So begins a  into Real Love. In anatta language Zandtao explained the use of language of Zandtao the seeker, Zandtaomed the elder and Bill the experiencer to avoid reinforcing attavadupadana through writing and reflection - by attaching to sanna. Simply, why write without I?
Following on from the "Dedication to bell hooks", there was an email in which how Buddhist bell was? was posed - and she was in conversation with Sharon Salzberg. Sleep came when this podcast was played - falling asleep has always been a positive portent. In such an inauspicious way begins the two sections of an examination of Real Love, Real Love as spiritual love with Sharon Salzburg, and Real Love in society.
What is Real Love in a loveless patriarchy? bell hooks has a book "All about Love: New Visions with bell hooks" so after working with Sharon zandtao will start there examining the relationship between love and patriarchy. Throughout the Dedication consciousness arose of how romantic love transitioned to spiritual love, but in truth spiritual love was not deeply looked at then; now is the time for that.
[Note - zandtao uses the reference system in the free Calibre eBook reader together with this version of the book, the reader will need to download Calibre and open the book in the main programme to view the references.]
For bill conscious love started as romantic love as is often the case, it was thought of as cosmic - the one person - following upheaval. "We expect love to give us exaltation, bliss, affection, fire, sweetness, tenderness, comfort, security, and so very much more - all at once" [Real Love 5.6]. After upheaval there was still expectation that this cosmic love could be found in one person. How could any person live up to such a billing? How could Bill's own feelings for one person live up to such an expectation, and even more impossible how could those feelings last a lifetime?
Romantic love happened 3 times in Bill's life. With the first at one time there was powerful romantic love but our timing was off, and the relationship petered out gently - with some lasting friendship. With the second Bill loved her deeply but she burnt out the notion of romantic love; in retrospect Bill will always be grateful for loving her but at the time the pain was so strong. There is doubt whether she loved Bill but given who she was it is possible that mother love was so strong it masked any romantic love; because of work on the dedication, Zandtao now can hold the possibility that she loved Bill even though she burned out his romantic love. The 3rd romantic love happened at a time when Bill had given up on romantic love, but again there were so many circumstances life had placed in her way that that love could not flourish.
Doesn't this indicate a feeling of being able to love as opposed to love arising out of "nothing"? Sharon quoted this at the start of her podcast with bell [9m37s]. "Love is not a feeling, it's an ability". For Bill being able to love related to upheaval, having moved beyond the limited conditioning of his middle-class conformity there was an ability to love; prior to upheaval there was just intense shyness. In the searches for love, the loving radar was open for all to SEE just after upheaval, in those early times there were a few possibilities of women who could have been loved but life's journey had them tied up. Whether they were in a relationship, hurt coming out of a relationship, there was no willingness to enter love and try with Bill.
Similarly life's circumstances prevented Bill from loving at different times. At uni there was the belle who expressed interest but shyness was too strong for a response; in retrospect was this an escape as Bill was far too immature and could have become a lapdog - not fulfilled. Later on after upheaval there was the younger African woman who offered love, but Bill couldn't accept out of respect for her father and the age difference; something that culturally would never have mattered to the father yet respect for the father mattered to the point of exclusion at the time.
Circumstances play a huge part in romantic love, and as a society we don't try to develop the circumstances that enable romantic love. It is as if we grow up and our conditioning prioritises romantic love solely to form a family consumer unit - developed in detail in the 2nd section. In that unit mother love originates, and we have all the different personal conditions discussed in the dedication. As part of "Embracing the MAWP by engaging with bell hooks" men are enouraged to examine their patriarchal conditioning in order to reintegrate; this is very relevant to understanding their love in family and is part of the process of SEEing love. As part of their Seeker Story women are also encouraged to examine the impact of patriarchy on their own conditioning as part of their own process of SEEing love. Dynamics in family is central to understanding the way romantic love plays out, but is not something to be rehashed in this z-quest on real love - see the study programme as a result of the dedication fitting in with the Seeker Story. But the family is central to our understanding of the loveless patriarchy.
In the process of finding romantic love circumstances play a huge part, for many people the first love leads to the family and all the conditions in place to keep the family together both real and conditioned. How many people are actually in the unrestricted circumstances that could enable romantic love - even if they were willing to love? How many people have not accrued baggage - life circumstances? Being free from circumstances would enable them to be in a loving relationship if they were willing to love and found a similar person. To find romantic love how dedicated do we have to be to find that love - including dedicating the circumstances of our life to that search? But how many people can shed the baggage of conditioning and circumstance to be dedicated to romantic love? And the same question applies - "how many people can shed the baggage of conditioning and circumstance to be dedicated to spiritual love?"
"Our minds are too often clouded by pop-culture images that equate love with sex and romance"[Real Love 5.7].
Given family background discussion or recognition of love was not a possibility for Bill, there was nothing that connected with the pop-culture images. With upheaval there was the possibility of romantic love but not at that time spiritual love. In the on Zanshadtao looking at Connie Zweig she discusses:-
spiritual love follows from the end of romantic love
- this happened for Zandtao. Is that true for all? Can spiritual love be experienced whilst being in romantic love? Thay dismissed this as a possibility here. Sharon says "This idea of love makes us .... cling frantically to relationships that are bound to change, challenge us, or slip away"
[Real Love 5.7].
Having spiritual love whilst having romantic love is highly unlikely now for Zandtao. In romantic love there was a desire to surrender to her, yet after upheaval Bill also wanted to follow the path; there was never a compatibility in these two. Theoretically spiritual love means that both people are so compatible that they can follow their paths at the same time - theoretically because for Bill it never happened; for others they must decide for themselves. If one partner is not following their path isn't there possible conflict because path and conditioning would have difficulty being together? But again it is a matter for each person to decide about their love.
What was certainly the case for Bill was that there was no possibility of spiritual love whilst still looking for romantic love. For Bill that search for romantic love was conditioning - or at least that was the way it panned out, experiences in relationship needed to fail as romantic love before spiritual love could be considered.
At the point at which Zandtao dedicated 100% to the path he could experience spiritual love. In teaching there was teacher's love for the kids; at that time there could be development on the path but there was not 100%-dedication - path and spiritual love could not be the same because of teacher's love. What are the implications of this? No real love whilst in romantic love? This can easily be understood when there are attachments. No real love whilst teaching love? It seems reasonable that real love and teaching could happen at the same time but they didn't for Zandtao. Implications?
Now in his seeking there is the feeling of spiritual love for Zandtao - there is love for the path - on the path, much the same as it was after upheaval although now with experience, discipline and hopefully wisdom. At upheaval inexperience led to love for others through recognition of the path. Is that true love? Is it partial true love? All people have the consciousness of love in them but it is blocked off by conditioning. There is the love of that consciousness because of unity, but when it is blocked off it is hard to feel that love, that unity - especially with some people. Is love just unity of consciousness? Is it only people close to the path that Zandtao could love? After upheaval those were the people sought, now such "path-close" people are not part of life in person.
Is loving consciousness what spiritual love is? Is there no aspect of real love that is love for the conditioned? Prajna only loves prajna and no-one conditioned? Is there love for people with some conditioning? How does this fit into Unity?
"We sense there is a quality of real love that is possible beyond the narrow straits we have been told to navigate, a possibility that's not idealized or merely abstract" [Real Love 5.10]. In the times when love was romantic there was no space for such a sense; path and love were separated. Just after upheaval there was only path even though there was a possible love. As time moved away from upheaval romantic love was sought in the context of path, Bill wanted to love someone on their path. And then with further time-distancing romantic love became a possibility distinct from path. Now there is a full circle where dedication to the path means spiritual love and not much possibility of romantic love. In searching for romantic love the love was real because of dedication to romantic love - it was the path at the time. It was not a sense, it was the quality of real love that was being sought. But in the seeking there was much conditioning so romantic love was convoluted with passion and idealism. But there was no separate sense of real love - until romantic love was burned out. The sense of path came back during the mid-life review after Nyanga, after partial integration - after the pain of romantic love had been released. The Nyanga release enabled love to happen again, Bill's 3rd romantic love just happened even though it wasn't being sought. When that love failed through circumstances there was only spiritual love left but it took a long time to be completely dedicated to the path and realise that real love - spiritual love.
When Bill was in romantic love there was no possibility of any other love. Could there have been a possibility of recognising a sense of real love whilst being in romantic love? Doubtful but it cannot be answered - just that it was not the experience. With the first love the path and relationship ran side-by-side, there was no possibility of envisaging loving anyone else but that romantic love could not negate the path. With the 2nd love the intensity of baggage always put Bill's spirituality under threat, even leading to reflection on this out on the Downs, how can the path be put before people? Yet there was no choice, the emotional involvement and hurt took Bill close to losing the path. Love and path have become one now, for most of the 2nd childhood romantic love separated them.
It was the conditioning of romantic love that caused this separation, it was the attachment to romantic love that caused the divide. With the 1st love Bill always held to the path but love's attachment created separation. With the 2nd love it took all the spirit to survive, and after that survival there was much pain and very little conscious path. This led to immersion in politics - Bill was politically active during the relationship, but it took time and travel to begin to recognise the path again; like teaching politics was a form of spiritual love - at the back of the political approach was the understanding that all people should have the economic wherewithal to follow their paths.
If conditioning caused the separation, can there be romantic love without conditioning? Can there be romantic love without attachment? Is this true romantic love - love without attachment? Is that possible? Now frame the same questions with regards to consciousness love. Can there be this consciousness love without limitations? What are those limitations? Conditions. Can there be unconditional love? Following the path Zandtao recognises limitations - there is an acceptance of warts'n'all. If there is that necessary acceptance, then is there acceptance of unconditional love with limitations? Is there then acceptance of romantic love as true love with limitations? Can there be real love with warts'n'all?
Is there a parallel with vihara and faith? Following the path means perfecting the vihara, and with faith bringing in sunnata to compensate for the shortfall in vihara. So what about love? Conditions means there is a shortfall, can love magnetically overcome that shortfall? What does that question mean? Seriously, it is a good question but as yet Zandtao has not answered it. What is the magnetism in love?
"We have an intuition that we can connect so much more deeply to ourselves and to one another" [Real Love 5.10]. Prajna is love-wisdom, there is no distinction between love and wisdom in Prajna. Spiritual love has automatically arisen with prajna - this is a Prajna z-quest.
There is no recollection when Bill was in love of wanting to connect more deeply. As Wai Zandtao (scifi) Wai might dream of such a connection in reality there was never such an intuition - even investigated it to some extent in "Yoxa Love". However such an intuition might well be part of cosmic love, Bill could imagine such a fantasy when he was searching for romantic love.
Reconnecting with Dhamma-consciousness is a possible reality through "Mindfulness with Breathing" (MwB) - it is the 4th tetrad. Understanding there is connection is a spiritual reality, but in love with another? Romantic love is so much about the attachment to the other person, it is hard to touch the essence of love that is at its root because of the blocks these attachments create. Perhaps over time people in love can go beyond those attachments - Zandtao can't answer that because in him romantic love did not last long enough. Bill's longest loving relationship was with his first love. In this out-of-sync relationship, by the time the mists of passion cleared Bill knew there could be no depth of connection; conditions separated them. If they had been in sync perhaps there could have been a deeper connection, but in truth conditions separated. At that age Bill had too much to learn, and it is not for Zandtao to judge the partner; they parted friends but not in each other's lives. Zandtao can increasingly feel reconnecting with essence spiritually. Zandtao is certain it was the power of romantic love especially with his second love that opened up channels for this spiritual love, but he could never have used those channels whilst in relationship because of all the attachments that were blocking.
"I would be bereft - irredeemably incomplete, lacking the love I so longed for. On the other side ( - of a personal threshold) ....I was .... - someone with an inner capacity for love, no matter who was present or what was happening, someone who could access love that another person might enhance or challenge ...." [Real Love Ref 5.11]. Sharon is talking about love in herself - not looking at the other to provide. When Bill was searching for the cosmic love, it was to complement the love and compassion awakened in upheaval; in other words the love starts from you. When talking of the power of love leading to spiritual love, it was an empowering of the love that was inside. What was the power acting against? The conditioning of upbringing. But also sadly the very blocks, the attachments, within the loving relationships themselves. That power of love was enabling given Bill's background of emotionless middle-class conformity. Once Bill had worked through the pain and integrated, then the love and compassion of upheaval together with the power of loving relationship both led to a path that was eventually spiritual love. The essence of romantic love was spiritual love but Zandtao needed wisdom to become aware of that. That love was always there from birth but it was blocked, first by the conditioning of upbringing and then by the attachments of relationship that were part of life's tapestry of experience. Love itself does not arise from another but the strength of love of another can break through the egoic blocks. "I see real love as the most fundamental of our innate capacities, never destroyed no matter what we might have gone through or might yet go through. It may be buried, obscured from view, hard to find, and hard to trust : but it is there" [Real Love Ref 5.13].
"I believe that there is only one kind of love-real love-trying to come alive in us" [Real Love Ref 5.14]. Just a discussion of terminology here. What Sharon calls real love, Zandtao suggests he is calling spiritual love. In romantic love where there is love essence empowered by relationship, when all the blocks have been removed that essence is spiritual love. This is love essence we are born with. This brings Zandtao to Eckhart's 2nd mystery (discussed here, is life intended to develop the consciousness that begins as love essence? Evolving love essence into spiritual love? Evolving essence into real love?
"Real love comes with a powerful recognition that we are fully alive and whole, .... It is a state where we allow ourselves to be seen clearly by ourselves and by others, and in turn, we offer clear seeing to the world around us" [Real Love Ref 5.15]. Difficult. Recognition of spiritual love primarily came through prajna, the spiritual love was there before but not the recognition - that recognition came through wisdom - SEEing. Spiritual love had been growing ever since the awakening of love and compassion at upheaval, but it was not always conscious. Becoming dedicated to the path meant there was no diffusion of consciousness, the effort was completely dedicated to path - no love for teaching, no search for romantic love, just dedication to the path, just the realisation there was only path. Prajna brought the wisdom that there was no distinction between love and wisdom, SEEing the path as love - ending the separation that the relationships of searching for love had created. Love had been empowered through experience, and spiritual love had evolved from the love essence we were born with. This is the state for all to SEE.
So far has all been from her intro. There was disappointment that the lazy z-quest way appeared to come to an abrupt halt when she described the rest of her book as a mindfulness workbook. But Zandtao woke up deciding that there is more to explore within. Prajna is love-wisdom, and it therefore is talking of sampajanna and vulnerability. Wandering around with bucketloads of real love handing it out here there and everywhere is foolish - more than not wise it is foolish. Bill's experience with romantic love hurt - it hurt more than anything else because Bill let love make him vulnerable. This was not wise. Real spiritual love is about wise loving. So what is the connection between wise loving and vulnerability? Mindfulness. We live in a world in which love is in short supply, especially considered in the 2nd section of loveless patriarchy. In Sharon's book she talks of the Art of Mindful Connection. Wise loving is about recognising the vulnerability of loving yet still loving wisely - mindful connection. What is the Art of Mindful Connection?
In Bill's case romantic love was the opposite of mindful connection. Looking back at Bill's relationships none of them even had a chance of lift-off. With romantic love Bill was so desperate for the cosmic, he just went with who turned up, and with the limiting relationships he chose people who could not possibly have been mature enough to make them work. There was no mindfulness in any of the relationships because he never saw love as being about wisdom. Love was the highest spirituality yet it isn't, prajna is - love-wisdom is.
The issue of prajna and vulnerability is SEEing, SEEing who you love. Relationship is about trust, but when you love foolishly you give your trust to the other without being mindful of who they are. This then extrapolates to real love, how do you trust where you give that love? Trust is not just about romantic love but it is about spiritual love - real love. This is love-wisdom, hopefully Sharon's Art of Mindful Connection.
Brene Brown is the goto queen of vulnerability so Zandtao thought he would examine vulnerability with her before jumping into Sharon's mindful love manual. Whilst Brene is a goto queen and very clear, she does not talk of path; her expertise is in the field of wellness - in the field of conditioning. Therefore her evaluations are in wellness terms eg self esteem etc. Now the path has a big plus on all of this because it ticks every box. It goes beyond conditioning, it is what nature intended - there is no higher value than that, and it is about Unity - no better connection than that. So following the path answers all of Brene's attributes and at the same time the path has all that Brene aspires for.
But the keynote is that the path is beyond conditioning. How could Bill have gone searching for love after upheaval? The path. Quite simple. There was love in him for all to SEE. Prior to upheaval there was intense shyness, very little evaluation of worth because of upbringing, after upheaval there was love and compassion - not from identity but from path.
But worthiness is not based on how far along the path you have gone but on the very following itself, that is what nature intended. Your worth is in the following - the journey. Identity and self-esteem might give you value if measured within the defiled world, but true worth comes from nature by attempting to follow the path. As you follow your path you build up real love whether that comes from path or romantic love or elsewhere.
The "problem" with the path is that it requires 100% dedication, and in this defiled world our jobs cannot be following the path. No matter how compassionate our jobs appear to be - teaching, healing or creating, the defiled world restricts their true expression. In teaching and healing we are compromised - see Matriellez, and in creating most artists are compromised by the need to have money to survive. With the path being restricted comes restriction on love. In terms of the path as healers, teachers and creators we might well be of value to nature, in our daily life we are compromised. But seekers following their paths learn to live with that compromise.
Seekers become vulnerable because of exploitation, because in the defiled world exploitation is rewarded. For example in our defiled world exploiters are paid huge salaries, and compassionate seekers are paid little more than a survival wage. Spiritual teachers might make money from various forms of trading, but in the defiled world of money there is always the risk of compromise and defilement - see Zanshadtao for a discussion of some of those egoic compromises.
Why are seekers vulnerable to exploitation? Because they as teachers healers and creators value compassion above financial reward. Real love seeks only the reward of loving, and so in love there is a risk of exploitation. If there can be true love in romantic love then both partners need to accept that the other is free to follow their path. Yet each person has needs, can those needs be balanced with the need for both to follow their paths?
Real love in wider society runs the same risks of exploitation. Teachers value compassion and want to teach, society values profits and values students who are disciplined to accept valuing profits. A teacher can never deliver what such a society wants when ultimately an aware teacher recognises that the only true value is the path and sees their job as preparing the student for that.
So real love needs to be wise to avoid exploitation yet by the very nature of real love seekers become vulnerable to exploitation. Wisdom overcomes this vulnerability through the Art of Mindful Connection. Seekers learn to SEE exploitation and express their love beyond this conditioning of exploitation that they SEE.
For a seeker there is faith in the path but there is no misguided ego of "perfection". The seeker is aware that egos will arise and through those egos there is vulnerability and the possibility of being exploited. Zandtaomed describes the world as defiled; this adjective arises from the Buddhist defilements (kilesa) of greed(lobha), hatred (dosa) and delusion (moha), do those defilements not describe the conditioning in the world we live in? Recognition of egoic vulnerabilities that arise from conditioning helps the seeker not be exploited, and the 4 Dhamma Comrades of mindfulness, wisdom, concentration and wisdom-in-action (sampajanna) protect the seeker from such vulnerabilities; and these comrades arise in MwB.
So with Sharon, let's see how to begin the Art of Mindful Connection. Zandtao uses the reference system in the free Calibre eBook reader, as a reader you will need to download Calibre to view the references.
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