Gears and Granularity: Stoicism, Buddhism, and the Three Speed Transmission

Note: This post includes some ideas that have somewhat specific and technical definitions in Stoicism and Buddhism, and I’m working on a series of posts that will be reference pages for terms like these, so that they can be referred to when reading a post like this that assumes a certain amount of background knowledge. I was going to add all of that background information into this post, but it would have made it really long, so I’m going to turn those into separate posts in the next few weeks.

The Buddhist meditation teacher Kenneth Folk once came up with a really interesting way of categorizing and relating different kinds of meditation practices - he describes the different kinds of practices as expressions of what he calls different “gears” of practice, like the gears of a transmission. My understanding of his basic idea is that meditative and contemplative practices are like riding a bike –

- there are low gear practices for dealing with the changing nature of moment-to-moment reality, which require a higher moment-to-moment expenditure of energy and attention. In Buddhist practices, an example of this would be vipassana (aka Insight or Mindfulness) practices such as breath counting, noting or body scanning. In terms of riding a bike, this is the equivalent of being a bike courier in rush hour traffic in New York City.

- there are high gear practices where you don’t focus on details as much and you gain a kind of momentum by “coasting”, with a much lower expenditure of energy and a less focused attention. Examples of Buddhist meditative practices like this could include zazen (especially Soto Zen shikantaza, “just sitting”), but also Daoist practices like zuowang “sitting and forgetting”, or practices like Douglas Harding’s “Headless Way”. This is the equivalent of riding down a long, straight stretch of road at 30 mph in your highest gear, without any need to make quick decisions or deal with specific details of experience.

- There are middle gear practices in between the low and high gear, which require some energy and deal with some of the specifics of moment-to-moment reality, but not with the level of granularity of lower gear practices, but which can also provide some coasting momentum of higher gear practices. Examples might include things like the Brahma viharas (practicing experiencing sympathetic joy, equanimity or compassion relative to other beings, with varying degrees of specificity), or practices from the Indian nondual teachers like Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj where you are constantly drilling down to answer a question like “Who am I?” or dwelling on the sensation of “I Am.” This is the equivalent of riding your bike through a somewhat busy residential area.

If you are interested, you can see his original idea in this podcast - https://secularbuddhism.org/episode-189-kenneth-folk-enlightenment-and-three-speed-transmission/ .

I realized recently that the Stoic disciplines of Physics, Logic, and Ethics can be considered to basically align with these gears, as they can also be described in terms of the degree of granularity with which you are paying attention to events. I will write another post explaining these three areas of study in more detail, but for now I will offer just a basic definition of each so that the rest of this post makes sense.

In Stoicism, the fundamental theories and practices are thought of as belonging to one of three basic areas of study – Physics, Logic, and Ethics.

Physics

Physics is the Stoic description of how the world works, which forms the basis for the rest of the philosophy. For the classical Stoics, the world is a rationally structured entity where all things and events happen as part of a single, unified process. As human beings, we are a part of this larger process, all parts of which (except our rational will) occur outside of our control. Physics in this sense is a description of the relationship between an individual and the rest of the universe, and provides the basis for understanding what is Internal and External to us; that is, what is, and what is not, under our control.

Physics is also called the Discipline of Desire, as it posits that learning to align your desires with what is outside of your control, that is, with what the universe wants to happen (what is actually already happening) is the best way to approach what is outside of our control in a way that supports our well-being.

Logic

Logic is the ability that individuals have to analyze the ideas and images that occur in their mind. Epictetus noted that “We are not bothered by events, but by our reactions to them,” and for the Stoics, our irrational judgements, opinions and reactions to the world are the things that cause us problems, not the events of the world in and of themselves. Therefore, the best way to handle these reactions is to analyze them and not allow ourselves to entertain any parts of them that are not rational and objective.

For that reason, Logic is called the Discipline of Assent, as the Stoics realized that it is within our power to improve our lives by rooting out the irrational aspects of our thinking by not assenting to them, not letting them live in our heads unchallenged.

Ethics

Ethics is the study of how to act towards all those things that are outside of our control, especially in terms of our social responsibilities. As all of humankind is part of the same universal, rational process that runs the entire universe, we take part in this most clearly and beneficially when we look at all other people as part of the common, universal human family, and act accordingly.

Ethics is also called the Discipline of Action, and suggests that we will be doing what we are meant to do (and therefore will be happiest) when we consider how our actions benefit all of humanity.

Physics, Logic and Ethics as the Stoic Three Speed Transmission

Having given a basic definition of each of these three disciplines, we can now see how they might relate to this idea of different gears of contemplative practice:

Low gear: Logic

- You are analyzing the rationality and objectivity of each of your thoughts and reactions with the greatest amount of granularity and detail that Stoicism is generally interested in.

Middle gear: Ethics

- You are making decisions about how to act in the world, and in relation to other people, in a way that requires some degree of granular analysis (of what is Just, of how to be Courageous, of how to engage in Temperance, etc.) and expenditure of energy, but not to the degree that Logic does.

High gear: Physics

- You are accepting everything that happens in the moment (and learning to actually want it to happen) because it is an expression of what The Universe wants right now, and it is all outside of your control. Once you have gotten to the point where you can function in this gear, it requires the least amount of energy expenditure and granularity in what you are paying attention to.

Life

Life, of course, requires you to be able to function in all three gears, and to be able to shift smoothly between them to respond to the needs of any individual moment in time. There are probably multiple different ways of categorizing them in terms of which ones to start with, or which ones depend on the others and are therefore more primary, but I’m not going to get into that in this particular post.

As with riding a bike (or any other kind of exercise that can be done in either a high or low gear mode), it seems like spending time in each gear helps with the other ones - faster-paced and detailed low gear practices help give you the confidence to navigate a more varied environment so that you are more able and willing to work at higher gears, while spending time in higher gears both conserves some energy and develops long-term endurance that makes the lower gear practices less exhausting.