In this 2nd part of examining Real Love, zandtao examined "All about Love: New Visions with bell hooks" by bell hooks; as usual the examination followed a z-quest. As zandtao began to get into bell’s book he found that what he took from the book moved away from what bell had written. To begin with what arose followed the order of her book although it did not necessarily follow her approach but then zandtao’s tathata took him away from bell’s writing – although not away from her spirit, the spirit that recognises the extent of patriarchy. This means that what zandtao writes in this part does not follow the order of her book, zandtao begings by following the book.
With a greater clarity on spiritual love zandtao wants to see whether this has implications for the defiled world. With Prajna love arises naturally but because it is Prajna (love-wisdom) there are not the dangers of exploitation that bill experienced through his ignorant search for romantic love. If bill had SEEn the women he chose to love and had acted wisely based on what he had SEEn (sampajanna), there would not have been the overall pain and the occasional exploitation. Is it sufficient to say that bill should have been wise with regards to patriarchal conditioning - imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy?
In her preface “WHEN I WAS a child, it was clear to me that life was not worth living if we did not know love. I wish I could testify that I came to this awareness because of the love I felt in my life. But it was love’s absence that let me know how much love mattered” [bell's Love Ref 4.2]. How can we know the absence of love? In my time of numbness prior to upheaval, was there absence? Was that absence of feeling love? In retrospect bill has always felt that numbness was based on his not being aware of the path yet unconsciously knowing there was a path to follow; it was that knowing that forced upheaval at his breakdown – the path knowing there was a path. Following that path, that zandtao now sees as Prajna (love-wisdom), it would be reasonable to say that bill felt an absence of love. Bell’s absence of love she saw as related to her father and gave rise to her work on patriarchy, bill's numbness was simply middle-class conformity in his family environment. Once upheaval gave him feeling it gave rise to a search for romantic love amongst others, a search that has eventually led to Prajna (love-wisdom).
In his life there is clear ratification of a spiritual law, we have the parents we need. It was the conditioning of middle-class conformity and the lack of ionvestment in it that drove bill's early life onto the path; it was the absence of love that led to bell’s important work on patriarchy.
“At the moment of my birth, I was looked upon with loving kindness, cherished and made to feel wanted on this earth and in my home. To this day I cannot remember when that feeling of being loved left me. I just know that one day I was no longer precious. Those who had initially loved me well turned away”
[bell's Love Ref 4.2]. The notion of having a memory of feeling loved at birth completely does zandtao's head in. bill's first memory is of a flood, that would put him at 4, then intense embarrassment for a meal with his mother, her friend and the friend’s daughter when he was about 10. bill doesn’t associate any real memory until he was in his teens, so a memory of love at birth just makes no sense. Did she feel “being loved” or is this anecdote? However the understanding that there is the love of mother-love at birth makes the greatest sense.
Spiritually at birth there is love, and bill presumes there was love from his parents. From then on there is this middle-class conformity with repression and his lack of investment in the conformity. bill presumes there were moments of love during his childhood, but nothing comes to him of feeling love in his childhood home; he recalls family events at Xmas fondly. Yet after upheaval his memory was clear except with the drink, having intense feeling at different times. bill experienced these intense feelings during romantic love in partnership, and with the jhanas that happened at different times including writing. With spiritual love now there is not these intense feelings but just love – a flow of spiritual love that does not have the intensity of youthful passion. zandtao considers it a return to love after a life of experience.
“All the years of my life I thought I was searching for love I found, retrospectively, to be years where I was simply trying to recover what had been lost” [bell's Love Ref 4.4]. Spiritually they say you are trying to return to the love of birth. Whilst zandtao can accept that there is love at birth (not truth as bill did not experience it consciously), his life also feels that it has been trying to get back to that love:-
numbness -> failed romantic love –> failed secure partnership -> love in solitude. Back to spiritual love.
“We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago” [bell's Love Ref 4.4]. There was the pain of romantic love, and experience was limited – said NO to life, until bill felt the relief at the tarmac of Gaborone airport – and said YES to life. But even more so when he let go of the pain at Nyanga, and briefly loved again. “I was still mourning - clinging to the broken heart of girlhood, to broken connections. When that mourning ceased I was able to love again.” “Turning away we risk moving into a wilderness of spirit so intense we may never find our way home again. I write of love to bear witness both to the danger in this movement, and to call for a return to love. Redeemed and restored, love returns us to the promise of everlasting life. When we love we can let our hearts speak.” [bell's Love Ref 4.5].
But spiritual love only came when zandtao let go of the conditioning that gave rise to romantic love in him when he retired and dedicated himself to the path. Now his heart speaks.
Throughout her intro bell decries the lovelessness of society, a lovelessness that zandtao (amongst many) describe as being created by defilements of greed, hate, and delusion (kilesa). In Buddhism kilesa are associated as individual traits that we work on as conditioned egos to be let go; in zandtaomed's MwB practice he tries to let go of kilesa, the 4 upadanas and not being attached to the 5 khandhas. But the collective traits (gestalt?) aptly describe the world we live in, if there were no kilesa it is possible the world would be siladhamma – a place of moral justice. Siladhamma is the way the world was intended to live together in harmony, a natural world where we individually live through sila and this sila is the way of our institutions. In the tathata of 2 conditionings zandtaomed talks of 2 conditionings - different aspects of conditioning, the one that arises to develop self-esteem to help survive into adulthood and the second which is a gestalt kilesa, kilesa that patriarchy conditions with to perpetuate the patriarchy.
bill grew up in a world where one cutting edge was love. As a teenager the Beatles were regaling “All we need is love” in popular music, and following his upheaval there was a young adulthood that was post-hippy but still dominated by hippy culture. Sadly this hippy culture or its vestiges were never mainstream, and soon after Reagan-Thatcher created children of greed. This cult of hedonic greed has since been worsened in the 2nd decade of the 21st century by hate, a hate that has not grown out of progressive cutting-edge culture as was the love of the Beatles era, but has grown out of investment that had previously divided colonised worlds and is now driving schism into our own cultures. Our delusions that have grown out of our upbringings maintain these greed-hate divisions of class and culture bringing with it a lovelessness that dominates our society.
Spiritually we know that love can improve our societies but the patriarchy - imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy - prevents this. Love cannot be exploited by any of these forces as they are based in kilesa – based in greed and hate and the delusion that fosters that hate and greed. But patriarchal conditioning through various mechanisms restricts love from being the dominant force it needs to be.
The intro finishes with “This book tells us how to return to love. All About Love: New Visions provides radical new ways to think about the art of loving, offering a hopeful, joyous vision of love’s transformative power. It lets us know what we must do to love again. Gathering love’s wisdom, it lets us know what we must do to be touched by love’s grace” [bell's Love Ref 5.31]. A book that does this is an excellent book to z-quest, let’s looks at how bell returns to love.
In the next chapter (ch 7) of Real Love, zandtao looks at family as does bell in Ch 1 of her book. Now bell talks about returning to love, a spiritually sound approach, but when we examine family within patriarchy what happens? Understanding relationship as a seeker to patriarchy is part of the work zandtaomed has already asked of the seeker through the Seeker Story, if the seeker's story is complete then it is likely that the seeker will have crossed the Prajna threshold. Real Love contains some of zandtao’s prajna understanding (ie after the threshold), and some of the issues raised in this 2nd part of Real Love are not issues that zandtaomed would raise as an elder. As a seeker zandtao is pushing back at the unknown, and when pushing the unknown of the mystery of love and through the limiting of love that is patriarchy, zandtao as seeker has asked questions of leadership – questions that follow from the z-quest on bell’s book but not questions she specifically asked. In this z-quest into Real Love zandtao has pointedly investigated the spiritual through Sharon Salzberg and is now looking at the socio-political through bell hooks - what you might consider as the inner and outer of Real Love. Looking at both inner and outer enters an unknown that is not always questioned by institutions and leadership, have those institutions and leadership been compromised? This z-quest has led zandtao into asking awkward questions, but these questions are asked of the wisdom of our leadership and not of the seekers learning to follow their paths – they are asked out of respect and essential enquiry and not out of criticism necessarily. These are questions zandtao as an independent seeker is not compromised with because he has no institutional allegiance; has our spiritual leadership been compromised?
[Note 1 :- In anatta language zandtao explains why and how zandtao, zandtaomed and bill are used to avoid I in writing. It appears cumbersome at times but it is constructive - anatta, avoiding I as convention.
[Note 2:- 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.]
So to bell booking at family in her chapter 1.
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