Understanding the 3 Speed Transmission

Continuing a conversation from Antero's Practice Journal, let's talk about what the 3 Speed Transmission is and how best to use it, including improving the model itself over time if we can. Here's the link to the recent conversation I'm referring to:

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...et=120&maxResults=20

And a quote from the thread, for a good place to start:

Foolbutnotforlong: "I agree [with Nick] that the umbrella of what we have been calling here in KFDh, '3rd gear' is perhaps larger than it originally was meant to be.'"

I originally conceived the 3ST in order to have a conceptual framework big enough to make some sense of all the practices I was doing. My experience was that vipassana, samatha, self-enquiry, shikan-taza, and many other practices were valid and effective, yet I hadn't heard of anyone tying them all together, finding the overlaps, comparing the outcomes. The inspiration for the name was from a comment by Shinzen Young where he said that if he was doing a less structured practice and got lost, he would downshift to low gear and begin noting vipassana-style. So, I took that ball and ran with it; at first, I think I had four or even five gears. I eventually stripped the model down to 3 Gears, using these general categories:

1st Gear: practices that deal specifically with the objects of awareness, for example, vipassana and samatha.

2nd Gear: practices that turn the attention around to look at itself, for example, self-enquiry, dwelling as the witness.

3rd Gear: practices in which the path and the goal are one, i.e., non-developmental or timeless practices like shikan-taza or simply remaining undivided in this experience a la Adyashanti.

edit: typo

(cont'd below)

(cont'd from above)

So you can see that the original intention was not to formalize any particular experience (or non-experience) as one of the gears, but rather to have a model that is big enough and flexible enough to help us wrap our minds around all the contemplative practices. At times, I and others have referred to some particular experience as being synonymous with one of the gears. For example, I have said that "the Witness" is 2nd gear. But in order for the model to fulfill its original mission, which I still think is a good one, we might do better to deliberately leave it more open. Yes, the Witness is a 2nd gear practice because it turns attention back on itself. But if there are other practices that also do that but are different enough from the Witness to merit being called something else, they would still be considered 2nd gear practices.

Similarly, with 3rd gear, since the category is for practices that don't seek to get the yogi to anywhere other than *here,* we don't want to limit 3rd gear to any particular practice. Any path-as-goal practice belongs in that category whether it stresses primordial awareness or just points out that "this is it." In fact, Adyashanti's practice of simply remaining undivided in this moment without any emphasis on awareness at all was very much in my mind as I was refining the model and trimming it down to three gears, so it is not a stretch to include what I call direct mode practice in this category. Although I have since written about rigpa/Mahmudra (with focus on awareness) as being synonymous with 3rd gear, I'd rather open it up again to any practice where the path is the goal.

In any case, these are not rigid categories, but rather a loose conceptual umbrella to help us put the whole spectrum of contemplative practices in context alongside one other.

Conversation continued from antero's prctice thread. To do with 3rd gear practice: kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/41...journal+2?offset=120

Edited to add: Hmmm maybe this wasn't the best place to have this conversation. My apologies for not thinking this through.

Hi Jorge,

Would you say that one's "experience" of the world is through the 6 senses? Is there any other sense? And would you say that our entire experience is made up of the 5 aggregates of form, sensations and their tones, perception, mental volitions/intentions and consciousness? Is there anything that can be experienced that does not entail these 5 aggregates to some degree?

Jorge: "I don't see how that state of "emptiness" and experiencing everything as as pure awareness permeating all that manifests is a state. Simply because things in the realm of nama and rupa manifest does not mean that your experience is conditioned. Experience at this "place" (for lack of a better word) is the whole manifest universe simply being." Jorge

Nick: Would this "experience" of mentioned 3rd gear practice that you describe have any of the aggregates involved?

Jorge: "The universe will never stop being becaue one is enlightened. On the contrary, full embodiedment of enligthenment and liberation is precicely flowing in perfect harmony with the manifest world. If anyone wants to experience "the unconditioned" (which is different than experiencing unconditioned the universe in the here and now) Nirodha samapatti will do. In my opinion, I'm not going to miss the whole entire universe blossoming and manifesting with all its glory simply because it is conditioned. That would be a really big waste of effort on its part." Jorge

Nick: Not saying that this 3rd gear practice is useless nor waste of time. Far from it. It is a valuable tool for progress and happiness. But the argument is over whether it is unconditioned or not.

Jorge: "Let me ask you this, when you are experiencing the here and now in full 3rd gear (the ISness as you call it) what is conditioned about your experience?"

Nick: In my experience of the mentioned valuable practice, all the senses are operating and arising and passing away without sanna (the perception aggregate) playing much of a part in conceptualizing and naming things, and if it does it is not paid attention to. And all of that arising and passing away phenomena feels like it just feels like one thing, like some sort of primordial awareness, one taste or whatever you wanna call it.. But I still don't see that as being seperate from the 6 senses. And all the senses are conditioned phenomena as they rely on contact to arise. Without the senses, could this experience be experienced? I am exploring this and hold no absolute opinion.

Nick

I'm happy to see that Kenneth is taking the time to update his point of view. I still very much like his 3 Speed Transmission.

More to my liking, though is Atmananda Krishna Menon's approach- which some might call a 4-speed transmission approach (admittedly segueing from Kenneth's name for his teaching). 1st gear deconstructs the illusion of the World; 2nd gear deconstructs the illusion of the Body; 3rd gear deconstructs the illusion of the Mind; in 4th gear one has left behind everything but nonduality. Of course this is an over-simplification, but it is a simple yet profound teaching.

Unfortunately the Direct Path teachings of Atmananda Krishna Menon, who was a contemporary of Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj, haven't yet had the same world wide dissemination.

AugustLeo

"Would this "experience" of mentioned 3rd gear practice that you describe have any of the aggregates involved?
"

There are interesting things happening in the background, as if all the processes take place on their own and without a recognized will (with the same type of "automaticness" the heart and the rest of the involuntary bodily processes take place). The aggregates are involved as they seem to be manifestations rising from the human being Jorge Freddy is. When shifting out of this "3rd gear"/emptiness mode (again, for lack of better terminology) the very first thing that seems to happen is awareness shifting into consciousness, and at that time one can move this consciousness around and pinpoint ANY manifestation (5 aggregates included*) and immediately realize their true nature.
*when this consciousness points at itself, it quickly vanishes and emptiness mode sets in again.
Hopefully this makes sense. I have been going in and out and observing what is happening in the process. Cognition feels be a bit rusty right now

" Not saying that this 3rd gear practice is useless nor waste of time. Far from it. It is a valuable tool for progress and happiness. But the argument is over whether it is unconditioned or not."

I know you didn't mean that. What I was trying to get at is that there is a clear difference between experiencing the unconditioned and experiencing unconditioned the here and now. And that if the conditioned universe was being in its most grand moment in the here and now, it would be a big waste of its part to do so if the purpose of the whole thing was to not experience it (it sounds a bit like Eckhart Tolle, but what the heck, it matches my experience, so I'm using it)

"Jorge: "Let me ask you this, when you are experiencing the here and now in full 3rd gear (the ISness as you call it) what is conditioned about your experience?"

Nick: In my experience of the mentioned valuable practice, all the senses are operating and arising and passing away without sanna (the perception aggregate) playing much of a part in conceptualizing and naming things, and if it does it is not paid attention to. And all of that arising and passing away phenomena feels like it just feels like one thing, like some sort of primordial awareness, one taste or whatever you wanna call it.. But I still don't see that as being seperate from the 6 senses. And all the senses are conditioned phenomena as they rely on contact to arise. Without the senses, could this experience be experienced? I am exploring this and hold no absolute opinion.

Nick"

"But I still don't see that as being seperate from the 6 senses" - Nick
All the 6 senses do is allow for a set of phenomena to manifest.
Does the object being observe depend on the sense of sight? you bet, a color blind person would see the same object and think it is of a different color, just as some people with great vision can make out details of an object far away better than me since I'm nearsighted.

....but when

....in the seeing, just the seen...then no longer is the experience conditioned in any way.

Nick, try this:

go as far as you can into "surrenderland" (again, I'm know I'm killing you all with these words, I apologize) and see if you can focus on consciousness. once you do, you know for a fact that you are conditioning (observer/object duality present). Then surrender and kinda let consciousness merge with the background (which you will notice since there is still observer/object duality present). Similar to coming back from NS, you'll know (obviously afterwards as it is a cognitive process and thus depends on the aggregates) you have been in emptiness the moment awareness becomes aware of itself (or at least it seems to be the very first thing that 'sticks' ).

"
....in the seeing, just the seen...then no longer is the experience conditioned in any way. "

Still conditioned in my opinion. Due to an object coming in contact with the eye, eye consciousness arises. Still conditioned, no?

Our understanding of conditioned and unconditioned seems to differ. The only unconditioned thing I believe from my own experience or non experience is the cessation of nama and rupa ie nibbana. This is a pretty Theravadan view and seeing as I have been drawn back to me roots, I am seeing from that angle in my experience. Could be wrong of course. Anything that involves the aggregates, is conditioned in my opinion. A fabricated experience consisting of certain factors. Take away those factors and the "experience" ceases to be. Anyway, it's still a valuable practice in my subject to change opinion. So please take me with a grain of salt

Nick

P.S. I also don't think awareness can be aware of itself. There seems to be only object and any idea of subject is an inference or thought and that too is object. This opinion is subject to change at the drop of a hat.

When I drop all of "my" will and influence in the world, all volition and all of the added-on stuff that mind produces, and then I sneak a peak around the corner, there is.... what? It's not one thing. It's everything. It's both! There is no individualized observer and there is no accumulation of observed "stuff," or no observed. In some weird manner observed and observer have merged. So while perception remains it is some weird combination of inside/outside, observed/observer. Difficult to put in to words? Hell yeah.

The way I see this experience - my own personal interpretation - is that this is a manifestation of the what the Heart Sutra's authors called "emptiness is form and form is emptiness." There is more than one "layer" of this experience, at least as I have seen it. The deepest for me appears as a primordial nothingness/everything-ness that seems to be pure potential. Pure becoming. All things arise from that potential and fall back into it. It's "where" objects appear from when they arise into perception and "where" they pass away to when they are no longer in perception.

In that pure potential it becomes clear that all things that in dualistic perception appear as objects, separately, every manifestation, including time and space, exist in reference to other things. This, for me, is what is meant by the co-dependent arising of phenomena. You can't take anything away and you can't add anything - nothing is ever truly separate and exists independently in an ultimate sense. The separateness and independence are qualities mind applies.

Anyway, I think of this in a weird way that suits my background - it's a reflection of the pure processing of mind. Mind, it seems, sits and waits as pure potential, you might call it pure awareness, until some "thing" occurs, draws mind's attention and gets processed.

This whole conversation got started on Antero's thread because it wasn't clear whether or not he was making the shift to 3rd. I'm in that same spot right now, and what I'm wondering from the more experienced practitioners is what they make of the "trans" part of the transmission. In other words, that movement from 2nd to 3rd: there seems to be some disagreement about what is going on in this experience. There have been references to "full blown" 3rd gear, and "levels" which make me think that it isn't really as black and white as it sometimes gets presented. That one does not automatically go into full non-dual awareness when learning this, but rather that there are smaller baby steps involved. What concerns me (and Antero too for that matter) is that it could be very easy to just "space out" and think that one is making progress toward 3rd.

For those who have some experience with this, what are the initial experiences of 3rd gear and are they different from the "full blown" experience?

Ron, I doubt that you'll mistake a "classical" 3rd gear experience as anything like "spacing out." I experienced this first as a dropping away, an unveiling, a radical simplification. It 's pretty vivid and the feelings it invoked were pretty powerful. It was obvious this was not just a trance or a daydream. I was enraptured afterward, flying high ( figuratively and literally, too, as I was on a plane at the time). It was manifest in retrospect that there was no ultimate separation of things, that the universe is timeless and uncaring, but not uncaring in a bad way, that what is just is and always will be. I was left afterward in a very warm place that made me think what's left after all of the dropping away is love. Those feelings lasted for several days.

Beautifully expressed Chris. I've been delving into third gear, much as you describe it, more and more lately. Also, I spent some time yesterday using the three gears as a sort of dynamic process. I started with noting, moved up to 2nd gear once I had some momentum, and then briefly dropped any sort of manipulation and allowed everything to be as it is. As tension came into the picture I went back to 2nd gear, if that was difficult to maintain I began noting again. I got a real good feel for the dynamics of it and eventually was able to maintain 3rd gear for longer and longer periods. I very much began to see how the practices worked well as a whole.

Thanks for reemphasizing this Kenneth.

I'm interested to hear how others view the 3 Speeds in relation to one another. Would you say that they are consecutively ordered, as in, one must move from 1st Gear in order to reach 2nd, then 3rd? Can one only know 3rd Gear after one has worked with 2nd for a certain amount of time?
Perhaps I have a different take on 3rd Gear, but I've always (intuitively, that is) understood it to be the very root of practice, the thing that compels so many of us to apply a technique such as Vipassana in the first place. In my humble opinion, it seems that there is no method to apply to 3rd gear, and there is no 3rd gear experience, except upon remembrance.
I remember sitting in an ancient tree in the Olympic Rainforest, on the rare Spring day when it wasn't raining. All channels of sense were open, and all the world seemed to be crystal clear. Sinking into great, mossy branches, beholding this primeval forest, birth and decay happening in unbeleivable abundance- it speaks to a mysterious part of a person that words cannot touch, something quite beyond being "human", even... What cmarti says in post #13 is great, though: "It was obvious this was not just a trance or a daydream". Yes sir!

The most important thing to remember about experiences (or non-experiences) is that they are not the point. This is a very simple concept that is very, very hard to accept, because one always imagines that it is a word game: "surely people who say that experiences are not the point are winking as they say it, right?"

No, it's not a word game. It's meant to be taken literally; anything that can happen to you or fail to happen to you is not the point. Here is a scenario to illustrate what I'm saying:

Think of the loftiest, most wonderful spiritual experience that has ever happened to you. Never mind the word games; it doesn't matter if you call it an experience or a non-experience. It doesn't matter whether you say it happened to you or whether you say it happened to "no one." It doesn't matter how transcendent, unitive, non-dual, or indescribable it was. Now imagine that this wonderful whatever-it-was never happens to you again. Fine! You can still be free. You can still be awake, enlightened, transformed, (pick your favorite word for the ideal outcome of your spiritual practice). You don't need that special experience or non-experience to be free. That's the whole point of freedom, isn't it? You'll be free no matter what conditions, non-conditions, or whatever-you-want-to-call-its present themselves. That's the kind of freedom you would like to have!

The vehicles we use are just vehicles. 3rd Gear, just like 1st and 2nd, is a vehicle. It's an umbrella term for a group of practices or non-practices in which the path is the goal. In other words, when you are in 3rd Gear, you are not suffering because you are too fully immersed in this moment to imagine that you exist as an entity called "I". This kind of freedom can look all sorts of different ways, so don't hitch your wagon to any particular experience, whether conditioned or unconditioned.

"Still conditioned in my opinion. Due to an object coming in contact with the eye, eye consciousness arises. Still conditioned, no?
"

Yes, the event itself arising is conditioned. Everything ever manifesting is conditioned (cause and effect).
But the way to experience this conditioned phenomena is unconditioned.
So the objecct comes in contact with the eye, and eye consciousness arises, the relation with this arising eye consciousness is unconditioned. .

"Yes, the event itself arising is conditioned. Everything ever manifesting is conditioned (cause and effect). But the way to experience this conditioned phenomena is unconditioned.

So the objecct comes in contact with the eye, and eye consciousness arises, the relation with this arising eye consciousness is unconditioned. . "

Hi Jorge,

Unconditioned in what way? Is it not still a compounded experience made up of the 6 senses? Doesn't an intent to let the mind just "be" and "rest" in that ISness without grasping at anything mean that the state is conditioned by the act of "letting it be" and not questioning it?

It is made up of other factors which support and cause its arising as an experience. How could it be unconditioned? Unless you are talking about "unconditioned" by a specific force, like ignorance or will or perception (although it still needs to be perceived as an "experience of ISness" by the senses to be experienced).

Contact in one or some or all of the 6 senses must still occur for it to be that sense of ISness in my current opinion. It is conditioned by the mind's intention to "let it all be" or "let go of all concepts etc".

If you are referring to it being unconditioned by something separate then we are talking about something different. Unconditioned by will or ignorance or sense of self or misperception or conceptualisation etc. Even so, it still is a conditioned experience relying on nama and rupa to be experienced. I think we agree there.

Are we talking about different things? I think so... I'm now quite confused with what I wrote. Hehe!

My opinion is like a cloud. Expect it to change and maybe one day rain on your parade. SNAP! Hehe! Just made that up.



Nick

"Our understanding of conditioned and unconditioned seems to differ. The only unconditioned thing I believe from my own experience or non experience is the cessation of nama and rupa ie nibbana."

I think the way we are using them may be different. However, I do think we are in more agreement than it may at first appear.
In my experience, the cessation of nama and rupa happens during NS. And in my experience (or non experience?), during the full 3rd gear/surrender/"emptiness" nama and rupa are present (they manifest). In fact, everything continues being as it is, no cessation of anything (it seems Jorge Freddy is put on "auto-pilot") but it's as if they do not manifest independently of each other, as if it was all the very same thing. It almost feels as the "anti-vipassana". Where as vipassana allows one to deconstruct reality into its smallest constituents, now they are all seen as such a whole that there is nothing else to add or subtract.
The illusion comes from seeing the aggregates arising. In my opinion, that illusion (aka the way we relate to the phenomena) is what needs to eliminated (all of a sudden I see I have opened the fractal box). I have a feeling this is going to get very "quantum dynamics-like" pretty soon

DISCLAIMER: This is only based on my experience and my understanding and opinion about it. As certain as I may feel right now, I may be diverging from it at any moment. This disclaimer goes to all my postings and writtings.

"Is it not still a compounded experience made up of the 6 senses? Doesn't an intent to let the mind just "be" and "rest" in that ISness without grasping at anything mean that the state is conditioned by the act of "letting it be" and not questioning it?
"

in my experience (or non-experience) of emptiness?

-nope
and
-nope

it is empty

I'm certain all those things are happening in the background. They'll always be. And that all the manifestations arising from the aggregates will cease (along with them) when I die.

"Are we talking about different things? I think so... I'm now quite confused with what I wrote. Hehe!

My opinion is like a cloud. Expect it to change and maybe one day rain on your parade. SNAP! Hehe! Just made that up.



Nick"

dude, if you only knew how many times I have edited these posts before submitting them you think I'm crazy. I hope I'm not sounding like an idiot (or more of an idiot than I already am)

...I'm beginning to sound like one of those Zen kids. No offense to any of them. I just never thought it could happen.

So I'm gonna throw a particular sutta in the mix and see what happens:

Thanissaro Bikkhu talking about the Mulapariyaya sutta and the sutta itself:
www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.001.than.html

"Although at present we rarely think in the same terms as the Samkhya philosophers, there has long been '” and still is '” a common tendency to create a "Buddhist" metaphysics in which the experience of emptiness, the Unconditioned, the Dharma-body, Buddha-nature, rigpa, etc., is said to function as the ground of being from which the "All" '” the entirety of our sensory & mental experience '” is said to spring and to which we return when we meditate. Some people think that these theories are the inventions of scholars without any direct meditative experience, but actually they have most often originated among meditators, who label (or in the words of the discourse, "perceive") a particular meditative experience as the ultimate goal, identify with it in a subtle way (as when we are told that "we are the knowing"), and then view that level of experience as the ground of being out of which all other experience comes.

Any teaching that follows these lines would be subject to the same criticism that the Buddha directed against the monks who first heard this discourse." END OF QUOTE

"That is what the Blessed One said. Displeased, the monks did not delight in the Blessed One's words."- Mulapariyaya Sutta: The Root Sequence

The two sentences above come at the end of the Root Sequence, in which the Buddha points out the error of clinging to one's own views or one's own experience. It's a great practice reminder for all of us.

You can also interpret the sutta, as Thanissaro Bikkhu has done, to be a denouncement of the view that there is an "ultimate 'root' or ground of being," whether directly perceived or posited. Very provocative stuff.

"He directly knows Unbinding as Unbinding. Directly knowing Unbinding as Unbinding, he does not conceive things about Unbinding, does not conceive things in Unbinding, does not conceive things coming out of Unbinding, does not conceive Unbinding as 'mine,' does not delight in Unbinding. Why is that? Because he has known that delight is the root of suffering & stress, that from coming-into-being there is birth, and that for what has come into being there is aging & death. Therefore, with the total ending, fading away, cessation, letting go, relinquishment of craving, the Tathagata has totally awakened to the unexcelled right self-awakening, I tell you."

That is what the Blessed One said. Displeased, the monks did not delight in the Blessed One's words.