, trains, platforms, other objects - yet everything is seen as if for the first time without a person interpreting it. Here is the ordinary seen as the ordinary, arising in oneness with no one experiencing it. In that instant it is seen that there is no one. The sense of there being a person has been a constant up to this point and given meaning to this life....
....One thing that is immediately seen is the nature of all the apparent spititual experiences that arose during the years of searching and following false paths and gurus. Suddenly they are seen for what they really are, emotional and psychological experiences happening to an unreal person and no more significant than putting on a shoe or having a cup of coffee... There had always been someone there, having the spiritual experience.... A year after awakening I am standing in a shop in an ordinary cuontry town. Suddenly but with great gentleness the ordinary is diosplaced by the extraordinary. The person again disappears comp[letely and now is seen clearly that awareness is everywhere and everything. The localised sense of self is revealed to be just an appearance. "I" am the shop, the people, the counter, the walls and the space in which everything appears. Then this is seen for what it is, a wonderful hologram sustained by love...." etc.

This guy was a dedicated seeker, and like Shinzen seems to say that in the end liberation didn't depend on all the efforts. Dunno about that. Seems to be describing the same "I am everything" knowledge, though.

Interesting. I moved from Dzogchen to Zen, and have not appreciably changed my practice, AND one of the lineages I work in/with is Kobun's lineage (at Jikoji).

http://www.jikoji.org

I pretty much agree with his statement.

Yes, do nothing and then come all the instructions !  

http://www.lionsroar.com/naked-mind/

Exactly.

This is for you Elizabeth and for anyone who intuits the great freedom, prior to any effort at all. These guys are the icons of that possibility. They are more than 3 speed gear 'achievers' and 'attainers' they know this 'hyperdrive' joke that says --"You can't get there from here." They know the gear system intimately, they practiced for thousands of years and even though they are only mythic forms in mind, they say, 'not necessary', ' never been necessary', ' never will be necessary'. 

First off, I no longer view the dissolution of the separate self as Full Enlightenment. It is logical liberation (no denying this) : no-self no problem, no-self no suffering etc, but if you listen to all the claimed attainers of 'selflessness' some of them remain clueless (or ignorant in some sense) and clearly not Enlightened in the highest and most profound sense. Liberation from the 'self'-sense is becoming almost common. A man or woman suddenly or slowly begins to stand 'objectively toward their subjectivity' and great though that may be, it's not the end of the story. The end of the story is not just "no-suffering" in the negative : 'I' no longer exist therefore suffering is extinguished. That's only half the game, only a beginning. What is more than that, may be 'intuited' (known directly by one's own native deepest perception) to be the case. 

I'm somewhere in the middle of the process of becoming a "common" sense-of-self liberator. What do you see as coming next? What practices bring it about? Is it still about surrendering?

Well second best still sounds pretty good to me - especially from someone alive rather than gone 2000 years with no first hand teaching. Aaaaanyway, there you go. Next step is not even a distributed "I", I suppose.

“If anyone imagines he will get more by inner thoughts and sweet yearnings and a special grace of God than he could get beside the fire or with his flocks or in the stable, he is doing no more than trying to take God and wrap His head in a cloak and shove Him under the bench. For whoever seeks God in some special Way, will gain the Way and lose God who is hidden in the Way. But whoever seeks God without any special Way, finds Him as He really is... and He is life itself.”---Meister Eckhart

“When we want something, normally we know well enough what needs to be done to get it. But what if the object I desire is something that can never become an object, because it is prior to the subject-object dichotomy? What if it can never be an effect, because it is always unconditioned? What means will enable me to attain an end that is impossible to grasp? I find myself in a dilemma. If I make no effort to do anything, it seems that the result will also be nothing, and there will be no progress towards the desired goal. But to the extent that I exert myself to attain it, I do not, for in this case all effort is self-defeating. This is the paradox of spiritual practice, for Ātman, Brahman, Nirvāṇa, Buddhanature, and so forth are all unobjectifiable (because nondual), unoriginated (that is, beyond causal and temporal relations), and hence unobtainable. How can we escape such a dilemma? “---quoted from http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/loy.htm

Stirling you are asking the question that should be asked and has been a dilemma for many past reformers such as Dogan – since the True Nature/Enlightenment is already our inherent, intrinsic condition why is it not always and currently obvious and what can be done to cultivate it? His answer was ‘surrender’ or zazen as the means to be that, to live as that. So you already have the (Soto) Zen answer added to this you have the elaborations of Kenneth’s gear system and Shinzen’s meditation fusion technology.

The modern teacher Adyashanti  in the first clip below ( I didn’t watch further) suggests we should just keep on doing what we are already doing as practice because we really have no choice and with luck or Grace we may ‘awaken’ from the need to do any practice. To some extent then the conundrum remains in his view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXl-BMUotwo&t=253s
 
On the other side you have all the neo-advaita proponents who say no practice is necessary including surrender (which is still a conscious deliberate practice) another typical clip below. What they must do is mental programing by repetition. That is constantly repeat ideation along these lines otherwise there is nothing added to the ordinary unconscious living. My teacher called this approach “talking school” (with critical irony).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2349lmMIm-A

The only thing I have to add to these voices (from my own experience) is there is an intuition possible to anyone that reveals our present condition as already free and unbound. At some point it (this inherent cognition) becomes strong enough to inform us directly and then we stand more and more free of any need or seeking impulse to look passed this intuition of perfect certainty.  The practices are what we sensibly do in the meantime. All the koans, paradoxes and cryptic statements and strange trickster’s teachings point and yield to this knowledge, or if not they should. Because it is not a mechanical formula it will never be popular in mainstream spirituality and will tend to be denied, supressed or disputed.

Thanks for the answer.

Thanks for answering Marty. I always enjoy your thoughtful, well-reasoned posts.

My instinct is just to keep on keeping on. I do what I am driven to do without question, and accept things as they are. I have even dropped the term "surrender" as it implies a choice we do not have. My background in Dzogchen always emphasized detachment from achievement, and that has served me well. Zazen/Dzogchen remain the center of my practice.