(See anatta language for use of Zandtao, Zandtaomed and Bill to avoid I in writing. From now on there will be no capitals of zandtao, zandtaomed and bill).
Into section 2 “In order to free ourselves from our assumptions about love, we must ask ourselves what those long-held, often buried assumptions are and then face them, which takes courage, humility, and kindness” [Real Love Ref 19.27].
Given his Seeker Story zandtao sees the answer to the assumptions about love very much tied up with conditioning. When writing the Seeker Story zandtao was extremely personal to unearth deep ego and shadows, that was essential for his own journey but not appropriate here. Please remember this for your own Seeker Story.
As already noted, in his youth bill's conditioning from family, education and community was middle-class conformity; but he never invested in this so as he entered adulthood he had little self-esteem and self-confidence. This showed in extreme shyness around women overcome at uni with the booze; he had very little awareness of love. This changed with upheaval and the development of self in 2nd childhood. Following upheaval love had meaning with the path, as romantic love bill sought the path in women especially with art women. But the compassion decision changed even this as he became immersed in education. bill fell in love with a teacher, and although neither of them were “mould teachers” it was compassion that love connected to – rather than the purer creativity. Art was purer because it was muse, connecting with the muse seems purer path than compassion but perhaps that is because compassion becomes tied up with institutions. bill recalls there being a deeper compassion amongst the care workers than with the teachers. This could be career. The young carers were “caring” – not into career; when bill thinks of the career carers he doesn’t think of compassion. A secondary school has so much career wrapped up in each institution, perhaps a smaller primary school might have more overt compassion. That might be part of it but probably the real difference was intellect; teachers were trained in intellect first, trained in their discipline first, compassion followed with some but not all and it was not primary emphasis. Changing education to a compassion emphasis would be beneficial – the Matriellez book’s title is love.
Once bill fell in love, that changed his relationships’ connection with the path; he no longer sought love with art or creativity. It changed how he sought romantic love. With the Arts Centre people even though he never had a loving relationship (substantiated), love and art were connected. When he started teaching there was never any person with the combination of art and compassion who he was attracted to. But then he was addicted to drink, and drink and creativity never mixed; he only ever wrote during the summer holidays when he rarely drank.
After his 1st love finished there was a vacuum. His search for relationship however, had changed to romantic love, rather than path; it had now become love in relationship rather than seeking out path as art and love. There was no wisdom in the way he entered romantic love – it was “love conquers all”. With his 1st love there was a triangle. He waited. She wanted to take time finishing the 1st relationship, he trusted in love conquering all so he trusted her. This was not wise. By the time the wait was over, a few things had happened. When they finally got together she asked him to wait to get over her feelings, so even in the dedicated love he was waiting. By the time she was ready his love had waned.
With his 2nd love conquering all, he took on a situation that he couldn’t cope with. The situation beat him down until eventually he had to leave even though he still loved her. It was not wise to have entered a situation he couldn’t cope with, but with love conquering all he never questioned this need to cope. Prajna, love-wisdom, SEES, if he had been looking to SEE he would not have entered these two relationships – nor his 3rd love in Africa. For romantic love to work does that love need to be wise – need to include SEEing?
After the 2nd love bill did not have a relationship for maybe 4 or 5 years until he went to Africa, and by then he was not seeking romantic love - that had been burned out of him; he was seeking the possibility of a “secure relationship”. Maybe that could have happened with better choices – possibly Tswana teachers; he doesn’t recall any relationship between white and black teachers - he doesn’t think they were interested in the “whites who moved on" – mo-kweri-kweri. But after Africa relationships ended. Even though bill had not given up on secure relationships they weren’t going to happen whilst on contract. He decided the partner had to be Buddhist (almost back to loving-the-path thing), but no good woman would start up on contract – except other teachers. Once he retired in Thailand nothing happened – too focussed on meditation study and writing.
It feels that there is a connection between how bill looked for love and self. In his 1st childhood there was limited self – just the limited self of middle-class conformity, the self that was easily broken down in upheaval. In his 2nd childhood, although life was grounded in path a self was conditioned partially; the conditioning of middle-class conformity had been rejected but there was still other conditioning. Because of the path there was a strong core of conviction that from the outside might appear as self. In the conventional terms of conditioning, it might be described as his having the self-esteem to look for love; before upheaval there was no such self-esteem even though before or after upheaval he never thought in terms of self-esteem. After upheaval he was consciously looking for love or relationship, prior to upheaval if he thought of women it was in terms of sex, and since retirement he hasn’t sought relationship.
Is seeking relationship just conditioning? bill remembers a bizarre discussion at uni in which they were discussing ideal life-paths. Others spoke of ambitious conditioned lifestyles, he had no ambitions and he said he just wanted to be happy in a 2-up-and-down with a wife and 2 kids – middle-class conformity as an “ambition”; there was no love in that ambition just conformity. He suspects the others went on to live lives of middle-class conformity.
After upheaval the awakening of love on the path immediately led to a search for romantic love. bill has always associated this romantic love with the path but was it conditioning – once the path gave him “self-esteem” that self sought romantic love – standard conditioning. Love grew out of path and compassion, but the romantic aspect grew out of conditioning – conditioning to love. When romantic love was burned out of him, conditioning took him to security in relationship. But in retirement as zandtao's focus on the path increased, as conditioning lessened, he has been happy with solitude. Even with the fears that come with the worsening health of old age he doesn’t want his peace disturbed by another. His mother looked after herself and his father until she died, zandtao hopes that he can look after himself in the same way; he doesn’t want disturbances of his peace – his path.
Did bill have assumptions about love prior to upheaval? None that he was aware of, nor was there likely to have been because of his lack of investment in the conformity. After upheaval the path had love and he sought romantic love – being conditioned. Then he sought a secure relationship - conditioning. After retirement he saw the possibility of a loving relationship, but zandtao's focus on the path took him away from the conditioned love of relationship. As his understanding has developed on the path especially into Prajna, love without conditioning has developed – spiritual love; what Sharon seems to be calling real love. “at a deeper level, we realize that love simply, perpetually exists and that it’s a matter of psychic housekeeping to make room for it” [Real Love Ref 19.37].
There is an important difference between Sharon’s meditation practices and that of zandtaomed's MwB. MwB focusses on conditioning and releases the attached egos that block Prajna. Sharon actively promotes love in her meditation whether as metta meditation or practices such as “inner abundance practice” [Real Love Ref 19.45].
There are potential weaknesses in both positions. In the removing of conditioning there is the reconnection with Prajna – nothing better. But it has to be recognised that not all blocks are removed. Faith is there as a magnetic force to improve connection but MwB does not focus on fashioning a mind that has the loving characteristics – make a loving mind and Prajna will come in magnetically (like with faith). With the fashioning of a loving mind there is the risk of bypassing. Whilst the mind will appear to be more loving – because of the fashioning meditations, the blocks of conditioning could still be there buried underneath the fashioned love. The risk of course is that those buried blocks could emerge as shadow causing problems.
Resolving both approaches is very straightforward, recognise the weaknesses. With MwB there is a need for promoting loving minds through metta meditation etc. With metta there is a need for promoting letting go of attachments. Please note zandtao has no idea of the totality of Sharon’s meditation approach, he suspects it would include removal of conditioning as with any insight meditation.
What matters for zandtaomed is to recognise that he needs more consciously to add metta meditation to MwB. It is now a stage in the tetrads. He already does some metta at stage 9, stage 9 however tends to be compassion – now it will be time for compassion and time for metta. Stage 15 is now interbeing and metta – with the fashioned love there will be the natural attraction of love as well as the faith pulling in Prajna.
“IN RECENT YEARS, many teachers and therapists have been talking about relationship as a path of awakening. This vision of love is not confined to achieving psychological wholeness; looked at in this way, personal connection becomes a spiritual practice” [Real Love Ref 20.30]. bill's loving life started with romantic love, then vaguely sought a secure relationship; zandtao gave up on all of that, and has become happy in spiritual love. In truth, in meditation today, zandtao thought that he could not envisage a living loving relationship; he doesn’t preclude the possibility but he is not looking for it. This has been zandtao's path of love in awakening.
Psychological wholeness or wellness appears to be for Sharon a spiritual practice. Following this same quote (Real Love Ref 20.30), she develops “spiritual” techniques for handling love in relationships. These techniques could also be described as therapeutic – wellness, but are they spiritual? In the last chapter zandtao discussed wellness describing it as an end in coping with the conditioned life or a step on the path, the step that helps us move beyond conditioning.
There is a parallel with Sharon’s approach – seeking relationship wellness as an end in itself or seeking relationship wellness as a step on the path; zandtao will be looking for clarity on this. When he reads the techniques towards relationship wellness he likes them, they appear to be nothing but beneficial. He can recommend them but cannot teach them as he failed at relationships. He can think of times when he considered such approaches especially authentic communication but they never worked. Whilst at the time bill thought his relationships were love, zandtao doesn’t know whether it was ever his path to have “permanent romantic love”; bill wonders whether his lovers intuited this. But if zandtao cannot do he doesn’t teach, so this kind of advice from Sharon remains a book resource. Having said this about romantic love, in Seeker Story other relationships are considered deeply and essentially. In terms of romantic love Seeker Story only looks at relationships that have left detritus to be resolved – he warned against Seeker Story of current lovers. For current lovers Sharon’s advice is more pertinent – helping resolve difficulties rather than handling the pain of finishing that is covered in Seeker Story. Good balance - Seeker Story or Sharon’s spiritual practice in personal connection.
But in terms of personal connection zandtao advocates siladhamma, siladhamma in relationships, siladhamma in society. This is not concerned with give-and-take, fairness, mutuality or any such; it is quite simply about siladhamma. This means being mindful of siladhamma in all our actions - siladhamma; sampajanna is siladhamma. Siladhamma, whilst being open to interpretation, is objective, but it is also likely to be uneven – one person being closer to the path, to siladhamma than the other. There are no balance sheets with siladhamma, actions that are mindful of sila are not points for one person or the other. There is no payback to the other person when the only value is siladhamma.
It comes with an element of SEEing – SEEing the other in terms of siladhamma, accepting weaknesses so long as there is right effort towards siladhamma. This does not coincide with Sharon’s relational wellness does not contain mutuality or fairness to each other; the only justice is sila. Having said this zandtao has no idea whether it works, his relationships are solitude and siladhamma might well contribute to that solitude. But siladhamma is siladhamma, SEE it for what it is – the way humanity can live together. #NatureCompassionDecency.
In a relationship we “can expect to be treated with care, tenderness, and compassion” [Real Love Ref 22.44]; if you like a sila-code of relationship and this sila is mutual but the code’s core is sila. This is not a sila of right or wrong based on rules, but a sila that is deep-rooted genuine moral integrity – an aspect of love. Very often morality is linguistically used to justify without the deep intention of sila, this is not siladhamma – it is not a set of rules to beat each other with. It is a deep internal path that guides behaviour in love, relationship and society. At the same time, it brings into question conduct that is not siladhamma in love, relationship and society.
Reading Sharon’s excellent tips for developing personal connection spiritually, zandtao notes that he has referenced the book in the relationships part of Seeker Story for seekers to work on current relationships. Whilst he was unable to sustain a loving relationship with a partner, he did have other relationships. Because solitude is part of zandtao's path relationship is not a big part of his life. Whilst people might want to make more demands, relationship continues with others – even relationships with people zandtao has difficulty with such as MAWPs.
zandtao doesn’t examine these relationships in detail. Sometimes things will happen, he will dwell on it until he has reached a position and then he acts on it. Now of course an important part of path is mindfulness but he never developed mindfulness techniques in minutiae for dealing with the minutiae of relationships. Nor could those minutiae have worked because of his unwise choices – there is no relationship that bill had that had longevity written into it; zandtao SEEs that now. Some relationships had turbulence and others did not but because of the incompatibility there was never the mindfulness minutiae.
How did bill cope? Path .... or not. Mindfulness comes from the path, love and caring comes from the path, resolving issues can come from the path; maybe following the path many issues will not arise. As an individual zandtaomed advocates following the path as a means of dealing with relationship, as an elder he could use Sharon’s techniques as part of meditation teaching if the case arose. He must be aware of the different techniques in case they arise in meditation. But in following the path there is no need for such minutiae, the path can handle it.
OK here there is postulating of an unreal situation, both partners following or attempting to follow their paths; but zandtaomed is concerned with path rather than wellness through spiritual connection. Of course spiritual connection could lead to the path, but zandtao must see where Sharon goes with that. But the path resolves problems, trust in the path, and if both people are trying to follow their paths then siladhamma resolves it all.
Primarily zandtaomed promotes path and siladhamma, and let the path resolve it. Mindfulness minutiae can help if meditation and path are not working. Trust your path. zandtao relies completely on the path recognising the lack of consciousness in some of his actions. How limited is his spiritual love because he has not resolved his relationships? In hindsight he SEEs all his romantic relationships as doomed from the start but could bill have made more of them? In relationship bill started independently and gradually worked his way back to independence. bill let people down in relationships. The way he sees it what they asked of him was not reasonable. And when he wanted to talk to resolve there was no communication, he interprets that as meaning they knew it was unreasonable.
In summary the question that stands out is:-
Is section 2 in Sharon's book about love?
What Sharon has done is present a number of mindfulness techniques to resolve problems within relationships – relationship wellness. From her meditation community (presumably mailing lists from courses that she has run), she has gathered together stories of effective mindfulness techniques in relationship. Collating these there are a number of useful techniques to be recommended for cementing relationships - resolving issues.
These techniques require two relationship fundamentals – meditation and genuine mutual agreement. For how many people are there relationships based on genuine mutual agreement? Because bill was clear what he wanted (especially when older), he asked for agreements especially with the “security relationships”. This sounds perfectly reasonable, but in hindsight was unfair because he was prepared not to enter the relationship unless there was agreement and what he wanted was not what they wanted – entering the relationship on their terms was what they wanted. So there was agreement that wasn’t. What comes with genuine mutual agreement is a willingness to resolve issues, that does not happen if agreements are not genuine. This lack of genuineness was part of his description of “poor choices”.
So this chapter is more about “how to live together in relationship – romantic love or otherwise” using mindfulness techniques. Would Sharon disagree? zandtao doesn’t think so. Very useful – but is it love? Maybe these techniques are her basis for becoming real love. Mine was rejection of romantic love and recognising Prajna as love-wisdom bringing with it spiritual love. Let’s see what section 3 brings.
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