In chapter 1 zandtao gave a description of path and how these paths come from Nature, hopefully each seeker will recognise their own path somewhere along the line of that description. Perhaps they will recognise some but not all - the seeker’s choice. But in a description we only have theory, it is the doing of your own practice that matters. It is in the dedication to one’s own practice that cult followers get deluded by, it is not the following of the practice of another that matters it is the determination to find and do your own work.
Finding and doing your own work is not at all theoretical. Any study that is done hand-in-hand with practice has only one purpose - to improve understanding so that the practice is deeper. Reading inordinate theoretical books just provides ideas to cling to - to take up space in mind - to clutter consciousness with contents, the purpose of study is to help the seeker understand how their practice works. This purpose is important because any good practice has bhavana - development, without appropriate study it is difficult to see where this bhavana can come from - difficult but not impossible.
Without practice there is no embodiment. There might well be insights - and any insight goes deeper, but without practice that increased depth is not integrated. With practice there is much deeper growth. In conditioned education we are encouraged to read and read, a good thesis has many references but does academia require understanding for its qualifications? This is a habit to break - reading for reading’s sake, there has to be study for understanding and there cannot be understanding without practice.
Stuck without Practice
As we watch the spiritual internet we see many inspiring stories of people finding their paths. These stories are definitely inspiring - be inspired by them but don’t be swayed by their effusiveness, vehemence and apparent bliss. Paths give these to you - recognise that. The path shows you the way - recognise that. But don’t imitate. Imitations might give an initial buzz but as time wears on the gloss fades. So why does this happen? Very simple, imitated paths are not your path - it is a choice to imitate someone else at the time (see Addon B - Faith Vacuum and Cults ).
When we listen to the numerous spiritual achievers on the internet we can see they have achieved their path - to a greater or lesser extent. But those early on their paths present a delusion, they think it is about understanding. Their paths might revolve around powerful insights that kickstart their path - what Eckhart called firstgrace. But here’s the rub, if you hold onto the insights the bliss will go. There needs to be development, without development the bliss will go, then the insights will go, and you will feel stuck. And this stuckness might well turn you back to the materialism of system-of-accumulation or worse - addiction to cope with system-of-accumulation.
Before you get stuck in this way, you need to develop a practice. Whilst understandings do bring bliss at first, they are not meant to be permanent bliss-makers. Understanding is meant to develop through practice. Given our academic upbringings we might decide to try to improve understanding through study. This might produce new insights for a while but then that stops. The study route only reaches a certain level before it gets stuck, with the consequences of that stuckness being materialism and possible escapist addiction.
Why does this happen? Because in a sense our consciousness is full so we are not ready (have space) for new insights with accompanying bliss. What our consciousness is full of is conditioning - conditioning that is full of attachments and clingings to ego and suffering. Some new insights can come in but we need to develop a practice that releases these attachments to conditioning, that creates the space for further insights that can bring bliss. Many of these spiritual experiences with bliss on the internet inspire but do not discuss the need for practice, becoming stuck is not what new seekers want to hear about - sometimes getting stuck is not something these bliss people have yet found out about. And if seekers don’t hear about it during the bliss they might not hear about it when they need it - when they are stuck.
Some of these spiritual people with understanding and bliss may not even have crossed this problem of stuckness. Why? What they present on the internet is their path as they are experiencing it. Especially at the beginning they do not accumulate attachments on that path, attachments that increase with stuckness; but such paths are their way - their path - and not the path for everyone. If new seekers imitate them they might quickly find that they become stuck. New seekers need to awake to their own paths through their own practice. These internet people might also be deluding themselves or some might even be charlatans. Charlatans or cult leaders are dangerous, and seekers need to be careful. Those blissful spiritual advocates holding to delusions - without practice - will eventually become stuck - and disappear from the net.
As genuine seekers you need to develop a practice that creates the space for grace and insights. In this way you can transition from the bliss of firstgrace understanding to ongoing insight that arises from holding the space created by a good practice. Without holding this space for consciousness we become stuck clinging to understandings that we have held for years, understandings that without development pull us away from our paths. Holding space is the second theme of practice and is discussed in Ch4.
It is in this way zandtao wants you to understand chapter 1. For zandtao the understandings in chapter 1, all came from insight and in the early stages esp. upheaval there was bliss involved. Now there is not even the Kathleen Turner (opening scene of Romancing the Stone) bliss for finishing a “novel” because the bliss has spread through his life diffusing into a genrealised increase in spiritual joy. These are zandtao’s understandings that hopefully inspire insight and perhaps bliss as firstgrace or deeper. But so little of what he learnt in ch1 would have arisen without practice - without the release of attachments that then created the holding-space for the insights and graces.
What Human Practice is for?
In the intro-vision zandtao described a human infrastructure, practice is entwined within that human infrastructure. In life mind-consciousness can end the restrictions that have arisen due to conditioning and then can evolve Unity-consciousness. Through our practices we can end the restrictions that have arisen as attachments to ego, spectrum of suffering and different clingings over time.
There is little point in believing. If you just accept the two intro-visions as some form of truth irrespectively then your practice will be limited. Your practice needs to be a process in which your work is meaningful to you, internalised rather than on the surface as belief, any understandings deeply grappled with through mindfulness. When your practice is ending your restrictions it has to be done within an infrastructure of your own understanding - not zandtao's understanding. Believe zandtao as gospel and that belief will become an obstacle - an additional restriction.
Do you have control of your mind? Are you able to use your mind-consciousness in an unrestricted way so that you can evolve Unity-consciousness? Or more simply are you able to control your mind so it doesn't disturb you? Does your mind spin around, come in and out of your thinking so that you cannot enjoy life the way you want to? To begin with your mind must be trained to do what you want, and to train it you have to first know what is the purpose of your training? In other words you need to know the objectives of your own training. When you are training your mind what is it you want to train your mind to do? Can you use your mind in an unrestrictive way? Can your mind focus rather than spinning round and disturbing?
When we are young our minds are conditioned to focus to some extent in school. As we grow older our minds conform through collective imitation to the way all minds work in our conformed and conditioned society. But we can be disturbed about this? We might not accept conformity, we might not accept some of the restrictions and then our minds become disturbed - not integrated into the way we want to live our lives. Our paths might find a way of triggering this.
So if we recognise that our mind is not under control and is disturbing us we have mind-consciousness there to help us control. If we choose to engage mind-consciousness to control our minds that is the beginning of practice - a minimal turning-point. Once we have turned to using mind-consciousness, then there is the possibility for us to learn to develop control of our minds. Religions and other institutions have belief systems in place that include this control of minds, but accepting those systems can cause problems because they also fill consciousness with contents of dogma that limits this process. Ideally we examine our minds and use our mind-consciousness to control mind autonomously without having any contents. But that is difficult at the beginning because we do not know what controlling the mind actually is.
Once we have started practice we need to learn what human practice is for, we need to learn how our mind-consciousness can control the mind. The usual way is for a new seeker to follow a prescribed system that includes belief - includes filling consciousness with dogma. zandtao is not discouraging that practice, because once we have started practice we are then in a position to develop it - we need to develop it. We cannot reach our own autonomous practice without learning, but what zandtao is asking you to do is to select. Whatever system of practice you choose as a seeker, try to minimalise the contents of consciousness - the clinging to beliefs and ideals. Please don’t accept the institution when in the end all you want is your own individual autonomous prctice. If you are discerning in this way your focus on practice gets better and better, and in the end as a seeker your practice becomes dedicated to your autonomy (autonomy discussed in Ch4), and you become dedicated to your practice - abiding in your autonomous practice.
So your human practice is concerned with ending restrictions that have arisen from conditioning - usually in upbringing. Above zandtao has recognised that institutions have systems in place which are their versions of “ending restrictions that have arisen from conditioning”. How far a seeker chooses to accept the institutional system is their discernment but zandtao wants to describe how he sees the conditioning and the restrictions that arise. Maybe you as a seeker can gain understanding by enquiring into zandtao’s way of seeing.
We first begin with the conditioning that arises as a consequence of the system zandtao described as an intro-vision of what’s it all for. Within an individual’s development in that system an individual becomes conditioned as described in the vision of human infrastructure. Put simplistically, the system wants an individual to develop self-esteem to conform and be successful within that system without choosing to develop their own vision to see beyond the delusions the system requires. There is no cabal of individuals designing that system, it is a system of collective conditioned delusion that has developed over time. There are however materially-successful conditioned people who have recognised how this delusory system works and have been successful in benefitting from it financially (the measure of systemic success); through the system-of-accumulation they exert power and influence with their finance in order to increase their financial advantage. But these people are still conditioned in the system-of-accumulation, it is unlikely that these people are going to see through their conditioning because in systemic terms they benefit from it; but for harmony we encourage them to follow their paths. For the rest of us it is important to try to make people aware of these conditioned successful people because whilst they are accumulating more finance the world is being damaged - unless stopped zandtao sees this as a possible eventual extinction process.
Throughout history there have been various systems of ideas that have failed to end this extinction process. What these systemic approaches do is fill consciousness with contents, essentially divide people into accepting systemic approaches of ideals or not, and meanwhile there is increasing destructive accumulation. For zandtao the way forward is the way nature intended - follow your path. This is not one path of prescribed collective activity, this path is individual, and develops from an individual ending restrictions that have arisen from conditioning. If an individual transcends their conditioning, ends the restrictions of attachment to ego - ending their own suffering and not clinging to contents, then that individual will be able to choose their own actions without any inappropriate systemic delusions. It is between the individual and nature what those actions are, but we all can know if everyone follows their paths then nature’s design will bear the fruition of peace and harmony. Ultimately that is what human practice is for.
What does conditioning look like?
Conditioning intends to develop self-esteem so that an individual becomes successful within the system and chooses not to see beyond the delusion of that system. Overall this works because we can see that the delusory system is continuing, but how it works within each individual is for that individual to decide. Basically if there is sufficient self-esteem and success such an individual is unlikely to question conditioning because they have accepted the conformity of the system and been successful within it. But for others not so immersed in the success of that conformed conditioning the path might trigger questions. And through such enquiry delusions can be removed. For the successful, the path can also trigger questions typical of which might be how truly happy (peace and harmony) are you now that you are successful?
But the development of such enquiry is individual. In the intro-vision of what’s it all for zandtao described the way he sees the delusory system is and the way he sees it is underpinned by the system-of-accumulation, but how our individual conditioning perceives that delusory system depends on upbringing; enquiry is an individual process. However the consequence of that enquiry has a collective characteristic - the vision to see through the delusory system. But to have this clear vision an individual has to end the restrictions that have arisen from their conditioning - they need the practice to end restrictions - enquiry and practice.
We have seen that the conditioning process develops a collective delusory system that is destructive, and to break this delusion down requires enquiry to see through the delusions. But how do we recognise the restrictions within us that have arisen from the conditioning? Let us try and examine this.
What is self-esteem?
This is not a straight-forward question. Let’s start with what can be straight-forward. At a particular period in your life the question do you have self-esteem? can be answered. But when you answer it, there are levels to the question. Self-esteem initially arises as part of conditioning, and is a measure of conformed success. At a stage in your upbringing the question do you have self-esteem? could arise, and in terms of the intro-vision the answer might well be straight-forward. More likely, during upbringing the question might better be considered with adults asking does the young person have self-esteem?, and if the adults answer yes the young person will also be likely to answer yes. If the answers are not the same then the young person is the one likely to be saying no because what the young person values is not what the conforming adults value.
As the individual becomes adult, self-esteem only becomes a measure of what that individual as an adult wants - if the adult is successful in the delusory system and sees that system as important then self-esteem remains high. In the answers so far we have not considered self, we have mostly considered self-esteem as a measure of conformity to the delusory system and success within it. In such situations the self is a set of conditioned personalities, characteristics or egos that have led to conformed success.
But what happens for that individual if these personalities characteristics and egos are questioned? What happens if that individual decides that conformed success is not the only measure of self that the individual wants to assess their esteem by? At this point these personalities characteristics and egos can become restrictions in two ways - restricting because they conflict with conformed success in the delusory system or restricting because the individual wants to choose a different way to live. Do all individuals resolve the potential conflicts between their self as these personalities characteristics and egos and the restrictions? No, for many it is an ongoing conflict that they accept. But for others their path starts to become stronger triggering enquiry, and possible practice to follow.
When looked at in terms of varying self-esteem there is actually no unchanging self; these personalities characteristics and egos change with time and differing roles within the delusory system. Yet we are encouraged to consider that the individual is a particular self (set of personalities, characteristics and egos) - and give that self a name (the name our family gives us). As the individual gets older and develops more in adult life he is encouraged to identify as a self - even though the self and self-esteem are changing. And this identifying with self introduces another set of conflicts to resolve. These newer sets of conflicts arise between the self and self-esteem arising with the conformed success and the individual who is expected to identify with this self that is successful within this conformed delusory system.
But none of this is actually concerned with the authenticity of the individual, it is concerned with the conforming self-esteem within the system.
How does authenticity fit in?
Is it authentic that 100% self-esteem is for those who completely accept the delusory system and conformed success - is it authentic to ignore the delusions? Immediately we consider the word authentic we must start enquiry into delusion, but as soon as we do that we start to consider compromise. Consciously or unconsciously we are compromising with the delusory system in order to achieve success - for many people this compromise is simply based on the need for money in their personal life. So we have a fragment of self (personalities, characteristics and ego) that compromises with the system to get money for personal life.
Whilst this doesn’t sound too authentic such a fragment brought about by compromise might be reasonable - not authentic but a reasonable compromise. If however you choose authentic to be a measure then authenticity would begin to ask questions. What in your personal life is the money needed for? And most answers to this involve family - and the material needs for effective upbringing, there is a level of authenticity in the family as many adults compromise with the delusory system in order to provide for a home and bringing up children. Given the level of delusion in the system such adults often marginalise authenticity from this systemic fragment - defining authenticity in their life through their families alone; some/many adults can survive such avoidance of authenticity.
But any further questioning by authenticity is likely to bring conflict, self-esteem is being measured only by dedication to family and success in wage-slavery. Is this authentic? Is there sufficient self-esteem in this level of authenticity? But whilst there is honourable duty in dedication to family, could this also be a compromise with authenticity? And these compromises - dedication to family and the systemic fragment - become especially important when we take an overview of the delusory system, and evaluate that it is destructive potentially at an extinction level. If we see this, then authenticity as family-dedication and systemic fragment itself is a delusion; it cannot be authentic to contribute to an extinction-level system.
Whilst many seekers moving towards authenticity might not have the same vision of the system as zandtao’s intro-vision, their authenticity will still lead to further enquiry. Self-esteem in terms of dedication to family and systemic fragment might not be enough, and the further enquiry could lead to an authentic evaluation of what they do. Because of the level of identification with societal selves, this enquiry can cause doubt and could become authentic self-evaluation.
What is authentic self-evaluation?
So far there has not really been any recognition of what self is. Within the delusory system there has been self-esteem initially measured by the level of conformed success. This then develops into a compromise where there is an accepted systemic fragment primarily to provide money for dedication to family. As part of the delusory system we are asked to identify with the self of personalities, characteristics and ego that arise from our upbringing - accepting the systemic fragment of compromise for family, but if our authenticity takes us beyond that compromise we become lost in trying to answer what is our authentic self?
To best consider this we look at the intro-vision of human infrastructure - Unity-consciousness being evolved by mind-consciousness. Here we have an authentic process of evolving Unity-consciousness; rather than needing closer description of self or others, authentic self is part of this authentic process of evolving Unity-consciousness. Awareness is an awakening to what this process is, and practice is what is required to enable this process of evolving Unity-consciousness.
Once our path has taken us to awareness of this Unity-consciousness process - a fundamental initial transcendence of our conditioning, then we must look at any restrictions that conditioning has thrown up to prevent this process. From the intro-vision we have:-
“Unity-consciousness provides us with graces to help us follow our paths, and these graces are described differently depending upon your practice. The purpose of our own consciousness and life’s development is to consciously evolve Unity-consciousness through our mind-consciousness. Our mind-consciousness accepts these graces to evolve consciousness once mind-consciousness has released conditioning.”
Are we able to accept and work with graces coming from Unity-consciousness? Is our mind-consciousness liberated to accept these graces? What are the restrictions that prevent mind-consciousness from accepting and working with the graces? What are the restrictions that prevent mind-consciousness from being liberated?
The first restriction is identifying with self as in self-esteem; this is restriction caused by egos where self is understood as haracetristics, personalities and egos. When our mind-consciousness is full of contents rather than having a liberated consciousness it is restricted - this is the restriction of clinging. And there is a third restriction we have not yet discussed - filling the mind with suffering arising from daily life. For mind-consciousness to be liberated it needs to be free from these 3 restrictions.
Understanding attachment
We become stuck when our mind-consciousness is full of egos, content and suffering and we don’t try to free up space to accept graces and develop new insight - and therefore attain the joy of new bliss. Let’s examine this mind-consciousness being full in terms of our upbringing. What does education do? It is a preparation for the world of work, and we are expected to repeat facts - and imitate or copy behaviours. Facts and imitation are not abilities, they are content - they take up space in consciousness. In the qualifications for the world of work through examinations we are expected to repeat or imitate - fill our mind-consciousness with content.
Let us try to understand attachment and how we can release these attachments - contents - from our consciousness. To do this we must first understand how these contents arise, first coming in our upbringing. When we are young through loving our parents, accepting education, or agreeing to what others (mainly elders) tell us, we build up mental factors that we consider ours - to be us. Born with mother-love and a desire for mother-love, we copy and imitate what brings us love from our mother - and our father. This leads to imitating behaviour that we have not chosen in ourselves, it is a chosen behaviour that arises because our parents want it and we desire parental love. When different people - elders or peers - encourage us to behave in a certain way, these behaviours also become imitated. And we attend school where parents and teachers reward in educational terms different imitated behaviours.
So at different times we have collected an understanding that various imitated behaviours are agreed to for various reasons. When these imitated behaviours become repeated we recognise this repetition, and make a decision that we should repeat these behaviours if conditions associated with these behaviours arise. This decision is paying attention or applying consciousness to the conditions and the resulting behaviour; at a certain point when there has been many repetitions these conditions and behaviours become recognised an additional part of our character - and become egos; this is attachment to ego. A deepening process of this attachment is called clinging where because it has happened over time we see these egos - conditions and behaviours - as ours; we cling to these egos. Through these repeated egos and continued clinging people identify these egos as part of our personality, and if this personality is successful we cling to this personality with self-esteem.
As we get older or maybe as a path-trigger we begin to question these egos. When/if we build self-esteem then this can give us the ability to be successful in the system-of-accumulation. But perhaps working successfully in that system needs to be questioned, the way the system-of-accumulation is working at present that questioning might well be guided by natural moral integrity. Do we need so much money? Is the compromise worth it? Does the corporation we work for damage the planet - natural morality?
On one level of caring it is perfectly reasonable for parents to want their children to be successful and have money. But maybe that is a parental desire, and as children we might not want that choice. However in the process of conformity to the system-of-accumulation children compromise accepting what parents want; then when they are adults such decisions will be questioned especially if the path is pushing through. This questioning can often arise emotionally; sometimes we choose to repress this emotional questioning but such triggers are nature's way of bringing out authenticity - path-triggers.
Sadly there is a process even worse than reacting to conformity that can go on as part of upbringing. It is possible that parental desire can so conflict with the child's nature that it disturbs the child. If the family environment is so forceful and conforming it might not be possible for the child to express who they are. The child is then forced to suppress who they are, and this childhood trauma leads to formation of shadow egos. The problem with shadow is that it is not under control. Path-triggers can be uncomfortable but the path will not cause immediate harm; it might cause disruption in conformed lives that are not fulfilling. Shadow however can come out without control and without the immediate caring guidance of the path. It is important when working with ego to consider the possibility of shadow, and to ensure that all egos are integrated. Try to recognise shadow, avoid ignoring it. Shadows can disrupt daily life leading to incongrous behaviour or worse. Examine and integrate these shadow egos, try to look back at the childhood trauma and see what your home did not allow you to express; learn how to express it now. This appears painless to describe but can be very deep, such shadows might need professional help.
Attachment as dukkha
Shadow attachments can be very powerful, and if we notice such disruptive behaviour then coping with shadow is a priority. But also arising in daily life there are also conditions and the results of conditions that can bring sufferings - zandtao describes these as a spectrum of suffering. In this spectrum of suffering could be included mental factors such as stress, agitation, anxiety, depression and mental illness. These mental factors initially arise from consciousness being beneficial such as warnings, if we are able to act upon these warnings the suffering would not arise. If we are warned by stress it is advisable to take a break or wose might happen. If we are warned by agitation then seek the source of agitation. If we are feeling anxious consider why the situation is bringing anxiety. Sadly in terms of these behaviours when the conditions arise, the behaviours of the spectrum of suffering arise. What is even worse is that when these conditions arise and the behaviours are repeated, we become attached to these behaviours - becoming attached to suffering.
Let us consider some of these sufferings in more detail. At work we have demands placed on us by bosses - reasonable or otherwise, there is some level of acceptance of these demands depending on our agreement to do the work and our agreement to accept the amount of money to do the work. Ideally there would be harmony within the worker concerning the demands, her/his agreement and the money paid. When there is not harmony stress arises naturally, and the level of this stress can lead to illness. To “cure” this illness the individual seeks a better agreement concerning money and work content bringing harmony.
Stress also arises in relationship. Do we meet each other’s needs in that relationship? When needs are not met, relationships start to break down causing stress. If the lack of needs being met becomes a characteristic of the relationship, then there is a breakup thus causing stress. If this is a romantic relationship love could be involved -intensifying the suffering arising during breakup.
Anxiety can also lead to suffering. Anxiety first arises as a warning eg this partner is not appropriate. Perhaps we do not listen to the warning, accept the partner, poor behaviour happens leading to suffering, and then we become anxious concerning further suffering; the warning was not heeded.
As a pretty young woman living in a chauvinist racist society there will be justified warning concerning leaving the house. If such a woman does not have a minder, then she is at risk for racist or sexual abuse. Consciousness warns such a woman about the risks, but sadly in such a society she is unable to do anything about the risks. Anxiety builds. How far does this anxiety build? Perhaps the woman becomes wealthy enough to have a full-time minder, then the physical suffering will occur to the abuser - even though there is suffering in seeing another suffer. Without a minder such a woman finds places to go where she will not feel this anxiety, and so develops a way of life.
For men there is a level of anxiety concerning violence although such abuse is not as common as with women. In patriarchy young men become bullies physically abusing weaker men so weaker men are anxious to leave the home so there is anxiety for men.
And what about the level of abuse that can occur in the home? This anxiety has got to be worse because the individual does not have the choice about leaving the home, their only choice becomes the manipulation of conditions in the home in the hope that abuse does not occur.
We all carry around these levels of suffering to a greater or lesser extent. And we carry around the fear that these abuses will happen. We develop attachments to the suffering, and we develop attachments to the fear that the suffering will arise.
attachment as clinging
One important content of consciousness arises through thought. Thoughts arise naturally, they are primarily mental actions as a response to sensual awareness. We see something and think about it - thoughts, and on occasions we can receive thoughts that do not arise from our sensual awareness. These thoughts are meant to be processed and let go. We see a red traffic light and stop the car - mostly . Once the car is stopped, the thought is let go - we do not hold on to the thought of red light; we see a green light and move off in the car, then the green light thought is let go.
In this way thoughts are meant to be let go but there are times when we cling to thoughts and this clinging can lead to problems. What is stubbornness? This is clinging. We behave in a certain way - perhaps because we think it is right, it has been right in the past. In the past there have been conditions that led to behaviour, and we repeat this way of behaving. Perhaps the conditions change slightly and we choose that way of behaving because we have before - stubborn.
This process of clinging becomes more complex. We learn ideas at school, cling to those ideas in society when maybe they are not appropriate. We develop insights but cling to them beyond their sell-by-date. And then there are collections of ideas such as religions in which there is prescribed behaviour. For those who believe in a religion they cling to these ideas and behaviours forming attachments to religion.
What about sexual desire? How is that meant to work? For men is it the intention that throughout the day all they are concerned about is sexual attraction to women - lust? Undoubtedly such attraction must arise but is it intended to dominate the way it does? The system-of-accumulation uses this lust in advertising. In the patriarchal aspect of this system-of-accumulation lust is allowed to exploit women, and can lead to sexual abuse that is not controlled - women live in fear of abuse, the level of conscious fear is individual. Lust affects individual men differently, zandtao also asks the question Does lust affect women and men differently? The level of exploitation and abuse around the roles of women and men is dominant within the system-of-accumulation.
Accompanying a social meeting between a woman and a man sexual attraction might arise, but is it not meant to arise and fall away as part of broader communication and interaction? There is clinging to this desire, and for each individual there is a need to examine this desire and attempt to live with it in a balanced way - balanced by love and sila.
Clinging has a time component to it, and if taken to extreme things might be considered permanent. Yet is any such clinging permanent? It might seem permanent at the time but as conditions change is attachment to thought or desire permanent. We might cling to romantic love of our youth, but over time such relationship changes romantic love evolves based more on compatibility and developing love as you learn more about each other and the way you live together - maybe even the developing spiritual love of agape.
We do not want to cling to memories, and live as if those memories are happening now. We might also have made a plan for life such as "wanting to be a doctor". If such plans don't work out, are we failures? We live to be the best we can be, not living to enact some plan. Live each instant as it comes being in a compassionate state of enquiry as to whether what is happening is what we want. Cling neither to the past nor to a future plan, live in the now - without clinging, attaching through time.
Are habits attachment?
The process of forming a habit is the same process as forming an attachment so habits and attachments are the same. Let’s consider the habit of driving a car. We learn to drive the car, and it can be difficult. Once we have passed the test, our driving changes. We don’t always follow the best practices we were taught, and we learn new ways of driving esp if we change where we drive. But when we drive we don’t go back to the lessons we learnt, we have developed habits that have accepted these lessons , and practice these habits. In this way we are not always conscious of every step but we can drive safely. When we drive we pay attention to the road but we don’t necessarily pay attention to other driving needs such as changing gear or whatever. So driving is in part conscious and part unconscious, we are conscious when we are using our attention, and this conscious part brings about change in the way we drive. It is my understanding that these habits have neural pathways in the brain - brain-consciousness.
Most of the things we do are habits - they are not conscious, they do not require our attention. When we put on our clothes we do not focus our attention on how we dress, we simply choose what clothes we want to wear and get dressed. In our upbringing we develop many attachments as habit, once we learn what to do the habit becomes 2nd nature. And there is no need to question them.
But as part of the path we develop enquiry so that we can examine habits - attachments - and release those habits that are not beneficial.
What habits do we question?
Unless we have dental problems we don’t question how we clean our teeth. Unless there are comments about our personal hygiene we do not question how we bathe and how we dress. Something triggers the need to question habits. A blatant example - we join a monastery so we don’t wear glitter and a Saville Row suit. As a simple example our choice of habitual clothes has been triggered by the situation - the conditions of joining the monastery.
When we discussed enquiry in chapter 1 we were asking questions that the path had triggered. What does this mean concerning habits? The path usually does not raise questions about most habits. The path might question the use of herbal toothpaste, the use of electric toothbrush or flossing because these might apply to keeping teeth the best they can be kept, but that sort of habit is not high priority. The path might question whether we choose to work for the Ministry of Defence or an oil corporation, these socially-relevant questions might be triggered by the path. So what habits do we question?
Releasing attachments using Consciousness skills
Throughout practice zandtao will look at two main themes of practice, to begin with let us look at releasing attachments - restrictions as attachments. We have already seen that attachments arise out of repeated conditions that we attach or cling to. It is worth considering how we attach and what attaches - based on the repeated conditions.
When the conditions first arise we give attention to these conditions, and we might use mental abilities to decide what to do. When these conditions repeat we might simply respond habitually - similar conditions similar habitual response that over time becomes an habitual unconscious response. Over time this habitual response will become a part of the many habitual responses that occur in daily life - an attachment.
When the path triggers enquiry we question this habitual response. Consciousness as focus brings the attachment to our attention and consciousness as mindfulness makes us aware of the conditions and mindfulness then brings the questioning of the response to those conditions. Mindfulness intercepts the habitual response, focus holds those conditions in our awareness and mindfulness using mental operations decides on a new response. But through enquiry we do need to be conscious that we have got used to these habitual responses. Even though we have made a new decision, the next time we might revert to the habitual response if we do not maintain awareness. If we maintain awareness after initially releasing the attachment then the enquiry triggered by the path breaks down the conditioning. Key to this process is developing the consciousness skills of mindfulness and focus that can be used when the path triggers enquiry. In Buddhism this awareness is developed through meditation as mindfulness but there is no reason why such awareness has to be developed using meditation, but what is essential is the ability to be aware of the conditions that the path has triggered an enquiry about.
Suppose the path has triggered a question, then awareness will decide on a response based on a re-evaluation of the conditions. But then there is a distraction and the whole process gets forgotten. Awareness has not been able to concentrate sufficiently to focus on the conditions and the evaluation so we need to build up the ability to concentrate and focus our attention. With this focus mindfulness can examine and release patterns of conditioned response, the release applies the 2 consciousness skills.
What we have with practice are these two components:-
Whilst we can develop some approaches to improve our ability to hold space for consciousness, as a seeker most of our conscious work is concerned with releasing the restrictions - freeing ourselves from restrictions. And the best source of what that conscious work is to be is to understand how the restrictions arise.
Mostly restrictions develop in our upbringings, and the more we understand how our upbringing developed these restrictions the greater chance we have of using the consciousness skills (practice) to free ourselves from these attachments.
A survival process is spoken of but there is so much more to understand than just survival. In the past zandtao has spoken of egos arising creating self-esteem to enable success in society - coping with wage-slavery, family conformity etc. This self-esteem is a collection of egos arising in conditioning and conformity during upbringing - usually through parents with their own conditioning and conformity passing these egos on; our love for our parents naturally brings with it egos of conditioning and conformity. Mostly we as seekers are recommended to focus our practice by looking at these egoic restrictions, how we learnt them in upbringing, how they build the facade of self-esteem, how we cling to them and how they can be released with consciousness skills - known as letting go.
Whilst the inner journey is so important for our paths we tend not to consider the inner in childhood, because of the natural immaturity of childhood there is little consideration of any inner process. But there is a very important survival inner process that develops in upbringing:-
the protection of consciousness - protection of seed-consciousness.
And in terms of our restrictions this protection is best understood as freedom from suffering. When we consider suffering as dukkha we consider the spectrum ranging from stress, anxiety, depression etc.; for children esp. young children there is much pain that can arise with love relationships with parents, and when that pain is traumatic seed-consciousness will be protected through shadow fragmentation. But what if less traumatic protection is needed where less intense suffering can arise - such as dukkha. For young people without a deeply-traumatic childhood, processes of dukkha will protect seed-consciousness rather than fragmentation.
So from our survival process during upbringing we maintain an outer facade of self-esteem and inner protection of seed-consciousness. As our upbringings develop, survival points to egos or dukkhas that we can develop and hide behind; what is most successful in this hiding we cling to - the restriction of clinging to inner protection and outer facades.
During childhood it might well make sense to hide the vulnerable, but what happens when that hiding is brought into adulthood - the path is hidden. Clinging holds onto this protection hiding seed-consciousness in a society that increasingly has threatening mental issues. When dukkha-protection doesn't work then we have fragmentation, but if there is no fragmentation there are still attachments to dukkha's protection that we take into adulthood. Clinging to these dukkhas and egos creates suffering for the path as that path is not able to express itself.
There is a very important corollary to this protective hiding, society has no mainstream CoA - culture of awareness; how can cultural awareness be developed if the conditioning is to hide it? We don't educate for seed-consciousness, we do protect our children - in some cases over-protect, but because enabling seed-consciousness is not a societal approach that seed-consciousness tends to remain hidden. How many parents and educators speak of the path? When the path tries to break through esp firstgrace we might not be aware of what it means, and perhaps we cling to hiding it. There is a need for mainstream CoA esp with so many seekers looking to cults for answers, this attraction to cults arising from a feeling of awareness from the seed-consciousness without a CoA - awareness with no obvious place to go. Our world suffers from having limited CoA - it means the world is attached to hiding from our consciousness, hiding from Nature's path. We hide from love because love is anathema to patriarchy. We hide from consciousness overall because of patriarchy - it is hard to be compassionate and live in harmony within patriarchy.
Without a mainstream CoA where do paths take people? As mentioned cults - or out east - or new age; alternative religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism for Christian Westerners - even theosophy. Then there is dabbling with Qabalah, Gurdjieff, and the worrying attraction to the Occult such as Crowley (from Hollywood?), and so much more. Little of this dabbling is about practice - doing the work, although all could be ways up the mountain with a practice. Such dabbling often occurs, and this can bring some awareness but without practice the door soon closes again even if dabbling had opened it.
A CoA would arise if our culture accepted awareness and awakening, but sadly the system-of-accumulation is more concerned with accumulation and exploiting people to help with that accumulation. Rather than the path of awareness and awakening being flagged as a possibility in our upbringings - through parents or education, such awarenesses are often mocked by a society concerned with measuring success through monetary wealth.
Hence in our upbringings we hide the inner - the seed-consciousness - feeling vulnerable to the way society considers our sensitivities. This societal animosity also leads to spiritual bypassing because it can be difficult to fully enjoy the fruits of spiritual development through expressing awareness in our society. Hence can arise spiritual bypassing where people on the path choose solitude to experience these fruits. Yet path-duty requires embodiment - now more than any time in zandtao's lifetime. Spiritual leaders of the world need to stop hiding in bypassing, and through embodiment become active with their consciousness - the world is in sore need of the love and compassion of consciousness that arises when the path is followed. Solitude is a place for learning not a way of life; hopefully those learning in solitude can return to embodiment not hiding in bypassing. Perhaps advocating a CoA??
Instead of awareness and awakening in society we have the ongoing processes of conditioning and conformity. Through upbringings young people become wage-slaves, but perhaps awareness from seed-consciousness tries to push through. What happens if as the seed pushes through some awareness doesn't hold to our self-esteem - our survival egos; perhaps our narcissism has a negative impact and we question it? Because we don't "hold space" for consciousness, we might well release the ego that narcissist behaviour exposes but survival will quickly close the space again because of the continued need for self-esteem and inner protection. For progress to be made we need practice of mindfulness and focus to release restriction, and we need to develop mindfulness and focus to hold space for consciousness.
So throughout our lives, self-esteem and protection - the 3 restrictions of ego, dukkha and clinging - maintain a shell, and so our seed-consciousness does not follow its path in adulthood. If there is no practice we fall back on the same survival processes we learned in our upbringings, and spend our lives coping in and around the protective shells - never going beyond. Following our paths is what nature intended and can bring great joy, at the same time failure to follow our paths allows the worst harm of the existing societal infrastructure - the system-of-accumulation.
Through upbringing we grow into our own kind of reinforced shell - developing a face for the outer and protecting the inner; that is what conditioning and conformity does. We are protected from the outside by our reinforced shell but on the inside there is a vulnerable maturing seed, and that seed can only mature through living life.
Look at nature, can you not see that living life is the way it is? There are many paths up the mountain to truth, through our upbringing we are given our paths to guide us through life, a path to release the restrictions of our upbringing and hopefully mature. But we are meant to live our full lives by following this path.
Trying to understand what happens in upbringing is integral; it is important to try and understand the shell that comes from our upbringing because that can give us life lessons. We have instincts to survive, and if in our upbringing survival builds self-esteem then this enables us to find work and cope with society. This is the outer purpose of upbringing, but there is also the inner purpose of protecting the vulnerable seed. As we approach adulthood we have built an established reinforced shell that protects the inner and enables the outer. Sadly this shell brings with it restrictions that inhibit our following the path - restricts the maturing of our seed of consciousness; we have managed to survive and cope, but we are not following our paths expressing who we are.
It is not unreasonable to understand our upbringing as conditioning and conformity where the conditioning and conformity essentially create the shell or facade that we use to start coping with life in new adulthood, the facade that enables us to find work - perhaps find romantic love and even begin our own families. We might think of this coping as life on or around the superficial shell, and for many people they cope with life on or around this superfice throughout their daily lives.
In this way of living, seed-consciousness initially protected during upbringing has been restricted from living life as there has only been a coping life around the upbringing of conditioning and conformity. What has begun as a sensible survival process leads to restriction - leads to an absence of living a much more fulfilling life; living life as nature intended.
Well-being has become confused with spirituality - by spirituality zandtao means following the path to spiritual consciousness. The confusion has been caused because the wellness industry uses spiritual techniques but not to develop consciousness.
This has happened as a hijack. Typically businesses such as Google recognised that well-being could be used to support self-esteem strengthening the facade so that we can cope better with the world of work and increase productivity. It is certainly the case that these spiritual techniques help us to cope better in our jobs - and for many people maybe that is enough. But it is not living life to the full - following our paths. Used in this way the spiritual tools of wellness are clinging, they help us cling to the attachments of facade and protection; in upbringing we have already used clinging to reinforce egos and strengthen the facade - wellness follows this similar process.
Wellness does not ask the deeper questions, enquiries that could possibly affect our conditioning and conformity. Through physical healing our improved health helps cope with the facade and helps maintain protection. When doubts arise as to whether what we do in our wage-slavery is justified, we can focus our minds on duties arising from conformity such as looking after family - consequently handling the workplace better through conformity. First and foremost the path will not ask you to neglect your responsibilities such as caring for family. But it might well create conflicts where family might ask for careerism and other signs of materialism yet the path is interested only in truth. This is a sad consequence of the power of conditioning and conformity in upbringing misdirecting the seeker into the mainstream of wage-slavery. For such seekers there will need to be compromise whilst duties are performed, and yet perhaps they can develop some direction on the path - and therefore some spiritual joy.
This is why there are two components of practice. Wellness looks at the restrictions and can increase the clinging - reinforcing the survival process if conditioning and conformity are weakening. However on the spiritual path when consciousness replaces the released restrictions the clinging is let go, and the path starts to express itself. Following the path does not have the same emphasis on material wealth so the seeker has this societal dilemma out of duty - this dilemma cannot be ignored it needs resolving. But a seeker can change the focus and begin to follow their path whilst maintaining family duties fulfilling workplace duties. A seeker can use their increased awareness to cope with daily life whilst maintaining focus on the path, but such awareness will not have material wealth as a motivation - yet family might have such motivation.
Remember the purpose of the spiritual tools is to help seed-consciousness live. Well-being is a societal movement hiding from the expression of seed-consciousness - wellness industry; so we have to be mindful as to how those tools are used.
Examining the way the superfice has been constructed can provide indicators to guide us through the restrictions that have created the survival shell - and examine the restrictions that can continue to create that shell such as through wellness. In our upbringings conditioning and conformity are usually imparted through parents, mostly we learn from our parents through love and seeking approval. But we must understand that it is usually the case that most parents became parents through instinct as well. Whilst as children we turn to parents as knowledgeable teachers, as teenagers we grow towards adulthood and begin to consciously or unconsciously see that parents also are conditioned and have accepted conformity to a greater or lesser extent. Most parents have not gone beyond coping with life on or around this shell - living the facade and no inner journey, and they impart this way of living to children as the best way they know how to live life and cope with it - ignorant of the true path but with compassion for their children.
This unconscious way of upbringing is essentially what becomes our indicators to guide our way through life, if we are fortunate this guide leads to the path and we can recognise how much this helps through understanding that it is the Sacred Wound or Holy khandha - explained in Ch3.
If we live our lives through coping then we accept that our upbringings contributed to that coping process; there is no awareness of the path and no awareness that our upbringings have restricted access to the path. We do not understand any Sacred Wound because with the coping no wound is seen. But if we become aware that there is more to life than coping, then we start to see that our upbringing was restrictive. As we become more aware of these restrictions we start to see our upbringings as the cause and we might feel wounded because our growth was restricted. With greater awareness we begin to understand that we chose our parents, we chose the way we were restricted, and understand that to follow our paths we needed our parents and upbringing to be the way they were - the Sacred Wound.
How the superfice is formed and how we become restricted is very important in deconstructing the shell and living a fulfilled life following the path. Essentially the superfice is attachment; we form attachments to develop the outer facade and we form attachments to protect the inner. We cling to these attachments to survive and then cope with life, but these attachments are not who we are; if we can then realise that these attachments are a temporary shell we can release the attachments with our consciousness skills and live our lives through consciousness - the path. None of this is easy but it is the best way to live as can be attested by so many who have found the path.
We live our lives on the path when we release the restrictions, but there is always the choice to hide. We can hide in conformity through materialism and wage-slavery hiding in these shallows focused on living the way of conformity our conditioning took us to - living on or around the superfice. Throughout those lives the buried path will try to emerge, awareness will possibly be triggered, but through repressive self-discipline we can hide in protected conformity fulfilling a duty of conformity that few will question. Such a life-traveller will be lauded for coping.
Our practice - what we can do - concerns the restrictions. Are we indeed limited to these restrictions? Do we need to release anything else? Let's start first with what we have as restrictions. We have a shell established during our upbringing. This shell is survival as it is hard out there. We need a strong facade to meet life head on yet we need to protect the growing seed of consciousness inside. This shell has an inner and outer - an outer facade that meets with society and inner protection for the seed. As our upbringing progresses we cling to this shell strengthening where required for survival.
But this shell is neither our consciousness nor is it our personality, it is a survival process used to survive the hardships interacting with society - it is hard out there. When it comes to our paths we often have difficulty understanding what the 3 restrictions are that have to be released, but there is much to learn from our survival process. We will find that throughout our lives the egos and dukkhas of our upbringing repeat themselves. Our ego responds to repeat situations in the same way - the way we learned to survive during upbringing. So the more we understand how our protective shell and self-esteem formed, the more we can use mindfulness and focus to release restrictions that follow similar patterns in life. There is no coincidence in this repetition process - it is by design.
And if there are no restrictions what remains? Seed-consciousness living life as intended, release the shell and live life as nature intended; with purpose - consciously loving and evolving consciousness.
What we do in our practice is learn about how our restrictions were formed, and release them using mindfulness and focus. These restrictions developed during upbringing through conditioning and conformity but was the development of these restrictions a specific desire, a temporary wish of parents or society? No it happened throughout upbringing - it was a process of upbringing. Does that process stop in adulthood? Possibly. The process of conditioning and conformity never stops but with mindfulness and focus we can become aware of the process, become aware of the attachments of ego, suffering and clinging, and we can release them. Our practice becomes such that our mindfulness and focus means that the ongoing process of conditioning and conformity has no impact on us, the process has not stopped but we have developed a state of mind-consciousness where that process has no impact. There is a Pali word that zandtao remembers for this state - atammayata. His Buddhist teacher through his books tried a one-word English translation - non-concoctability, and this awkwardness amused zandtao into remembering atammayata. Our practice works towards atammayata a state where the ongoing process of conditioning and conformity has no impact.
Recognising the possibiility of this state of atammayata also places an imperative on our practice. Given that the process of conditioning and conformity exists 24/7 then we muct become dedicated to our practice 24/7. This is not a bypassing dedication where we sit on mountains 24/7 avoiding the surrounding conditioning and conformity of society. But we do need to reach a state where we have released the restrictions of upbringing and we do not allow new restrictions to be formed by the surrounding ongoing process of conditioning and conformity. This is how we become dedicated to practice. We recognise the need to release the restrictions of upbringing and not allow the formation of new restrictions within society's ongoing process. How we dedicate ourselves to practice is individual choice but the objective is the same as described in the wonderful word atammayata. Be dedicated 24/7 to:-
Release the restrictions of upbringing. Not allow the formation of new restrictions.
Importance of Practice 
Survival is more than facade 
. Once the car is stopped, the thought is let go - we do not hold on to the thought of red light; we see a green light and move off in the car, then the green light thought is let go. 
the protection of consciousness - protection of seed-consciousness. 
Books:-