I have just completed and posted the dedication to bell hooks, but as yet am not back into Zanshadtao. I am consciously working on reconnecting to Prajna, the focus on sanna during the dedication has restricted that. At the same time my meditation is still not there.
But there was an improved understanding of my personal history – this morning, esp when I was “black”. This understanding also came with Eckhart’s use of the word “identity” – he is talking of atta when he speaks of identity, and of course he is also talking of the meaning of identity that is currently being socio-politically manipulated and causing so much division. Eckhart’s use of the word “identity” is now in my usage, and that means the end of the use of the word “self”; for me now anatta means no identity.
The dedication was very much about my identity within the patriarchy (imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy), and how patriarchy conditioned my identity. And when I look back at my identities I begin more to see the presence of sunnata – Prajna, because what is not identity is Prajna.
Because I had such an easy upheaval there must have been so few blocks because I never had to work to release those blocks, firstgrace did it all for me – so lucky. When they talk of getting the parents you need, I got them. As a result of my upbringing I had so little identity, in my family home there was so little I wanted to identify with. Conditioning went through its processing during upbringing but there was never any identification with it. The conformist upbringing took me to uni, and there was an attempt to identify with that lifestyle – the drunken lad; but it was always on the periphery with a mask of identity.
Exams were a focus in which I concentrated – increasingly so each year, for my finals I studied well and felt the first suffering the system threw at me – only a II(2). That result hurt my conformist academic ego, but for the first time I had some conviction – my maths/stats understanding was better than that II(2) and there was identification with that conviction. This was confirmed when I skated through the Diploma aspect of the M.Sc, and there was limited identifying with the academic process by then; I distrusted the department – born out by the way the stats undergrads were treated, and just wanted out and to get work. Luckily my stats understanding was recognised in my job interview, and I got a better job.
Drinking with the job lads Up West I quickly learned that academia was not valued, whilst I still had my academic conviction that was also not valued. I had focus and discipline for academia but none for work, at that time there was never identification with work. But the people in the first job were interesting, the job was Up West, and I had football with the firm. When the job told me I was not wanted I blamed them instead of looking at myself, went elsewhere, and in my 2nd job I had nothing and the path took me to breakdown – the time I called upheaval.
Then my path took me to learning, bells and banjoes, and just so much; the Arts Centre helped me consolidate this and although I am a writer now I write about my life experience. Back then I didn’t even have the “normal experience” of a childhood identity and adolescent experience. I began writing about life as I was experiencing it but I had nothing that could make that writing give me a living - maybe creativity but even then I am not sure.
But the path gave me compassion, and I took on the identity of houseparent and then teacher. Throughout my life my identity has had many friends, friends that came with the jobs; but no matter how intense that friendship was during the job it dissipated when I left. For me my 1st job was so formative as I balanced the path with the world of teaching, I had a fondness for that time and the people I worked with; it hurt recently when I reconnected with one person to find that I meant nothing to the others. The only time I had no friends was when my identity took me into the political struggle. With the magazine the work gave me contacts, and I learned the meaning of politics from the Africans - take a world view. The magazine increased my identifying with black community, even though I was stupid enough to mis-identify as black occasionally; the reality was that I did identify with the black struggle. I learned a great deal of that struggle but of course it was all an intellectual identity as I wasn’t actually black. Because most people including black people are wrapped up in their conditioning, they do not see that identifying with black people is actually what they want from white people. Most people value their own identities – their conditioning, no white person can have black experience, so their black identity belittles the whites who are identifying with black people; they belittle the only way whites can be to help them. My path and compassion then took me beyond this conditioned behaviour, I began to identify again with teaching and I became conditioned to living in another country. I identified with this living identity, the travel and teaching until I retired.
That world view stayed with me as I got involved with the political struggle, both nationally with LADC and then locally with the Trades Council. This world view was then consolidated with my excellent communist education – even though being a communist divided me from the grassroots dominated so much by intellectualism.
Meanwhile the path had taken me to romantic love – spiritual love combined with identity as I fell in love twice. The first love came and went so I grew, and the second love burnt out my search for romantic love. The path then took me to Africa and travel. Whilst I thought I had little identity with my community I was wrong, the identity as British person was there but not strong; travel meant I had even less British identity. In Botswana it was said of me that I would never leave Africa, they sensed I identified with Africa but the path moved me on. My final forlorn love happened by chance in Africa – even though I was not searching. With that also failing there was nothing left for romantic love.
Travel took me further afield until the path said enough with the teaching and I retired in Thailand to study. My identity assumed it would be Buddhist but instead the path took me to writing. I had finished identifying full-time as a teacher with all the compromises that entailed, but volunteer work allowed me to dip in-and-out. I became Kruu Bill for the Thais, and even though I don’t teach now that is my Thai identity – my way of being accepted to live amongst them.
But in truth my identities are Zandtaomed the elder and Wai Zandtao the scifi writer. Zandtaomed does a little meditation counselling but the real work are the Z-quests that started as blogs but are not books – requiring depth like the personal 80000 words of dedication to bell hooks. My identities are being limited as it is about the path. The writing helps me explore deeper, it controls the sankhara that would wander everywhere, Z-quest only goes one way – inside.
From birth we are conditioned to identify with our identity, as we grow into being an adult this identity provides protection, but as we mature we let go of all egos including identifying with this identity. As a child there was no great investment in identity, developing the mask of sports and joker that enabled me to manoeuvre my way through adolescent peer groups. Tacitly accepting the conformism of middle-class life, the only investment was in exams; even though I worked hard at the acceptance mask at uni.
After upheaval conditioning was questioned but there was never a rejection of identifying with identity. Throughout second childhood there was a building up of identity, a second childhood identity that protected the path that had been awakened at upheaval; there was a mask/persona that enabled the path to work as a teacher, and as with all masks this second childhood mask blocked the path. Whilst this second childhood persona was much closer to the path, because my life was not 100% dedicated to the path it was still a persona. I identified more with this second childhood persona – a compassionate person choosing teacher because of partial awakening, but it was still an identity.
This is the first time I have accepted that a new identity had been identified with during second childhood. There was still a protective identity, primarily although not exclusively because of vulnerability in the workplace. Because I accepted this identity during second childhood, I did not focus completely on the path; my relationships were not based on the path.
After retirement there was no need for a workplace identity, but was there a new identity? At some stage there was acceptance of anatta but was that acceptance complete? There was still protection of the path amongst the MAWPs at the beach. There was however my own ditthupadana with views that were clinging to socialism, and this became an identity as MAWPs empowered themselves with global dynamics changing. The beach calls as nature but after the threat it does not feel a safe place in nature. Contact with the MAWPs has a tendency to bring back that defensive protective identity that cannot be path because path is not understood by others.
Since the physical threat life has not contained people offline, and masks are taken off and on with individual contact. Anatta has developed gradually starting with Buddhadasa’s “removing the I and mine from the 5 khandhas”. Anatta is a step in my "Mindfulness with Breathing" – reconnecting with Dhamma. With Prajna comes greater understanding of not identifying with identity – just being sunnata.
With each ego that is lost the more spiritual love is the way to be. Whilst upheaval opened the door to the search for romantic love, once that was forcibly rejected there was still the path pushing forward to reconnect with Dhamma and be spiritual love – Prajna. Before there was a division between love and wisdom as evidenced by love’s choices, now there is just Prajna as spiritual love.
Because my retirement identities of Zandtaomed and Wai Zandtao have not taken off - I have not invested time and effort giving them too much of a life beyond the online presence, there are limited burdens – attachments. The shell gets lesser and lesser giving faith that reconnects with the Dhamma. Just being sunnata.
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Zandtao Meditation page
Advice from Zandtaomed