This began innocuously – as more things are lately – when zandtao happened to listen to this Teal clip – Debunking Self-Love myth - transcript here. At the time zandtao noted 2) that was anatta, but he asked himself – why has he never had self-love? And then this developed to “Given that Teal talks of anatta why is she talking of self-love?” Then began a personal journal that brought with it a needed understanding of self-love – that filled a gap in an understanding concerning self-love and anatta. And maybe has some implications for recent considerations of retreats. For zandtao it was  .
In many ways Teal has become an important teacher for zandtao, she is difficult because many times he listens she disturbs in a new way. When he first started with Buddhism and read new stuff, he didn’t get it but he found that pursuing it brought learning. It was this type of approach that made him pursue this journalling on self-love. If there is anatta why should there be self-love? And yet in her clip she recognised anatta, but she is talking of Debunking Self-Love myth and has a book entitled “How to Love Yourself”. Answering these questions became a personal journal that led to understanding, and in this reflection he hopes to give some of this understanding without the personal – personal is for journals.
Once he accepted that there was going to be a self-love journal, zandtao looked into why there was no self-love yet he was on the path. Given that anatta is a characteristic of Buddhism, he had always seen this lack of self-love as a good thing. His path began with upheaval. Understanding this began with recognising and rejecting middle-class upbringing. Then he realised that upheaval happened because his upbringing had not worked – he had never bought into the conformist upbringing and that was why so quickly he broke down in adult life and started on his path – upheaval. Following upheaval his life was connected to this starting on the path. On retirement he studied Buddhism and then Buddhadasa leading eventually to his ZPAP practice and the crossing of the threshold of autonomy. Once he crossed that threshold he began focussing on love and promoting a love-wisdom balance leading to some criticism of the institution of Buddhism. His focus on developing love led to an understanding of west-east balance - a global symbolising of love-wisdom balance. Then he listened to Teal on self-love.
Self-love does not fit into any of that history, in fact it contradicts anatta. To see the importance of this understanding zandtao wants to describe how he sees anatta fitting in. Here the key understanding is that of conditioning, how does our conditioning work? Here is how he had previously described it. We are born; and in the family home and wider society – upbringing, our instincts develop a self that builds into self-esteem that helps us survive in society. On maturing we let go of this conditioned self and begin to follow the path. For zandtao because no self developed, he was fortunate to have upheaval and began following the path that way. He recognised that he was not mature but lucky to have started on the path. For him this meant developing a practice of MwB with Buddhadasa, and this practice basically meant letting go of egos to enable the reconnection with the Dhamma.
For zandtao this was all clear. There was suffering that led to upheaval. He was immature and needed to develop love-wisdom so he started on a 2nd childhood that led to early retirement, study, meditation and the path. Quite naturally in retirement he wanted to give back so as zandtaomed he gave advice that revolved around Buddhadasa’s MwB, the letting go of egos and reconnecting with Dhamma – following the path.
Nothing wrong with this except that his path started with failure – he never developed self-esteem. This lack of self-esteem was a prerequisite for his own upheaval and his starting on the path. In the back of his mind was the question – with most people developing self-esteem and having some sort of success in society how would they develop suffering and want to negate this self and follow the path?
Yet for many of the teachers that zandtao listened to, what happened to zandtao was in some form exactly what was supposed to happen. Successful people in society would eventually want to reject their success and follow the path. So what would happen to the self that had served them well societally? For Buddhism this self was a collection of egos – anatta - that were to be let go, and using Buddhadasa’s terms once they were let go there would build up the Dhamma Comrades and tathata. There would be khandhas (vihara) that would allow consciousness in daily life without attachment. So the successful self that was a collection of egos was to be let go. Whilst he was aware of this apparent incongruity zandtao did not question it because that was what happened to him; only he was lucky he never developed a self, never sought societal success and spent his life in some way connected to the path – following the path in retirement.
All of this was fine until autonomy threw up all these questions about love. And then Teal is talking about “How to love yourself?” and Nicola wants to unleash love. Love is key.
This is more of the background to why zandtao journalled into his not having self-love. And the answer is very much his Sacred Wound and how his upbringing never led to self-esteem. That is personal but it is his Sacred Wound.
With the understanding of his Sacred Wound and its personal impact that led to bill having so little self, zandtao questioned how self arises for others. How do others develop self-esteem? At birth there is mother-love, and in a loving home this love develops in the child so some form of love consciousness develops in the child; this zandtao is calling consciousness-loving-itself – genuine self-love. This self-love could be considered as aligned with consciousness. In other words in a loving home a child can develop genuine self-love – consciousness-loving-itself.
Sadly of course it is not that simple, and conditioning steps in. Firstly parents are conditioned, and when the child is old enough the child is conditioned through education. But here is the rub, from a loving home develops a consciousness-loving-itself in the child – a genuine self-love to some extent. But on that consciousness develops attachments, some become beneficial in surviving society as self-esteem and others become negative attachments that become egos such as kilesa, upadana and attachments to khandhas. There is nothing here that is inconsistent with anatta, even though the child develops genuine self-love (consciousness-loving-itself) this is still consciousness – genuine self-love is still just consciousness.
But here is the important distinction of understanding for zandtao, at the basis of societally-successful adults there could be a genuine self-love arising from a loving family that ends up as self-esteem and the type of selfish ego that has success in society because of conditioning. Previously zandtao would have been considering letting go of all that because it was anatta. Now he realises that at the basis of self-esteem could be genuine self-love – consciousness-loving-itself. When it comes to releasing egos the process is the same but there could be a risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater if that self-esteem is based on genuine self-love.
What then became clear to zandtao is that when Teal is talking of “How to love yourself” she is talking of integrating all parts of self (all the fragments and all the aspects of self that the individual does not like) through letting go of egos that have attached to the genuine self-love – the child’s genuine consciousness that could have been developed in a loving home. For zandtao his Sacred Wound dominated the home so there was no self, but for most people in society there is a core love that does develop – a core love that is genuine consciousness.
For Teal self-love is her practice leading to autonomy, that is quite shattering for zandtao.
Whilst understanding anatta would not throw out genuine self-love as love is a core grace – a core consciousness – one of zandtao’s 5 Dhamma comrades (mindfulness/sati, love/karuna, wisdom/panna, concentration/samadhi and embodiment/sampajanna) – 5 graces plus tathata, institutional practice might cause a problem. Whilst he cannot be absolutely certain, zandtao perceives that in the East a Buddhist path would want to throw out the western ego. Where does the western ego arise? Upbringing. Yet that western ego could contain genuine self-love at its core. If the institutional Buddhism does not recognise genuine self-love as a Dhamma comrade eg unconditional love, then is it possible that when egos are released institutional Buddhism (not seeing love as a Dhamma comrade) also tries to release a core of genuine self-love? Is it possible that a focus on wisdom could lead to a lack of recognition of genuine self-love arising in the family home? At the basis of youthful arrogant western egos could be genuine love that a wisdom tradition might not recognise. And perhaps the discipline of some institutional practices might try to eschew this - creating a huge dilemma for the seeker.
So here is a warning that fits in with the consideration of meditation retreats and all the corruption of meditation in the West that zandtao encapsulates in the term coined elsewhere – McMindfulness. In the past seekers have gone East as typified by the Beatles, this process has generally been positive. These seekers made that journey out of suffering, and were seeking the path. Now we have western egos coming east on gap years and dabbling. At the same time heavyweight meditation retreats have gone West so that seekers just “popped down the road for enlightenment”. There is discussion of the dangers and consequences of this issue here, and zandtaomed gives advice on meditation retreats here. In a western society where patriarchy has created so much mental illness we cannot be blasé about meditation - and the discipline needed, we have to consider meditation and trauma carefully. Pathtivism is still for zandtao the way forward but the mental illness created by patriarchy has made access to the path far more fraught.
From his self-love journey zandtao sees Teal’s self-love as a practice for her path of autonomy; and, for those more conformist seekers who have developed a self in a loving home – consciousness-loving-itself, zandtao sees this practice as more appropriate. Whilst his lack of self is not appropriate for Teal’s practice of self-love, he would see those with self-esteem starting their search as finding benefit from Teal’s “How to Love Yourself”. This would not be eschewing any self as a collection of egos – zandtao’s misinterpretation of anatta, but letting go of the egos that have attached to self integrating all aspects of self (fragments maybe) leading to completeness, and in this way aligning with consciousness. For zandtao aligning with consciousness occurred at upheaval because his upbringing gave him no significant self to love – a shortcut for him but only an appropriate approach towards the path for those whose limited self did not arise from genuine self-love.
For zandtao to understand self-love he journalled on what Teal spoke of in this clip. For each of the points Teal raised, he examined why he did not have self. His purpose was to examine why there was no self from his upbringing rather than debunking the self-love myth that Teal was addressing. For zandtao learning of Teal’s role of self-love as a practice was staggering because his path had effectively started at new-zero at age 23. Whilst he has read of similar starts on the path, for many people suffering arises with disillusion later in life and such suffering arises for seekers who have a strong ego but at the base of that ego is a genuine consciousness-loving-itself. Getting rid of a self based in consciousness cannot happen, and attempting to do so can only cause distress. Recognising this, Teal has developed a practice of self-love that integrates fragments and releases egos; this self-love realigns love-consciousness that can arise in a loving home. For zandtaomed now any later advice would revolve around the question of a loving home – the nature of a seeker’s Sacred Wound. Whilst this understanding was staggering for zandtao, it might have little impact for many seekers coming from some sort of loving home. So interesting.
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