Does this image not evoke love in all of us?
zandtao has never been a parent but looking at this image evokes love – not potential for love but love already. We are born in a state of love – love is there to be lost. When legitimately we describe society as loveless, it follows that love has been lost. The question is not how do we create love but how has our love been lost? “WE LEARN ABOUT love in childhood. Whether our homes are happy or troubled, our families functional or dysfunctional, it’s the original school of love” [bell's Love Ref 7.5]. Family is the original school where love is lost. It is not lost at birth – look at the image - love is there; it is lost after birth. It is lost as the defiled world impacts on the original love of mother and baby. This reminds me of education. Children start school eager to learn – natural motivation, by the time they leave school that eagerness has gone; that is the reality of the defiled world of education – Matriellez. Systemically we are unable to face these fundamental truths about loss because of the defiled world's relationship with nature. We cannot face that nature gives us love and we lose it; we cannot face that nature gives us motivation and we lose it. We cannot face these qualities of nature that we are given and then lose because of patriarchy's systemic exploitation of nature. The patriarchy teaches us that we have to create love, that humanity creates love, when the reality is that as with all the qualities of nature patriarchy destroys. It gets destroyed because of the patriarchy, the patriarchy that creates dysfunctional family environments. It is not the parents who create the dysfunctionality it is the conditioning of the patriarchy. Look at the image, love is there, through procreative instinct the love in the family has already created the love between mother and child; the patriarchy through conditioning then destroys all this love.
If you want a “useful definition” of love look at this image – the undefiled love between mother and baby.
What matters about this emphasis on patriarchal destruction is that a compassionate society would want to protect this love. Not only that but a compassionate society would want to help the love flourish with the family around this mother-love as the child grows. In can come the love of the father making the love between all three. Just because this destructive situation happens everywhere does not mean that we should ignore it as if we have no control. In mother-love, there is the fundamental lynchpin of love in the family – this ought to be the nub of a society in siladhamma based in love. Instead, as soon as the baby is born defiled society puts pressure. There are hospital bills, there is the wage-slavery of mother and father, there are the bills for the housing that this love can thrive in. From the moment this natural love happens patriarchy exploits human needs for survival, effectively patriarchy tries to take away the love because love is sufficient and patriarchy would not then have control.
From birth there is the natural conditioning where each person makes agreements with society. Yet at the same time patriarchy imposes its own conditioning on the upbringing. Wage-slavery places the emphasis on the profit-making for the 1% of capitalism, instead of focusing on love for the child and love within family. Parents are expected to focus on this profit-making taking attention away from love within family.
And the first impact of wider society on the child is education where that child is channelled into a career which means making a wage-slave that the child is most willing to do of what is available – understand the corporate paradigm of Matriellez. Not all that happens in school is about the career but there is no way that a child can attend school without being directed towards some form of wage-slavery – there is none of the leading out that is the root meaning of education. There is no “doing the best you can to be the best you can be” of zandtaomed's 3-memes, what there is is exploitation - “finding the best way you can to make profits for the 1%-patriarchy”.
And in the upbringing of a child there is no recognition of conditioning – of the two types of conditioning. There is the conditioning of self that nature instinctively provides for children to survive, and there is conditioning by patriarchy - see tathata of 2 conditionings. How much better could we make our education if children were not being career-processed? Even better if we recognised that natural conditioning provides self-creation for survival, then education could be tailored to minimise the worst aspects of this egoic necessity. At no time in school was bill ever told that the egoic self that was nurtured in him was meant to be let go so bill could follow his path. bill was so lucky that he paid so little attention to the conditioning that built this self-creation, that he was so little invested in the middle-class conformity that was the patriarchy’s path for him, that at 23 there was an upheaval that started bill on the path.
In family the emphasis is all wrong. We start with mother-child love, and patriarchy wears away at this through conditioning. Through the capitalism of the patriarchy - imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, families are pulled into the world of wage-slavery. And as soon as possible for the child s/he is pulled into education for wage-slavery. With these pressures how can we ever expect the love that is born into family ever to survive? It is these pressures that create the dysfunction.
zandtao is not being idealistic, within families human weakness can also end the love. It is the emphasis that zandtao calls to be changed. At present the patriarchal emphasis is on the negative – exploitation of women, white supremacy, wage-slavery and imperialist expansion. The accumulation of the 1% could provide support to family issues possibly enabling the perpetuation of love. Instead the emphasis causes pressure on families and division within society creating dysfunction and ending the love that begins so sweetly with mother-love.
Behind the “useful definition” developed in Free the Family is a website of zandtaomed literature and practice – as well as Sharon’s 4 Brahma-Vihara meditations that got added through the z-quest on Real Love. Previously that meditation and practice was geared towards the individual and the path. The Seeker Story specifically includes learning about family dynamics that would include learning about how conditioning impacts the individual story.
This z-quest is taking us in a different direction – it is not solely focusing on individual paths but also on the conditioning that impacts on family destroying the love that starts out as mother-love. It is looking at how to make families aware of this conditioning so that love can be maintained. Free the family by ending its dysfunction that was created by patriarchy and maintaining a functioning family that perpetuates love.
United family needs to see the impact of patriarchy - imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, and work together against the patriarchy to promote the interests of all people in the family. We need to come together in the home, and help each other to cope with the inimical defiled society that we have to survive. This is not a radical position calling for a particular form of activism. It is a recognition of the conditioning, and based on this recognition decide how all people in the family can work together to cope. This requires authentic communication based on mutual interest. The family does not exist for the man to decide on the futures of all. Nor does the family exist to function at the whim of the desires of the children. They all work together so that they can all do the best they can within a patriarchal society that wants to exploit all. Respect that they all are working together, find the authentic way that they can all live together. Accept that at times there will be give and take so that all can do the best they can.
Within the family there are dynamics that work against this authenticity. Rather than being divided by these dynamics, can a family be united to work and live together whilst functioning within the defiled world? If all interests are being met, why isn’t this an environs where love can be maintained and expressed?
Now zandtao is entering into speculation so maybe this should be a Wai Zandtao blockbuster novel  . zandtao has not lived within a family as an adult nor has he worked as a family counsellor, the nearest he has got is as a teacher. But how families can maintain love without guidance within patriarchy is new territory. Because of his lack of personal knowledge any guidance offered must be limited. Themes are presented - not guidance, themes which people could add experience too.
1) We are maintaining love not creating conditions for love.
Nature has already given us love as the foundation of family. There is the mother-love and the romantic love of the parents. Recognise that love is to be lost not created.
2) Accept the adversarial conditions of patriarchy as a family
To maintain love the family needs a strategy of maintaining love within the adversarial patriarchy. It is necessary to know that the patriarchy is trying to exploit all members of the family. There is family unity in this position – maintaining love and limiting exploitation. But actions need to be taken together in order to maintain love and limit exploitation.
 Consciously work together to maintain the love – not impose, not parental demands, working together to maintain love. Focus on reinforcing the love that has existed since birth.
Recognise that the family lives in an adversarial situation where the patriarchy wants to exploit all. Work together on recognising this exploitation. Discuss the way exploitation occurs for all members of the family. But control the confrontation, maybe even avoid confrontation. Confrontation can be destructive. The patriarchy is very powerful; if victories are gained it is because these victories are not considered important enough by the patriarchy, people have worked together compassionately despite the patriarchy, or at that time it suited the patriarchy to allow the victory. Wise action means that there are ways in which we can work within the adversarial situation for our own benefit. This need not be dishonest deception. Accept there is exploitation but examine the way in which you as a family can fulfil your needs within the exploitation. If there is activism make it conscious activism, but beware - activism can bring devastation as the patriarchy is far more powerful than any individual or small collective group.
3) Support each other when participating in the patriarchy
Daily life means that each person in the family is participating in the patriarchy. A standard family who live and work within “civilised” society are using the infrastructure of patriarchy to survive. In contact with that patriarchy there needs to be wise action from all the family. Actions within the patriarchy need to be mindfully determined – have an awareness about them.
Being aware of the adversarial situation also means being aware of the compromises that each person makes. Love each other for those compromises, be grateful that parents have compromised with their wage-slavery to bring up the children. It is nature’s choice that there are children, for all species in the world there are children.
But parents need to avoid enslaving their children. Parents have accepted the compromise of wage-slavery after years of conditioning. Parents need to avoid the consequence of their own slavery, avoid the consequence that they accept humans should be enslaved and accept enslaving their own children. Parents have a tightrope to walk, and they need to walk this tightrope wisely. It is their duty to bring up the children, to protect those children in a defiled world. Yet to maintain love those children need to be free, they need to be free to be who they are. But as children they are not aware enough to be able to know who they are. Children need to be as aware as their age development will allow. It is part of parental duty to make themselves aware of the development of their children and help them through that development. The guide is nature, nature knows what it wants for the children, parents have to learn what nature wants.
Yet at the same time parents have to help their children as the patriarchy begins to exploit them. This exploitation is all pervasive. Firstly there is the peer onslaught. Peer pressure is very powerful especially amongst teenagers. Have you seen the ludicrous fashions teenagers go through? This is based on peer pressure. Unfortunately the patriarchy has learnt how powerful peer pressure is and manipulates it for the profits. This is a difficult water to navigate because peer bonds amongst teenagers are strong. Part of the adversarial patriarchal awareness has to be that peers are unwitting accomplices to conditioning. Help your children through this difficult arena with peers.
Schools are the factories for the next generation of wage-slaves, despite the many caring delusions amongst teachers this is the underlying reality of education. But the best way through this factory is making alliances with sympathetic teachers, parents and teachers working in harmony. Given the cauldrons that schools can be, for the student the best way of making those alliances is to be obedient – minimising the stress on the teacher. This of course is a compromise especially as some teacher requirements are unreasonable, but the easiest way through the education factory is by making the obedience alliance. Obedience becomes an issue for peer pressure, help your children through this.
Children must use parents to help them through school, but for parents it needs to be an alliance and not confrontation. Parents need to use parents’ evenings and other methods of contact with the teaching staff to find sympathetic teachers. Teachers are also wage-slaves and are making their own compromises with job requirements. Seek out the teachers who will be sympathetic, specifically teachers who are child-centred – as opposed to careerists or subject-only teachers. Careerist teachers are putting their own futures first, and whilst verbally they put the children first in practise that is just a careerist requirement. Listen for the teacher who genuinely cares, and make an alliance with them; many caring teachers want such alliances. As parents, think of all the compromises wage-slavery forces on you; the wage-slavery of teachers have similar compromises forced on them.
4) Respect each other as part of the love and work together
In all loving situations each person must be free to be the best they can be. Being a parent in the patriarchy already makes them a wage-slave. zandtao has already warned of similarly enslaving children but parents should not be a slave to love as sacrifice. There is parental duty but there is not parental slavery. Children need to respect what parents do for them especially in terms of the patriarchy.
But parents need to respect children. Children are human beings learning to survive in a defiled world. What must it be like for a loving child to start to be conscious of the infrastructure of this awful defiled society. As babies these children are love, and in good families – by good here I mean families that are still loving and have not been brought into dysfunction by the patriarchy – they will still have maintained that love. Then slowly these loving children begin to be aware of the defilement around them. They won’t understand or be able to verbalise it but there will be growing awareness of the greed and hate; the people they love live in this society of greed and hate, as children they love their parents but parents live in a world of greed and hate.
Parents have learned to compromise with defilement – consciously or otherwise. Parents have found a way through defilement, and automatically want to help their children through. Automatically through the prevailing conditioning they try to instil their compromise as the proper way for their children to compromise. Apart from perpetuating the patriarchy this can also be damaging if the child is different from the parent on this. By respecting our children parents will see who their kids are and see the best way through for these children.
zandtao suspects that compromise is not very easily understood by children. They do who they are. As they develop as human beings awareness comes in, and they start to control their actions. Then at a later stage compromise will come in. When a child first sees their parents compromising with the patriarchy they will not understand the compromise; they will see it as the same agreements they are expected to make and assume their parents have also made an agreement. It is natural for children to be connected to nature, what happens when they first realise that what their parents are doing in work is going against nature to some extent. There has got to be a division that children cannot understand. Families need to work on these compromises, explain them together; even after explanation to the developing child’s mind working against nature will be difficult to cope with for the child. But if love has been maintained then maybe the child can accept the compromised defilement.
5) A loving family lives in harmony with nature and lives in siladhamma
Patriarchy offers rewards as part of its exploitation, and some people gain those rewards. But those rewards are given at the expense of others whilst the accumulation of the 1% always remains the priority. If we accept conditioning then we seek those rewards, our desires are fashioned by the conditioning. But by following siladhamma we can experience nature’s rewards. These are not the shallow status awards of the patriarchy, but the deeper personal rewards that come from living a moral life. Whilst this is deeply true for zandtao, it is hard to convince other adults of these deeper rewards. Similarly living in harmony with nature brings its own rewards.
But nature is a haven from defilement. bill remembers days at the seaside when growing up, similarly walking in the hills as an adolescent (and remembering the cold and rain). These joys come from nature despite what is experienced from the defiled society of patriarchy. Loving families live in harmony with nature, and nature will always be there as a respite from patriarchy's defilement. Knowing there is this respite comes from upbringing in a loving family.
It has got to be hard to convince children of the rewards of nature and siladhamma especially when peer pressure works in favour of the shallow rewards of patriarchy. What can convince children most of all is a family of love. If children are brought up in love, nature and siladhamma, then by the imitation of generational conditioning their own nuclear families will respect the same, they will be recreating the loving environs of family in nature that they grew up with and not the conditioning of patriarchy.
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