[The Holy journey begins, and for zandtao that now means looking into the Agape tradition to balance the wisdom tradition that amongst others gave him his practice. This Agape-quest is designated by the  in title and reflection contents.]
Awful day! Clive the paradoxical electronic-Luddite technologist would love (exaggerated) the thought of this awful day. Last night before sleeping zandtao lay in bed and switched the aircon remote to temperature only – wanting the humidity to rise a bit. Surprising disaster, fool, zandtao fell asleep. It is the middle of hot season – a heatwave? – so during the night the humidity can shoot up, and zandtao woke up with his stomach telling him there was humidity. He didn’t feel good, and he struggled to get the aircon to work in “dry mode” to reduce the humidity. Zandtao had lost sleep, and the humidity had given him a poor awakening. It was early afternoon before he put on an interview with Dr Anita Phillips and Oprah – transcript.
Just an aside - a bit of hero worship. Oprah has introduced so much good spirituality to mainstream, Thay, the excellent course with Eckhart on New Earth - now an Eckhart podcast, and so much more. Zandtao dislikes her lack of patriarchal criticism (as an example he cannot find an interview with bell hooks – maybe?), but paths are paths; what way could get Thay, Eckhart and other wonderful people into “normal” living rooms. She has fame and wealth, gives back, and exposes normal conditioned people to sound truth, a hero. Zandtao discerns, who Oprah appears to be has understandable path limitations; but she is a celebrity giving people access – not a spiritual leader.
Putting hero worship aside, zandtao loved listening to Dr. Phillips, Anita. She talks of so much that is good, that is missed in the wisdom tradition that zandtao got into contact with on his path. There was trauma work, healing the inner child, expressing emotions, all the vedana work. She even mentions spiritual bypassing, a term Oprah said originated with John Welwood – if Oprah says so it would have to pass her researchers; zandtao will still refer to Teal and hopes he has never incorrectly intimated she coined the term.
This HEART reflection does not attempt a full understanding of Anita’s approach and because of that he is possibly being unfair to Anita and apologises. But also notes that this last sentence was written as an initial reaction, and as he finished the transcription and reflection he liked her stuff more. The following is still an incomplete overview – his own interpretation, no conformation from Anita nor Oprah. She is black church, and to some extent her background is love from that church - for zandtao at this stage that would fit in with the agape tradition. Because of a Sacred Wound she turned to trauma therapy, coming up with “the garden within” - no link as zandtao has not read it. Her trauma therapy is concerned with this inner journey – cultivating the garden within. Cultivating love is a term Thay used – longer talk here, the garden within needs cultivating, love and well-being don’t just happen.
Zandtao began with an approach to skirt over her garden as a spiritual one-hit but it appears there might be confusion around love, emotions, attachments and the arising of trauma. But she is slick and convincing - loving God and appearance of pastor ego. This understanding arose as zandtao was tightening up the transcript; but by the time he finished the transcript and reflection, he saw her as much more than a one-hit wonder.
[8.39] “We believed the lie that our thoughts create our feelings, but they do not. It is our feelings that water our thoughts. Our thoughts come from the soil of our hearts. And so that's a very different way of understanding ourselves.” Confusing metaphor. Feelings and thoughts come from the heart that is autonomy – connection to Source. Or from conditioned egos.
Is she giving emotions too much attention – clinging? [9.06] “they're like hunger pangs. When we feel hungry, we know we need food. When we feel sadness, it's actually indicating a need for connection. When we're angry, it's usually because something that we value has been treated as less than; and we need that value restored. And when we're afraid, we need safety. And so emotional pain is like a hunger pang for connection, for value, for safety. And humans need those things to survive.” We do need to listen to these emotions mindfully, and then we apply mindfulness wisely (panna and sampajanna).
[9.30] “But we have been taught that our emotions are in the way. They're slowing me down from my goals. We're putting it aside. And so it's like we're running the marathon of our life without feeding our needs. And that's why so many people achieve their goals, but are emotionally empty, because they still haven't eaten.” We need to integrate our vedana (feelings and emotions), not be conditioned just for success. This lack of integration is the emptiness. But love governs the vedana, and it is this lack of the grace of love that is the fundamental emptiness – not empty because we lack anger etc. Mindfully we recognise the emotions, work through and release them – no clinging – with a view to being love. This quote appears to show Anita confusing the graces and emotions, but that perception might need reconsidering in light of her meaningful life - and eventually unconditional love. Connection is love. If anger is concerned with personal value, then the anger is an attachment to self-esteem and the seeker should consider the need to let go. Anger is often an expression of repressed trauma, and if we get angry at something it is likely to be this repressed trauma. Is safety a temporary emotion we feed and let go? Emotional needs arise, we meet those needs and let them go. They become attachments when they are not mindfully dealt with as action, for zandtao Anita is convincing but perhaps confused about emotions and attachments as a whole.
[9.55] “But it's so much more than that to live this meaningful life …. The more is relationships. The more is purpose. The more is leaving legacy.” This is better but there isn’t an integrated approach. [10.17] “I want to grow this internally from an emotionally well place. It might take longer for me to get where I'm going, but I'll get there well.” This is more like path and vihara where emotions are part of the vihara, and part of the vihara will be the heart and the cultivations. [10.26] “The creator designed your heart to be a garden, not a war zone. A truly powerful life isn't won. It is cultivated. And so that cultivation is a continual process.” Cultivated by practice.
[11.22] “I'd rather you be mindless than heartless. When we think about how important it is for you to have heart in everything you do, it's what makes us different from every other creature, the depth of our emotional capacity.” She doesn’t say it but heart is love. Love is in charge of vedana – our emotional capacity, but emotions and love are not the same.
Hope is water. [13.45] “We often talk about hope as a mindset. But if people really sat down and got in touch with hope, they would feel that in their body. When you reflect on a time when God surprised you or something worked out unexpectedly, that feeling that you get, I call that hope. That's something else good that can happen. You feel it first, and then the water from the soil is drawn into the plant. That's the mind.”
What is hope? Is hope important? This must come from faith, hope and charity. No views on hope at the moment. Zandtao has faith in the path, hope is not necessary for himself. For Gaia hope has no meaning except the hope of everyone to follow their path. Hope?
Zandtao needed some clarity on thought. For Anita there appears to be some causal link between emotion and thought, and that prior to her awareness about the garden thoughts arose without emotion; this is confused. And because of her confidence causes confusion. The highest source of thought is the interaction of the 5 graces with events, and thoughts arise; thoughts arise from autonomy. And if there is no autonomy thoughts arise from the conditioned self – the conditioned egos. It is natural for thoughts to arise, be processed by sankhara - guided hopefully by mindfulness but also guided by conditioning for those not on the path, and then let go. If not let go, these thoughts become new egos.
There is some correctness in Anita’s position. When Anita pays attention to emotions, she can attach to them forming egos, and from these egos will come thoughts. What seems to be good about Anita is that she pays attention to emotions, and by paying attention the emotions are let go thus avoiding trauma. Vedana arise as consequence of autonomy or egos reacting to events. These vedana can be powerful; if they are not processed and let go - primarily by love (as love is in charge of vedana) but also by the other 4 graces then they are attached to as egos – internalised as egos. These vedana can be so powerful they can become trauma if they are not processed by love. Trauma that arises from Sacred Wounds – the Holy khandha – comes from an ongoing traumatic family situation where emotions constantly arise, are not processed, and instead of being let go are suppressed and internalised building up as trauma. By calling for emotions to be attended to by love, Anita is avoiding trauma, but because she does not promote the grace of wisdom there might not be discernment in the emotions she attends to thus causing egos to be formed.
Above she spoke of 3 emotions as hunger pains – “When we feel sadness, it's actually indicating a need for connection. When we're angry, it's usually because something that we value has been treated as less than; and we need that value restored. And when we're afraid, we need safety. And so emotional pain is like a hunger pang for connection, for value, for safety.” But she then spoke of a meaningful life as being more important (than connection, value and safety). Feed the hunger of emotions by this meaningful life – the autonomy of the path – the 5 graces.
This feels better. It is Oprah’s questioning and the focus on the garden one-hit that loses the broader perspective – the meaningful life - unconditional love as said at the end - and presumably some connection with God. Again because of garden this connection with God and the 5 graces was not discussed. Does zandtao investigate that with Anita or does he stick with Pastor Michael?
In looking at Anita zandtao holds to a structure that comes from his practice and understanding that is part of Buddhism – a wisdom tradition. The wisdom helped clarify and discern. Anita’s faith, the magnetism to her path and the power of that path, gives her a strength and confidence. This power is dangerous because of the clear possibility that Anita has not focussed enough on wisdom – and the removal of ignorance (meant nicely). Her faith in loving God (and perhaps her pastor conviction) means the apparently less powerful wisdom is lost. Zandtao can now see this as central to the Love tradition, if loving God is all that matters there is much danger of imbalance and a lack of wisdom (ignorance). There needs to be a love-wisdom balance – autonomy of 5 graces.
Terrible mother was another Sacred Wound because of the mental illness of her sister – she calls it a script. Fear of being a terrible mother [15.44] “(it) was a script that I absorbed because my mom couldn't figure out what had happened to my sister.” Because of the Holy khandha she worked at motherhood and “I ended up being a really good one”. Oprah not recognising Sacred Wounds “a script that wasn't meant to be yours gets into your heart and you take that script on as your own narrative?” [16.26] Anita counters with “[16.30] It happens over and over again. That is what generational trauma is”, we have generational trauma leading to Holy khandha.
Interesting description of generational trauma “Generational trauma is the story that we're telling, the toxic, dysfunctional, incorrect story that we tell and that we absorb and pass on. That's one of the greatest effects of generational trauma, it is that the story has been distorted about what it means to have these life experiences. And so that was trauma for me.” Here Anita is describing the accumulating childhood trauma as “toxic and dysfunctional” yet she appears not to blame her parents. The point of a Holy khandha is not that the parents are to blame, they were chosen – the toxic and dysfunctional might be traumatic but in choosing parents we are choosing them to be the best they can be – and the best they can be for our path.
Another trauma arose for what didn’t happen for a child. “[18.32] the one who stayed was seen as ungrateful when really, they were just unseen. And that is trauma, to be unseen, not to be nurtured, not to be attuned to. You can have all your physical needs met, but your heart needs are not met.” No active loving. Seeing this as trauma meant that Anita took this Holy khandha and focussed on the nurturing. “It's the deepest trauma. That's the devastating part as no one sees my pain. And no one tells me I'm allowed to be in pain” [19.03].
Strong point “[19.30] And you have that child inside. And you begin to believe it didn't matter. And so you silence him or her. And that is so scary. And that perpetuates generational trauma because what I've seen in clients that I've worked with for 20 years is that how you treat the child inside of you is how you will treat the child in front of you. And if you minimize the pain you have inside, buck up, you got this, you won't see that they're hurting. You won't see the abuse that's happening because you ignore the child inside of you. So we have to heal internally to take care of our own children.”
Healing - [23.36] “In order to allow yourself to truly grow, you have to allow the pain to flow through. And so we need to stop letting our fear of emotional pain in our own selves and in other people's lives cause us to try to put spiritual band-aids on the wound that's happening there. Proverbs 15:13 says this. By sorrow of the heart, the spirit is broken”. [24.11] “It will break your perception of God. It will break your safety in the creator's presence because you have these questions that come from that kind of pain.” Egos that cast doubt on the path, egos that arise from trauma.
Anger [30.36] “There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of anger for two reasons. One, we're living in a time where we're holding as tightly as we can on our values. And people are holding value systems that are hard to reconcile. And a lot of them are out front, and so there's anger there. But anger is also a secondary emotion that rises up to protect us from fear and from sadness. And so there are a lot of really angry people who are actually just really scared or really sad.”
Anger is a good example of why we need to see patriarchy. When bell told us of imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, this description of the conditioned world brings with it all the angers that must arise in a compassionate person. How do we let go of the anger that has to arise from seeing patriarchy? For zandtao this requires sampajanna, embodied action that works for the path esp love, and therefore automatically is against patriarchy but also releases any anger that arises from patriarchy. But when conditioning does not allow us to see patriarchy, the anger becomes internal trauma. And if we hold to ditthupadana, then anger comes out.
But if we look deep enough we are not angry with Trump and associated ignorance, we can see that this is a consequence of patriarchy. If we follow our paths of nature, then our autonomy is working for God or Source – we are doing our best. In this way we can let go of the anger – or we could pointlessly cling to such angers. If anger is rising to protect us from fear and sadness, where is that anger coming from? Again the source is internalised trauma. For fear ego might be afraid that what is being said could release the ego. Sadness might arise because what is being said might make us see the trauma within, and if we are not seeing that trauma with a view to release it then there is sadness. But in both these cases the anger is coming from within, and not anger at what is being said. What is being said is a trigger that could be used to heal trauma.
Anita says something similar without seeing patriarchy. [31.24] “Why are you so angry? Because we want to be protected. And sadness feels vulnerable and scary. And anger feels like power. Fear feels vulnerable and scary. Anger feels like power. But sometimes it helps if we be honest about our emotions. Man, you seem really mad about that. I'm just really scared. I'm just really sad. And invite them into a vulnerable, honest place by being honest about how you feel. We don't need to try and give them facts about why they need to change it. Invite them into your heart space. Talk about how you're feeling. That makes it safer for them to talk about how they feel.” A good approach to offer “Try and get them to safe places. Try to be a safe place” [31.19].
And here is Anita’s practice – cultivating her garden:-
[33.12] "As soon as I open my eyes in the morning, I always say, right after I thank God that I'm still alive--
…. And then I scan my body, just close my eyes. And I imagine, like, a little scan going down to see how my body is feeling to let me know where I am emotionally. We can press our emotions down quick. But in the morning, they're right there on the surface. So is my stomach tight? Do I have tension in my neck? What might be going? Do I have butterflies? And if there is some emotional pain present, then I ask myself, what do I need? What do I need? Do I need to be connected? Do I need some safety? And how can I get that need met well? And make that my priority first thing in the morning. How do I get the need met that my emotional life is hungry for? Does the soil need water? Does it need fertilizer? What's happening? And once that's cared for, I can move into my day clearheaded. But when we skip over that, we think we're fine. But underneath the surface, that pain is undermining us.
…. Conscious ritual every single day, sometimes more than once a day. If I feel some tension rising, I'll stop and do it again. But waking up first thing in the morning, every day, I check in."
Soul-to-soul:-
"OPRAH WINFREY: God is your co-parent." Sounds an interesting approach - zandtao cannot comment.
Anita’s meaningful life – relationship, legacy and purpose.
“It was inconceivable because so much of parenting has revolved around power. And we think that that lays down power for us, but it doesn't. [39.18] Our children need to hear that (an apology) from us. It changes things. It teaches them about authority and love and gives them the chance to show grace.”
[40.17] “that's the ultimate sacrifice is to not protect ourselves all the time, but to recognize that vulnerability and connection is worth the risk of the pain that we might experience in our pursuit of connection and relationship.”
[40.41] “My true offering to the world? … Safety and love. I want every person I encounter to feel safe in my space and to know what it feels like to truly experience unconditional love. I don't even have to know you. I see you as a human being. I want people to feel that.” Unconditional love - so good!!
My reaction to this conversation didn’t start well as there seemed confusion. But as it moved on it got better culminating in this last excellent quote. The confusion arising around attachment has to be across the Christian spectrum - how is it resolved?
Overall this talk with Anita helped discern path and patriarchy both in terms of Anita and Oprah. For Anita we have mainstream black church, and zandtao is not sure what that means in terms of love but he can investigate Michael Beckwith’s “Foundation for the Love Revolution” and “Secrets to Lasting Love and Connection” for clarity on this. The first part of this paragraph was written before finishing the transcribing, he might well look for what Anita says about love after her ending. What Anita highlights is the trauma aspect of the path, and brings in the Holy khandha – 3 different Holy khandhas. She emphasised spiritual bypassing thus avoiding the Buddhadasa limitation of love in vedana, but in the talk with Oprah there was not a focus on love except for the good ending. Maybe love was assumed because of black church?
Anita’s practice was focussed on the vedana – the emotions of her garden, so this leaves questions in terms of the 5 graces. [Just a note here, after Nicola the z-quest could be grace through Caroline Myss – A Time for Grace. Maybe then the stages of her Christian mystic Holy journey such as resurrection?] Where is Anita’s mindfulness and sampajanna? Her approach was to clean up the vedana so that thought is better – better citta. Will there then be mindfulness if there was no emphasis on citta? In Oprah’s talk where was the embodiment? No, that was there in her trauma work. Zandtao sees Anita stopping short in terms of the path because of the lack of integration, and without an integrated path there cannot then be the autonomy and love-wisdom balance that began the seeing emphasis on the lack of love in patriarchy for zandtao.
But this was only one talk, and it was a talk directed by Oprah. For Oprah love would be fine if it were not connected to patriarchy eg no bell hooks’ imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. So Oprah can promote Thay, his autonomy and love-wisdom balance, but she could not draw any connection of love and patriarchy; this is just an acceptance of the good work Oprah has done on her path and an acceptance of her limitation - conscious or otherwise. And a recognition that as a celebrity she is not a religious leader, if she did consider herself a leader then the lack of recognition of the connection between love and patriarchy would be very important.
Initially zandtao saw Anita as a good one-hit wonder finding her niche in the trauma of her garden, but maybe there is more. There are many such good one-hit wonders in spirituality. The gates open onto the path as they did for Anita with her Holy khandhas mainly the demise of her sister to death from mental illness, but then they get stuck at the gate without following their paths sufficiently - a form of ditthupadana based on conviction. How far has this garden been integrated into the path of autonomy? This reflection makes no attempt to do Anita justice – sorry, but maybe she is worth following more. But she is slick and apparently full of pastor ego.
Two clear aspects of clarity in this limited investigation of Anita’s approach:-
Holy khandha does not blame parents. The holy khandha arises primarily through the family home but is not a criticism of parents unless there is clinging beyond the double bind of leaving home. In terms of cults the family home could function as a halfway house where the seeker regains health and then leaves the home to seek again.
Autonomy brings the tathata that sees the relationship between love and patriarchy. Without tathata there is not the conviction of the clear connection. It is not the love tradition or the wisdom tradition but the tathata that sees patriarchy but that seeing only came for zandtao when there was a love-wisdom balance. How does seer arise in Agape? Why did Michael have it?
Excellent start into the investigation of the love tradition. So many clear signposts to look at. Zandtao initially apologises to Anita, he has not attempted to consider how complete her path is – that is not the purpose of this HEART Agape reflection. Maybe he will look more into her – sadly no usual access to her book.
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