First perusal of chapter 5 on spirituality brings bell and zandtao closer together – “LIVING LIFE IN touch with divine spirit lets us see the light of love in all living beings. That light is a resurrecting life force. A culture that is dead to love can only be resurrected by spiritual awakening” [bell's Love Ref 10.5]. zandtao interprets this as meaning the love-wisdom of Prajna, and accessing Real Love through Sharon’s 4 Brahma-Vihara meditations. For unity in working together, focussing on this commonality concerning spirit perhaps we can fudge and gloss over the important distinction between maintaining love and building self to create love.
Quoting from Erich Fromm’s Art of Loving, “Our society is run by a managerial bureaucracy, by professional politicians; people are motivated by mass suggestion, their aim is producing more and consuming more, as purposes in themselves” [bell's Love Ref 10.6]. This is the kilesa/societal conditioning discussed in this Advice on Tathata of Two Conditionings where “motivated by mass suggestion” is Fromm’s way of describing conditioning, and the managerial bureaucracy is bell’s patriarchy or the 1%-satrapy. “Organized religion has failed to satisfy spiritual hunger because it has accommodated secular demands, interpreting spiritual life in ways that uphold the values of a production-centered commodity culture” [bell's Love Ref 10.7 ]. The loveless patriarchy values money rather than love, and is driven by profits for the 1%. “In their work, loving practice is not aimed at simply giving an individual greater life satisfaction; it is extolled as the primary way we end domination and oppression” [bell's Love Ref 10.13], the works referred to were those of Erich Fromm, Martin Luther King and Thomas Merton. Pathtivism – path activism – similarly extols that following the path, whilst providing personal joy and fulfilment, is the true way of nature, a way of ending domination and oppression. Spirituality has always promoted the interests of love in the community (so ending domination and oppression). and this again made zandtao question bell. But then he understood:- “I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community. Packaged as a commodity, spirituality becomes no different from an exercise program” [bell's Love Ref 10.14]. In the z-quest of Zanshadtao (to be uploaded much later - 13/7/22), zandtao is considering this sort of question but as soon as she talks of “packaged as a commodity” he thinks of McMindfulness. Whilst in Zanshadtao zandtao draws attention to the shadow of spirituality, it has to be recognised that what is considered by Google and others as mindfulness is not the spiritual path or perhaps not even mindfulness, but it is a concoction that includes a strategy to calm the legitimate doubts of working Google staff as wage-slaves. Spirituality can be appropriated by patriarchy as much as anything else when kilesa gets to seekers, but this does not mean that the spiritual path is not what it claims to be. Love can be a means of ending domination and oppression, but it is clear that there are examples where love has been appropriated by patriarchy for their own profit-making. Don’t condemn love for this, don’t condemn spirituality for the inappropriate behaviour of some teachers (in zanshadtao) and the commercialisation of some of its processes. Love is love as path is path.
zandtao is going to develop a quote from bell to establish what he sees as spirit and spiritual life. “Spiritual life is first and foremost about commitment to a way of thinking and behaving that honors principles of inter-being being and interconnectedness. When I speak of the spiritual, I refer to the recognition within everyone that there is a place of mystery in our lives where forces that are beyond human desire or will alter circumstances and/or guide and direct us. I call these forces “divine spirit”” [bell's Love Ref 10.15]. Spiritual life is not about principles, it is practice – using this description the practice of interbeing and interconnectedness. Eckhart talks of this "place of mystery" as consciousness. It is the consciousness that is nature and includes love, and this consciousness is our guide both personally and as interbeing if we allow it. What prevents this guiding is conditioning. In a spiritual life there is no doubt – just follow the path – be interbeing – be love – be Prajna – control your mind to have no doubts; we are a part of the “divine spirit” – that is interbeing.
“Spiritual practice does not need to be connected to organized religion in order to be meaningful” [bell's Love Ref 10.20]. In many cases organised religion takes us away from spiritual practice as bell often contends. “P(p)rogressive seekers after truth urge us all to be tolerant—to remember that though our paths are many, we are made one community in love…. All awakening to love is spiritual awakening” [bell's Love Ref 10.21]. zandtao agrees with bell concerning religious institutions, and as with zandtaomed encourages individual seekers to follow their paths in finding spiritual unity - "All awakening to love is spiritual awakening".
It was important for zandtao to clarify what is different with where bell stands on spirituality, he does not want people to think he and bell are in total agreement. Where there is difference zandtao feels lies in academia where she worked. To zandtao these differences have some importance but what matters is where there is agreement. zandtao highlights the differences not for separation but for integrity, he does not want to say bell agrees with him when she doesn't; he is not attempting to put words in her mouth, he simply wants to remain true to what she wrote and hopefully what she intended.
So far in this bell section of his z-quest on Real Love zandtao has put forward the situation that love is destroyed by patriarchy rather than being created through relationship. Love arises at birth with mother-love, and he promoted the approach that families maintain this love, that this familial love can best be maintained through extended family – rather than the patriarchy’s nuclear family, and from the family love can be spread throughout community. Hopefully it could be love, first shown in mother-love, that can underpin community. But for patriarchy this is an inimical nemesis, the patriarchy exists to create profits for the few, so patriarchy and love are fundamentally adverse. zandtao encourages awareness of this adverse relationship, and encourages family to maintain their mother-love and extend it to community despite the adverse restrictions of patriarchy.
zandtao has set as a purpose the maintaining of love in family and extending that love into community. As a purpose this might well be noble but is it practical? How do we maintain and extend love? In other words, how do we conduct ourselves to enable the maintenance of love? How do we prevent the kilesa conditioning of patriarchy from destroying the maintaining of mother-love? This conduct needs to be love-in-action, but do we know what that is? Here we need to understand that love-in-action will happen if it is not prevented, and individually what prevents love-in-action is attachment, attachment to the kilesa-conditioning. So we need to learn to conduct ourselves to avoid attachment, and that conduct is siladhamma.
We can begin to see how patriarchy creates these attachments (that destroy love) by looking at how bell says love is restricted. Within her family bell describes harsh punishment, and “this hurts me more than it hurts you”. This is not love, it is ahimsa. By the time harsh punishment has been reached, there has been a breakdown in love and the attachment of harm has been created. Why does the child need to act out to merit such punishment? Because s/he is not working together with the family through love - yet coping with patriarchy. Is it the punishment itself which is the real harm? It is unlikely in any family that some punishment is not merited, but zandtao’s focus is working together not to reach that point. Ahimsa creates a distance in the family, a distance that might never be resolved. This criticism of harsh punishment does not support those families who in principle will not use it yet avoid their responsibility for upbringing. Such families might not use harsh punishment but their parenting needs questioning because they are failing to guide and control their children – not fulfilling parental duty and thus preventing the discipline required for autonomy.
To live in society, do parents need a short sharp shock? zandtao detests it when he sees children misbehaving and parents lacking control. bill has seen situations in different societies where parents, as is acceptable in their culture, administer a short sharp shock that controls that behaviour. He admires the result but has mixed feelings. Duty has been performed, children learn what is required but at what cost? And if there is a question of cost with short sharp physical punishment, what gets lost with more serious beatings? He has never interfered either way, but when he sees the disgraceful behaviour of some young children out with their parents he is angered and fearful of how those children will behave as teenagers. Would such behaviour happen in a family of love? Undoubtedly idealism is being presented here, in loving families parents must find a way of dutiful punishment as part of upbringing whilst at the same time maintaining love, in such families causing ahimsa to the children through harsh punishment is a breakdown. Do short sharp shocks always cause ahimsa? Note – neglect can also cause ahimsa.
“There can be no love without justice. Until we live in a culture that not only respects but also upholds basic civil rights for children, most children will not know love” [bell's Love Ref 7.9]. Such justice is fundamental to siladhamma and starts with mutual respect within the family.
Bell describes many situations in which harsh punishment leads to lovelessness, a lovelessness within the family and for the families of the child concerned once adult. From love ahimsa – primarily physical violence but also emotional abuse - created lovelessness. Can the pain that ahimsa created be removed as with other blocks to return to love? Once the physical pain has gone what remains is a mental or emotional attachment, fear of a repeat of the pain and the pain of ahimsa itself that was caused by lovers or loved ones. At Nyanga bill removed emotional pain attachments, such techniques can be used to remove the attachments of ahimsa.
“Being hurt by parenting adults rarely alters a child’s desire to love and be loved by them. Among grown-ups who were wounded in childhood, the desire to be loved by uncaring parents persists, even when there is a clear acceptance of the reality that this love will never be forthcoming” [bell's Love Ref 7.20]. This was bill’s experience as a houseparent. Whilst the kids had not reached any clear acceptance because of their age, what appeared as irrational was their expressed wish to love people who had treated them so badly. Is this as an intuitive memory of mother-love rather than any actual childhood memory, this intuitive memory can also include father-love? This mother-love-father is real even if there are no recognised loving events. Bell associates this irrational love with random acts of care, zandtao feels it is deeper – this mother-love-father at birth.
In siladhamma there is truth, in love there can only be truth. Whilst within patriarchy zandtao can see many excuses offered for partners and families to lie to each other, none of those reasons are concerned with love and siladhamma. For any person following their loving path there is an integral relationship with truth, without truth there cannot be an integrated path. Within a seeker’s journey understanding truth is fundamental, but it is hard for a seeker to understand truth in themselves given all the conditioning that they have to let go. If they are in a loving relationship and they have the insecurity of discerning whether the partner is being truthful, how can a seeker know where they are going?
Often we fail to understand how deep delusion (kilesa) is embedded in the functioning of our society – the functioning of the patriarchy. Easily we can observe and dislike the kilesas of greed and hate, and this creates a patriarchal problem as greed and hate are fundamental to the profits – the reason for patriarchy. So for the patriarchy to flourish there is a need for delusion, delusions for people to avoid seeing the importance of this greed and hate – to avoid seeing kilesa there is a need for lies that create that delusion. Like love truth brings its own rewards – phala, the rewards of the path. As the seeker improves their relationship with the truth the seeker gains the rewards of path-following, and any seeker gaining such rewards becomes less and less attached to the defilements of patriarchy.
This points to the need for truth in family as a way of working together against the adversity of patriarchy. Whilst maintaining love siladhamma would automatically include truth-telling, the way the patriarchy divides the family against each other (through manipulation of gender and generation) fosters the perceived needs for lying. And lying once established in the family also becomes acceptable in the wider community of daily life. How could patriarchy manipulate daily life if there were siladhamma throughout, how could patriarchy present the delusions of its conditioning and propaganda if the only time we met lying was in patriarchy?
Pathtivism as path-activism was developed after examination of the way the struggle is conducted. Sound activists recognised the need for truth-telling in the struggle, but many seeking quick solutions will lie to suit their purpose. Once such lies were exposed the powerful media interests of the patriarchy exploited those lies. In the end experienced activists learnt that the best way through was in fact siladhamma, not a moralistic siladhamma of religious canons but a pragmatic siladhamma where the activist behaves with integrity. Contact with the patriarchy is by no means just; they lie and present delusion, the activist has only the truth and the knowledge that even if that truth does not become society’s practice it is a truth that history will attest to.
Whilst there might be short-term gains in the telling of lies, neither in relationship nor in genuine social interaction is there ever any gain. And for the seeker there is always doubt created when they lie with whatever intention.
Within Buddhism the term sila and therefore siladhamma arises from magga, the 8-Fold Path of the 4 Noble Truths. This ariya magga is grouped as sila, panna and samadhi, and sila is basically the three paths of magga – right honesty, right speech and right livelihood. In this section we have discussed justice (what is right?), honesty and speech. Throughout we have discussed the patriarchy, and fundamentally the patriarchy makes its profits from our livelihood – our jobs. The whole patriarchal system - imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy - is constructed to enable the profits for a few, and within this system we clearly have livelihood. Without compromise there is no right livelihood. In the suttas there is various guidance but jobs are concerned with society and society has changed from the time of the suttas, and is now dominated by patriarchy. So right livelihood is extremely difficult and is compromised, how we address this compromise is with wisdom. We need a wise compromise with patriarchy if we are going to live with sila – right livelihood. It is not a question of perfection although perhaps there are some people living within self-sufficient communes who are aiming for that perfection.
My own decision of right livelihood was based in compassion, and was totally compromised by the patriarchy as discussed throughout Matriellez especially with the use of the term “corporate paradigm”. To live with sila means to have right livelihood and in patriarchy that is not possible, there has to be compromise. It is also important to recognise that most people function as wage-slaves within this compromising patriarchy; we do not ask of slaves to evolve a system, that is up to leadership. What we ask of wage-slaves is that they survive, and in that survival they follow their paths to the best of their ability. But of course the autonomy of the path and wage-slavery are exclusive, hopefully within their working lives they can have some free time to develop that autonomy. For most people that “free time” is devoted to family, for others – especially younger adults - that “free time within patriarchy” is taken up with escapism of one form or another. So if we talk collectively about right livelihood, patriarchy takes us far away from ariya magga. However if we accept that we are living in a patriarchy, if we accept that there is patriarchal conditioning, then we can make better decisions concerning the compromises of right livelihood, using our wisdom in right livelihood within patriarchy.
“We are not born knowing how to love anyone, either ourselves or somebody else. However, we are born able to respond to care” [bell's Love Ref 9.5]. As discussed, spiritually this is a fundamental disagreement. In the image of mother-love we have love but the baby’s love is natural but not mature. When we consider returning to love, it is related to this baby-love – this state of love. What changes is not the state of love but the baby as s/he grows in life. At birth there is love but it is not conscious in the baby, and given the probable immaturity of the mother her love will not be an aware love either. But despite this lack of conscious awareness there is the state of mother-love.
This brings zandtao to explaining his own understanding of return-to-love. He interprets that bell’s return-to-love is concerned with society returning to being a loving society but zandtao has an explanation of a different return-to-love – a spiritual understanding – a return to the state of love at birth. Instinctive conditioning takes us away from that state of love by building the protecting ego and self-esteem for survival. Then as we mature we let go of that conditioning, we follow our paths and become aware of the love we were born with; our consciousness becomes that love. This is the spiritual return-to-love – from unconscious love to conscious love.
Naturally conditioning comes in creating the ego that can survive. But this ego is not simply the ego that arises from instinctive conditioning, it is an ego that has also been built by society’s conditioning – what bell might refer to as patriarchal conditioning (see tathata of 2 conditionings). With the ego that arises from natural conditioning, the mature seeker can “naturally” release attachments. But this process becomes more difficult with the egos that have been built up by patriarchal conditioning – kilesa conditioning. For some these egos remain as blocks that prevent any return-to-love, for us all there are blocks which prevent us from fully being in a conscious state-of-love.
Part of conditioning is the process of building a self, going from zero at birth to self in adulthood. What is a significant difference between spiritual reality and patriarchy is that in patriarchy by totally accepting this conditioning then there is no state-of-love at birth; self and personhood are created in society. Through accepting this “nurturing” self becomes the agent of loving, and conditioned concepts such as low self-esteem are used to explain the lovelessness in society. This deflects from spiritual reality, conditioning creates the blocks that prevents conscious loving – conditioning prevents the return-to-love. Rather than letting go of any self that is created as is nature’s practice in maturity, patriarchal conditioning reinforces clinging to self - making self the agent rather than seeing the natural state of love as agent. It becomes more about what patriarchy creates than what is nature, and it takes away the responsibility for the problems – the blocks created during conditioning – from the patriarchy and places them on individual weakness.
Faith is key in this, and faith is often derided by patriarchy – or controlled by patriarchal religious institutions. For zandtao faith is concerned with the path, in this case having faith that the state-of-love exists throughout and human development is concerned with being conscious of this love.
With the view that love is created and that the agent of that creation being self, there is quite a distance from the patriarchal position and what is presented here as spiritual. Rather than creating a self capable of loving as conditioning describes, spiritually we are looking to let go of the egos (that form the self) so that our consciousness becomes love – Prajna. How reconcilable is bell’s clear understanding of patriarchy with this spiritual understanding of love?
How is patriarchy created? Patriarchy is the system that arises from kilesa – the blocks that prevent the consciousness of love; patriarchal conditioning imitates the process of natural conditioning by creating egos (blocks) that perpetuate the patriarchy. In Maintaining Love within the family zandtao talked of the adversarial position against the patriarchy, this is no more than maintaining love and not allowing defilement within the family as patriarchy is effectively the system of the kilesa. Within love there is no ahimsa yet within patriarchy ahimsa arises from the defilements, one person’s greed takes from another’s entitlement. Faith in the path of nature recognises that nature provides for all, it is only when patriarchy creates imbalance through kilesa that there is shortage – war, famine amongst others. In zandtao’s dedication to bell hooks there was a z-quest examination of patriarchy and how it affected bill – this examination is a process zandtaomed recommends for all seekers leading to a Seeker Story that will help with following the path. When we examine the full meaning of patriarchy - imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, we can begin to see the accumulating source of much of society’s kilesa, and can begin to decumulate to establish siladhamma.
Bell goes on to consider living by a love ethic. “We must live for the day, and work for the day, when human society realigns itself with the radical love of God” [bell's Love Ref 11.3]. Having spent his life in relationship to the path, zandtao recognises that trying to accomplish such a realignment is difficult - a pipedream of monumental proportions? Spiritual love requires a commitment to the path that fundamentally means an end to the patriarchy, and for far too many powerful people that cannot possibly be ended.
“In a truly democratic paradigm, there is no love of power for power’s sake” [bell's Love Ref 11.3]. A truly democratic paradigm also means the end of the patriarchy. If you put people before profits the imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy cannot possibly survive. It is important to understand the implications of such statements – zandtao is not suggesting bell did not have such an understanding.
If zandtao makes a statement implying the possibility of living in a society where all people are following their paths he is also making such a pipedream statement. And when he asks for our society to be a siladhamma that is also a pipedream.
So why do it? As opposed to political objectives it is possible to follow your own path, and live your life by siladhamma; it is not easy because the patriarchal ethos is so dominant. Once you recognise the need for money you are sucked into the patriarchy, living off the grid might be a possibility but when zandtao looks at Fogle’s people he sees people following some sort of path, committed to what they choose and having lives dominated by their own decisions. Would the world was full of such people but are they following the path? For some they are living life in reaction. They are reacting to life on the patriarchal grid and choosing NOT, they are not choosing the path which is beyond. Living off the grid as a reaction is not necessarily living beyond conditioning.
One theme within Fogle’s meetings with these people is that of money, how can people live off the grid and yet have sufficient money? This is the nub of the beyond – the relationship with money. zandtao is not recommending any particular lifestyle nor asking for ecological lifestyles. He does not live off the grid but lives sufficiently in a poorer country where his limited money will provide a lifestyle that will allow him to follow his path. With regards to this question, he has lived two lives – a life as a wage-slave and a life where the money from that slavery has allowed him to follow his path. At upheaval bill made a decision of compassion meaning that his life as a wage-slave was still within slavery but he was teaching - that had some compassion. As that time of wage-slavery also coincided with what he calls his 2nd childhood, he was also gaining experience that was the knowledge-base for now following his path.
Each life on the path has to balance the way the patriarchy enslaves you – money, with the way a seeker follows the path. Independent wealth might be an answer but then there is the question of experience; the experience or suffering that came in bill's upbringing and then in 2nd childhood is as much a part of his path as the hours on the meditation stool.
How much was there a love ethic in life? zandtao refers again to the compassion decision of upheaval. From that time on in his 2nd childhood, compassion was an ethical component – to some extent bill was living by a love ethic. But in that time of wage-slavery not everything was based in love, the patriarchy’s control of education would not allow that. bill was undoubtedly compromised but bill is comfortable in saying that there was a compassionate theme in the way his wage-slave life was lived. Since then his life has been geared to the path, and the more dedicated to the path zandtao became the more love has been the ethos of his life.
Mindful communities such as Thay’s Plum Villages could be a way forward, but zandtao does not know of their finances. Other communities such as Teal’s Philia Centre might also be a way forward but he doesn’t know of financial implications for that either. Monasteries have always been communities that can provide retreats, these are places where the wider community provides the finance for seekers to learn about their paths within the monastery. zandtao is thinking of Forest Sangha monasteries but there are retreats for other religions. Such communities help you overcome the financial slavery inherent in the way we live. Wisely determining your relationship with money can provide freedom to follow your path, placing your understanding of money as a facilitator for path or love is the essence of this wisdom. But there is no one way of developing this ethos, but making this wisdom a priority is a good start.
What cannot be avoided by truth is that we are responsible for our lives 24/7, our love ethos is 24/7. Within wage-slavery there are compromised people who live dual lives. They switch off their hearts when they are at work, and live love outside their workplace. For most this love is connected to family but the theme of maintaining love in family belies that to some extent, the essence of that section of this z-quest is the recognition of the impact of patriarchy in maintaining love in the family. What is important to understand is that you are also responsible for your time at work, at work they are still your actions even if as is usually the case you are not in control. Most people are not so fortunate that they are able to choose a love ethic such as compassion as the basis of their working life – even though in teaching that ethic is repeatedly compromised.
But despite the difficulties it is possible to live a life by the love ethic to some extent. Whilst such an ethos will not bring the wealth, it will bring joy and peace of mind; working to accumulate cannot do that. So whilst being realistic about the unlikelihood of any societal realignment with the love of God, on a personal level it is certainly possible if you choose. And the benefits of such a choice is joy and peace of mind. It is still possible to create your own space of siladhamma through the love ethic in a society as corrupt as the patriarchy that has been imposed on us. “I know no one who has embraced a love ethic whose life has not become joyous and more fulfilling” [bell's Love Ref 11.7]. “Those of us who have already chosen to embrace a love ethic, allowing it to govern and inform how we think and act, know that when we let our light shine, we draw to us and are drawn to other bearers of light. We are not alone”
[bell's Love Ref 11.27].
In these chapters of her book bell’s Visions about Love take us into the conduct of love – siladhamma. Whilst she views this conduct as creating love, spiritually this is not the case. Love exists from birth, and living in siladhamma prevents the attachments that arise from conditioning that block off that love; siladhamma prevents attachments that arise from the kilesa conditioning of patriarchy. bell describes patriarchy and patriarchal conditioning,it is simply the system that arises from kilesa conditioning so there is no need to reconcile with bell’s view of patriarchy. But this agreement is not so clear when we consider the purpose of our conduct of siladhamma? On the one hand there is agreement in that siladhamma is loving conduct, but there is disagreement about the arising of love. Spiritually love arises at birth and is blocked off by attachment until we let go of egos through following the path. For bell love is created from self, arising from relationship that becomes love such as romantic love or familial love. This love is a fundamental difference spiritually, but in terms of conduct arises from the same siladhamma and in terms of conditioning is restricted by the same kilesa conditioning of patriarchy.
Love needs to be enabling for all in the relationship, and the natural way for this enabling is for all to follow their paths – in conduct siladhamma. In relationship all need enabling and all need to support each other, the path is the constancy. For real love relationship cannot restrict the path, there can be impact on the path depending on relationship; siladhamma will help with this. But maybe for path and a loving ethos a choice will have to be made concerning relationship - depending on how much the patriarchy has influenced that relationship.
This chapter does not have the sort of integrity that zandtao likes when doing a z-quest, this is primarily because what zandtao writes is not properly arising from what bell has written. The chapter begins with a coming together spiritually with bell, but this is not complete agreement – more a question of recognising difference but after noting these zandtao continues with the method of study. For zandtao the issues concerning love that bell raises indicated siladhamma; siladhamma did not directly follow from what bell wrote so there is not a good flow in the writing. From zandtao’s spiritual background the conduct of siladhamma is the best way of maintaining love; bell talks of some requirements of conduct becoming love and these fit in with siladhamma but she does not directly say that siladhamma is required to end the lovelessness that is in patriarchy. Zandtao however does say this. To end lovelessness we need to conduct ourselves in siladhamma, only through siladhamma can we have the trust and reliability that will enable love to flourish because there will not be the blocks arising as attachment. If relationship and siladhamma are not compatible then zandtao would raise questions about the relationship.
Zandtao doesn’t think bell would have much disagreement with his position on siladhamma but agreement does not rise from her writing.
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