So we have reached some kind of feeling of Unity-consciousness - zeer-consciousness. Finished!!!! Joke
Looking at consciousness
Reaching this feeling of Unity-consciousness is wonderful; but there is so much more - infinitely more. Can there be a complete description of consciousness? To paraphrase Eckhart it is a never-ending mystery, but with our continuing dedication to practice more can open up. Consciousness is huge and zandtao in no way attempts to describe all this vastness - never tries to define consciousness; zandtao sees such definition as an impossibility. What we can do is consider different functionings of consciousness in order to help our practice. zandtao is going to consider a particular functioning in 3 broad loosely-described areas - brain-consciousness, mind-consciousness and Unity-consciousness, and ask how these relate to practise? Seeker please note - this is another description that helps zandtao with his practice; tentatively accept it to see if it helps you - if not try something else. What matters is your development - releasing restrictions and aligning with consciousness.
In Ch2 we looked at how restrictions developed as attachments:-
Habitual attachment. Egoic attachments arising from self-esteem, suffering and clinging
Good habits (habitual attachments) are mostly connected with brain-consciousness. Are we aware of how we walk? At our most conscious we might choose a style of walking, but we do not consciously think of how we use our walking muscles. Perhaps in old age we become more conscious of knee involvement in walking but we basically walk as a habit; zandtao associates that habit of walking as a function of brain-consciousness. There is a normal functioning of walking that is part of brain-consciousness but if there is an event that is not-normal it moves outside of brain-consciousness to mind-consciousness for consideration. zandtao sees habits as part of brain-consciousness, and as such he does not become aware of these habits as part of his practice - mostly.
Brain-consciousness also works with perception of events - a kind of sorting-house. As we move through daily life all kinds of events are happening around us. As zandtao now looks up from the computer he can see all around him. But when his focus is on writing he does not focus on what is around him. But the senses are still working and brain-consciousness examines that input and releases those sense-events as “not worthy of current attention”. The mind-consciousness of zandtao is currently paying attention to writing and brain-consciousness falls in line with that in its processing of sense events. One might think of this sorting as a form of habit - habitual sense-events happening around that are not worthy of attention.
Witnesses in TV crime-drama. We have many versions of the same event because each individual’s attention is on different things. If the police were able to access the brain-consciousness of all witnesses they would be similar and a true description, but there is no conscious memory - no attachment; brain-consciousness sorts and releases the sense-event. Different descriptions of the sense-event are recalled because of the different attentions and attachments.
So we reach an important understanding:- mind-consciousness deals with matters the seeker considers worthy of attention - mindfulness, so when the path triggers concern about an attachment it becomes worthy of attention in mind-consciousness. In Chapters 2 and 3 we have already described the process of letting go of attachment, and as we do that we are releasing contents from consciousness - attachments in mind-consciousness. In mind-consciousness we use mindfulness and focus to release restrictions of egoic attachment - giving us the 3 freedoms of releasing from attachment to ego, from suffering and from clinging, and as we begin to work with the development model we enquire about our upbringing focussing on the conditioning and conformity and releasing restrictions that arise from our Sacred Wounds.
But in order to release egoic attachments we have used abilities of consciousness - awareness (mindfulness), concentration, embodiment, sila, truth and love-wisdom balance. In a sense these "belong" to the 3rd consciousness - Unity-consciousness, but can be aligned with through mind-consciousness. Our paths are attempting to bring us back to Unity-consciousness so it triggers events that lead to releasing attachment. To release attachment or restriction we need these abilities that arise from Unity-consciousness; the path is taking us towards that Unity-consciousness.
Unity-consciousness brings with it the plus side of spirituality; in Unity-consciousness we have bliss especially with firstgrace - less direct bliss later as the spiritual path becomes more of our daily awareness. There are a number of words associated with connection to this Unity-consciousness. Eckhart uses presence, many Christians use the word grace. Look for presence in your experience, it is a way of recognising Unity-consciousness.
zandtao sees these abilities of consciousness as graces - amongst which are awareness, concentration, embodiment, sila, truth, love-wisdom balance and creativity; as we develop Unity-consciousness we develop graces. We might hear of people “expanding consciousness spiritually”; as we develop Unity-consciousness there is a feeling of expansion. In a sense there is an expansion but zandtao prefers to describe it as an end to restriction. As part of our conditioning we have been restricted to functioning in brain-consciousness and mind-consciousness, as we transcend conditioning - as our paths trigger, we increasingly align with Unity-consciousness developing the graces that enable us to release attachment - end restriction. Our practice is the tool we use to release attachments and develop the graces.
Let’s look more at how understanding these 3 functional delineations could help us with our practice. Firstly we have the triggers of the path that are how the path begins to fulfil its function - aligning with Unity-consciousness. What the triggers work on is helping the mind-consciousness align with Unity-consciousness. That is an important element of our practice - aligning with Unity-consciousness.
What the triggers do is to make the mind aware of attachments that need releasing - that have been restricting, and using the graces we can release attachments. When we discussed the 3 freedoms in our practice (chapters 2 and 3) we became aware of what these attachments can be so that we can free ourselves from the restrictions of attachment to ego, clinging and suffering. Where do these restrictions come from? Upbringing. In our upbringing we learn to cling to attachments of self-esteem that are the agreements we make with parents, education, workplace etc - agreements that we make with the system-of-accumulation. As we begin to see upbringing as the source of restrictions and the wider Sacred Wound we develop enquiry, this enquiry helped by triggers and good practice can take us towards a state of of atammayata - and then with graces Unity-consciousness.
Starting from attachments that include the habitual and egoic, we see that brain-consciousness copes with our habits behind-the-scenes but mind-consciousness deals with matters that need our attention such as egoic attachment. Once our attention is conscious through enquiry or has been triggered, then we can use the graces of consciousness to deal with these egoic attachments helping us realign with consciousness. When you add in that egoic attachments arise from upbringing (are a response to upbringing) then this process sounds haphazard.
But consciousness has design in this process, and zandtao described his limited view of this design in the development model of Ch3. From birth we have mother-love - alignment to "remember", then seed-consciousness uses the khandhas to form character, personality, and body-functioning that are handled by brain-consciousness - as well as any habitual attachments that arise. But then we have design, the path to follow to realign with consciousness. And included in this design are all the lessons we need to learn.
In the model (Addon A) zandtao gave the cumbersome term ego-evolve-consciousness as that aspect of seed-consciousness that gives us the lessons to learn, and these lessons arise as egos in our upbringing. Initially these egos might be part of self-esteem needed to cope with societal infrastructure, they could be clinging to childhood dukkha as egos (such as anxiety), or fragmented egos or shadow or trauma that our seed-consciousness could not accept consciously in our upbringing. All of these egos need to be integrated as part of our realignment with consciousness, and that integration is the totality of all the lessons of ego-evolve-consciousness. Enquiry in good practice or triggers from the path can lead to mind-consciousness giving attention to these lessons, or sadly triggers can arise from the shadow to gain the unwanted attention of mind-consciousness. Once there is attention then mind-consciousness uses the graces of mindfulness and focus to release the restrictions, and then holding that released space for graces such as love, wisdom, sila, truth and creativity to realign with consciousness. For zandtao this design only became clear in retrospect adding to his growing love for consciousness.
In a sense, during upbringing our brain-consciousness encroaches into mind-consciousness. Through our conditioning we develop habits about things that the system-of-accumulation wants us to develop such as self-esteem, egos which nature as ego-evolve-consciousness has designed for us to use mind-consciousness to resolve. It is fragmentation, shadows or these habits, these attachments that the mind needs to work on in order for our paths to align with Unity-consciousness. Once the mind-consciousness is free of these contents, it has the freed space that could be aligned with Unity-consciousness.
Basically in our upbringing there is a process of conditioning and conformity that involves restricting mind-consciousness with attachments, attachments that we learn in order to conform to this system-of-accumulation. At some point in adult life such as firstgrace our paths begin with their purpose of aligning with Unity-consciousness. If there is sufficient readiness for this alignment through good practice, we recognise attachments through enquiry or as triggers that need to be released. Then begins a process of alignment through whatever practice the seeker chooses so that they can get as close as possible to connecting with Unity-consciousness.
Essentially mind-consciousness needs to examine the attachments that have been formed in our upbringings to see those that have been developed from ego-evolve-consciousness and those that are intended for brain-consciousness. Because throughout our lives we live within the conditioning of the system-of-accumulation, we need to be aware of attempts to form and reform attachments as part of conforming to that system-of-accumulation. Unity-consciousness gives us the graces to help in our practice of not reforming attachments. To put this in a simple way we need everything in its place. We need to realign with Unity-consciousness. To do this we need to free up mind-consciousness so the mind-consciousness can fulfil its purpose of alignment. As we free up the mind-consciousness then we recognise what is the purview of brain-consciousness and don’t use mind-consciousness functioning to deal with brain-consciousness functioning. We have our practice to align mind-consciousness.
It is useful to consider what arises from the ego-evolve-consciousness as the Sacred Wound. The lessons to be learned are not gentle lessons but arise with suffering. What initially might be positive in self-esteem can become a hindrance causing suffering. And often these hindrances arise as suffering through family dynamics; for a long time bill blamed aspects of his upbringing including people for suffering that he was undergoing. Yet when he understood them as learned lessons he could see his own hiding and how attachments in his mind had been part of that suffering.
It is further useful to see what arises as suffering, and as a wound that needs healing where the healer is our own practice. That might be difficult if our fragmentation or shadow is powerful, we could need professional help to deal with the more powerful egos. Throughout our healing we should always try to have a kalyana mitta available.
The Sacred Wound is always giving but it might not be experienced that way; that certainly was not bill's experience. Over nearly 50 years he experienced the Sacred Wound in different forms - as egos that were made conscious, restricted love and a need to break from conformity. Yet in retrospect these forces appeared exaggerated by his own clinging. But once zandtao began seeing the Sacred Wound as teacher he moved towards Unity-consciousness.
Consciousnesses and Restrictions
How do these consciousnesses fit in with the restrictions? For zandtao it began with seeing the connection between brain-consciousness and clinging. Consider natural instincts that are provided for our survival. Rather than letting go of instincts we cling to them - beyond their survival use in self-esteem etc. Instincts become “hard-wired” as neural pathways of brain-consciousness. Nothing is permanent so mind-consciousness can start a process of releasing the neural pathways. With mind-consciousness we can appropriate attachments part of our awareness, then we let them go. Releasing attachments is a major individual struggle and is an ongoing part of releasing restrictions through our practice. As part of our autonomous practice we must also investigate whether attachment and suffering have similar hard-wired neural pathways.
We need to bring mindfulness into mind-consciousness to prevent restriction from arising but we also need mindfulness in mind-consciousness to make changes to the hard-wiring of the neural pathways - start in mind-consciousness to change restrictions that are part of brain-consciousness. Out of brain-consciousness or repressed elsewhere we make conscious the egos, shadow or otherwise, once bringing them into mind-consciousness we release them. But doing this once is not enough because there has been a lifetime of reinforcement of these restrictions that have “hardened” into egoic attachments, egoic suffering such as anxiety, and egoic clinging such as the spectrum of addiction to alcohol, drugs, lust and others connected to instinct.
Graces - Directions and Skills of Consciousness
Our practice also involves graces - zandtao now uses 8 "Dhamma comrades" - 5 directions of the spiritual imperatives (or directions) love, wisdom, moral integrity (sila), truth and creativity, and 3 skills of mindfulness, focus and embodiment. Through consciousness "coming into us" during daily life, we build up restrictions as the residues of the characteristics of consciousness - the 3 freedoms. These residues can form the basis for attachment, suffering and clinging unless we release them through the skills of mindfulness and focus. But releasing is not enough we fill up again with grace - in zandtao's approach with the 5 directions of love, wisdom, moral integrity, truth and creativity as consciousness which directs our daily lives - embodiment. This is autonomy-in-action.
Throughout we have spoken of the 2 themes of practice:-
but apart from talking of holding space for consciousness (and having Buddhadasa's Dhamma comrades as consciousness in MwB practice) we have not really addressed what we are holding space for.
Using Graces in Practice
So what does zandtao do in practice? He "brings in" the 5 directions of consciousness - love, wisdom, sila, truth and creativity, and the 3 skills of consciousness - mindfulness, focus and embodiment; he visualises that these qualities of consciousness can come in through the breath. But as stated already they have always been everpresent, there has just been restriction. With the removing of restrictions and developing autonomy, he has held space for consciousness - these qualities of consciousness; the use of the terms directions and skills is arbitrary - maybe little more than a memory thing.
Why has he chosen these? Why has he chosen these particular limitations of consciousness? These graces or skills and directions have developed from Buddhadasa's original Dhamma Comrades - mindfulness, concentration, wisdom and sampajanna (that zandtao translates as wise embodiment).
What do we need when we are re-evaluating any conditioning and conformity with our mental factors? Wisdom, there is little point in re-evaluating the conditions that have initially led to the path’s trigger if the new decision is not wise.
To release attachment on one level is a straight-forward process to explain, become aware of the attachment, examine the conditions and wisely let go of the attachment. In describing this release we have to look carefully at what enables the letting go - we have used abilities of consciousness - awareness, concentration, and embodiment. And in this situation we have asked that the overriding direction of the decision be wise.
But there is another overriding direction for decisions and that is radical love - spiritual love; for zandtao's autonomy (see Ch4) this was a clear addition as a direction or grace. If decisions are just wise there is imbalance, equally if decisions are just loving there can also be imbalance. As part of our abilities of consciousness we need also to develop a love-wisdom balance - equanimity. When we release attachments the process is simply that of letting go. But it is not enough to see practice as this release, it is also necessary that we have developed abilities of consciousness - awareness, concentration and embodiment - that can use love-wisdom balance to make the decision that releases the attachment.
Graces bring Societal harmony
Sila is a Buddhist word that has a specific meaning in terms of the Noble 8-fold path of the 4 Noble Truths, but it is not the specific Buddhist meaning that zandtao is looking for. Sila is often translated as moral integrity - an integrated morality avoiding adherence to moral codes or rules. But the reason zandtao likes the word sila is because Buddhism is a nature religion, and the best way zandtao has of looking at this ability of consciousness is that it is a natural moral integrity. When the path arises it brings with it a natural moral integrity of sila-consciousness. Truth is a discipline that is part of our mindfulness, as seekers we use truth as a disciplined guide to what we say and do. Truth is an aspect of tathata, as we remove restrictions and develop our consciousness then we see truth - truth is an aspect of what clear vision sees.
There can be no collective harmony unless we individually work towards our own sila and truth. In a sense collective harmony is a measure of the collective contributions of individual sila and truth. For social harmony our institutions need to have as part of their "missions" sila and truth.
In terms of current societal embodiment there is clearly limited harmony in society, and equally limited societal direction towards sila and truth. In fact the opposite is happening as the system-of-accumulation has recognised there is increased profit and therefore accumulation in creating fake delusions and casting doubt - promoting their own version of truth. Whilst the system-of-accumulation has always manipulated delusions for their own benefit it has been an increased strategy in recent times.
In terms of sila and truth following the path enables the seeker to see the importance of sila and truth for societal harmony whilst at the same time the path develops tathata that enables the seeker to see the sila and truth in others - and in institutions.
Creative consciousness
For zandtao creativity has been a constant fallback as part of his path since upheaval. how does creativity fit with your path?
Developing a Loving relationship with Unity-consciousness
Now zandtao wants to establish a loving relationship with Unity-consciousness; since upheaval he always had a creative relationship with consciousness but now his autonomy seeks this further development of love. Now consciousness is a mystery - a useful spiritual word to have concerning consciousness. zandtao first met the use of mystery and consciousness with Eckhart, and it was a study for him - see addon H.
Eckhart described the mystery of consciousness as having 2 characteristics, and using these 2 mystery characteristics zandtao is going to structure the remaining part of this chapter.
Eckhart’s First Mystery
This is the mystery of “knowing consciousness”. The first understanding of this is to understand that as a spiritual mystery there is no definitive answer. As seekers investigate the mystery there might well be commonality but there is no definitive conclusion or set of defined characteristics that will arrive through a seeker’s investigation. But the investigation of consciousness and the seeker’s relationship with consciousness is an ongoing aspect of path.
Is self consciousness?
There is a received understanding as part of conditioning and upbringing that self and consciousness are connected, the phrase “I think therefore I am” might be considered part of that received understanding.
For zandtao there is a strong understanding that we need to unlearn this connection between self and consciousness. In the first chapter we saw a connection between self-esteem and conditioning, understanding that connection became part of his practice and release; zandtao is now asking that in the investigation of the mystery of consciousness leave self behind. If we leave self behind then consciousness identifies with egos as attachments; nothing other than consciousness and identification with ego - identification with the restrictions. What happens to egos in awakening? The restrictions become less and less as you see ego and let it go. So you enquire and look for restrictions that arise as attachments, suffering and clinging and let them go. With the development model you further enquire about Sacred Wound and let go of attachments that have arisen with the wound. As you lose the restrictions, egoic attachment to whichever khandha becomes less and less but there must always be some attachment to khandha whilst there is life; when this is simply consciousness enabling the khandha to function and no egoic attachment or suffering that is the atammayata we aim for.
And we replace all the egoic attachments with consciousness - graces that include love, wisdom, sila, truth and creativity and mindfulness, focus and embodiment - working towards Unity-consciousness.
There can be mental contortions over self-realisation and self-actualisation - contortions if we accept self. Once there has been some sort of awakening then the seeker "brings in" these graces, and applies the consciousness the seeker has found to daily life as best s/he can. The fewer restrictions there are the easier the seeker will be able to align with consciousness and embody the graces. Where are the contortions in that approach?
Recognising Consciousness
Nothing else - consciousness and identification with ego and releasing restrictions. This becomes clearer with the recognition of 2 themes of practice. We have looked at the first aspect of our practice in the earlier chapters of the zeer by looking at the restrictions that arose as a consequence of conditioning and conformity - Sacred Wound. But within the practice of MwB there was always the 4th tetrad - integration that led to the characteristics of Buddhism and a recognition of Dhamma - consciousness.
With the transcendence of autonomy the emphasis becomes more on the recognition of consciousness. For zandtao starting from MwB this recognition took the shape of considering the 4 Dhamma comrades - mindfulness, focus, wisdom and sampajanna. In autonomy this recognition started equanimity - love-wisdom balance. What leads up to transcending is a releasing of restrictions that come from conditioning and conformity, so after autonomy there is less and less emphasis on conditioning and conformity. What becomes more important is the recognition of consciousness and the replacement of conditioning and conformity with consciousness.
For Eckhart this process of recognition led to knowing consciousness, and from there zandtao wants to take the recognition to loving consciousness - zandtao is not saying Eckhart didn’t do that (if you want to know, investigate Eckhart’s wonderful teachings to find where loving consciousness fits in).
gabiK’s Unpacking our Story
This is how gabiK starts to love consciousness. “To begin unpacking the story of who we are”, …., “and what we must understand about our true selves to learn how to live in love, peace, and unity, we must first unwind the story of our upbringing and come to understand and respect our own lineage, because whatever was suppressed in our lineage becomes something that we inherit. This is what creates the shadow which hides within it the negative features we want to transcend in our lives. Let's assume you want to understand how to love yourself, but you are unable to determine the origin of your lack of self-love. You may reflect on your early childhood and recall that one or more of your parents found it difficult to connect emotionally. Perhaps one of your parents was more distant than the other. They may have demonstrated a lack of nurturing or embodied an absence of self-compassion, which you can then trace back to their predecessors to reveal the chain of generational events that incited the root of your traumatic experience. As you zoom out further, you can connect more dots to understand that the basis of your pain is a collective pain of both men and women experiencing a timeline created by those who came before them … a timeline during which grief, pain, struggle, and insufficiency accumulated to produce certain adaptive mechanisms which allowed those individuals to survive in the matrix. We must also realize that the programs you are inheriting are archaic programs built during different chapters of civilization’s history, perhaps times of famine, war, arduous survival, or tumultuous change, which forced migration, evolutionary change, or other forms of adaptation. Although the world scene could have changed dramatically since those evolutionary programs were created, their design is reflected in the genetic predisposition that later generations received. [pp. 23-24 "Falling Up: A Path to Self-Realization" by Gabi Kovalenko]. This very much fits in with the two best books of Nicola and Teal, and in addition we could study all of ch2 of gabiK’s book to improve our love of consciousness.
“Without the painful evolutionary task of women surrendering their feminine softness, creativity, and nurturing capacity to become more tough and masculinized versions of themselves, procreation during challenging times may not have been possible, and if men hadn't desensitized themselves to be resilient and have unwavering faith in their survival, the lineage might not have perpetuated. In retrospect, those qualities that led to survival are also some of the deepest and most unsettling roots of separation still prevalent in society today. Those are the same roots of feminine disempowerment and the disassociation from feminine wisdom, softness, creativity, and surrender, as well as masculine over-dominance—the exertion of masculine energy in such a way that suffocates the emotional, intuitive, and loving essence of the divine masculine's presence [pp. 24-25].” zandtao is not at all surprised that women spiritual teachers are directing us to love - this is part of zandtao’s autonomy, love-wisdom balance, and the first mystery of consciousness - loving consciousness.
Shadow as Purpose in Life’s journey
When we see this aspect of interbeing then we can see that our own lack of integration reflects in societal integration; our shadow is part of the collective shadow. Failure to follow our paths impacts on others if our own fruition is not enough motivation.
"The only way to integrate the shadow is to add another dimension - that of feeling - to your worldly experience. This allows a golden thread to form between every experience you're witnessing on the external front of reality and the perceptions of your inner world. How you feel about the world holds a great deal of significance for your identity. Only deep feeling, compassion, and symbiosis allow for an experience of unity consciousness, which is the epitome of life on Earth” [p20 ln312].
This is why patriarchy’s conditioning does not include feeling. Decking men react to feeling by decking or abuse. "The shadow may present as an oppressive energy because it keeps away from you everything that you are unwilling and unable to see about yourself, including traumatic memories, encounters with karma, and pain that you may not want to understand" [p20 ln318]. And the nature of society that patriarchy does not want you to understand. Purpose - "The reason for your pain, your trauma, your limiting beliefs, and all locked-away parts of you that may be hidden in your shadow is an opportunity for transformation and collective growth" [p20 ln318]. The collective growth of consciously loving and evolving consciousness.
“Ultimately, our mission is to transcend our shadow’s hold and understand that there was no reason to fear it all along. Our shadow is simply an aspect of ourselves that emulates the soul and the higher self that we are here to love by choosing to willfully include it in our physical experience. The difficulty, however, is that we may feel there is no place for this sacred essence in a world filled with so dense a collective shadow, which gives rise to the painful separation that so many of us experience as children who become divided from their own authentic truth” [p20 ln324]. This shadow arises in our upbringing intentionally through our Sacred Wound but as we let go of conditioning and conformity we begin to integrate who we are. Using shadow within purpose we can begin to integrate that then leads to loving consciousness.
Second aspect of practice
As we unpack our story and integrate our shadow, this leads us to an emphasis on the second aspect of practice - developing consciousness. Here gabiK describes it as "a form of integration that brightens the spirit and provides a permission slip for authentic embodiment. This kind of healing honors the primordial essence by awakening the opportunity for pure being and diminishment of the shadow’s experience of separation, fear, repression, and alienation. Such healing entails holding space for your soul in physical form by choosing to commit to joyful and truthful expansion" [p20 ln324]. Holding space for consciousness as we release restrictions. For zandtao this is what happened with MwB but it is now something he is consciously doing as loving consciousness.
These 2 themes of practice are releasing ego and holding space for consciousness - the graces. When zandtao considers the MwB history of his practice he thinks of consciously releasing egos that eventually led to the 3 freedoms. But at the same time he connected to Dhamma. When he connected to Dhamma there was a feeling of space that early on was filled with mindfulness - the 4th tetrad. When we talk only of releasing attachments we are not being completely honest and circumspect as to what is happening, the reality is that the release of ego was not all that was going on. We were building the connection with Dhamma - letting in the graces, holding space for the graces.
Nyanga
In ch3 zandtao described how his MwB practice fitted in with the two themes of practice:-
The particular practice that was an excellent release occurred at Nyanga - described here, but practice was not just releasing nyangas. "Regardless of how old you are, how many traumatic experiences you have endured, or how dense you believe your shadow to be, you can begin exploring its characteristics by experiencing a radical form of healing that is inspiring and awakening. Spiritual teachings do not traditionally advocate this form of healing because the connotation embedded in the collective mind surrounding healing is difficult, arduous, painful, and evoking suffering through the self-scrutiny of reliving prior pain" [p20 ln324]. Nyanga was powerful but practice was never just the conscious process of releasing egos - even though that might have been how it was often described. That is the “difficult, arduous, painful, and evoking suffering through the self-scrutiny of reliving prior pain”, but that was never what was just going on. Connecting with the Muse was always developing space and after autonomy holding space for love-wisdom became a priority. In the end that has now become consciousness - directions and skills. Bringing in grace is that space for the soul - and has always been an aspect of practice, even though the 2 aspects had not always been recognised.
You need both. You can’t just release egos, there will be replacement - replacing by either “new” conditioning (even reconditioning) or replacing by "bringing in" consciousness. Tradition talks about awareness and mindfulness but practice tends to be seen as releasing egos. But without holding space - "bringing in" graces such as mindfulness and awareness - then conditioning comes back in . This can be seen as reconditioning, but is better thought of as holding space for the soul - bringing in the graces.
CENTRE - Loving consciousness
This is the centre of the zeer; it is the point where you see, know and feel you love consciousness - or you don’t. This loving of consciousness arises through working to love yourself (with integration), and to truly love yourself you work with the best books - putting each page into practice step-by-step (through journalling or otherwise). Up to this point the zeer can help you to be ready for love - maybe you can be ready for love in other ways - your journey. How you deal with loving consciousness through the best books is again your journey but this central point is the same - loving consciousness - seeing, knowing and feeling you love consciousness - unleashing love (with Nicola Amadora "Love Unleashed" and/or through loving yourself (with Teal Swan "How to Love Yourself". Work with these best books/teachings.
Loving consciousness is the first mystery - if there has been the work of the best books we can move on to the second mystery but with this first thought on possible improvement.
gabiK’s model of human infrastructure
There is always scope for improvement. In addon I zandtao has added gabiK's model of human infrastructure with some thoughts as possible improvement - this is perhaps a way for taking Zeer further.
Zeer-Vision - from Ageing to Purpose
How does the relationship between consciousness and ageing change during a lifetime?
zandtao is writing this zeer-vision as an insight, he would not write it if he did not consider it true but life is all things to all people. zandtao is not all of consciousness nor is he all of karma - the life-giving aspect of consciousness; there are many things we are not meant to know. This is his vision of what is true - so far. This vision helps with zandtao's purpose, it aligns with Eckhart's 2nd mystery of consciousness, but beyond this what can he say? Don't believe it - no believing. If you see zeer-vision as true - great, please don't try to force belief; as you can see in Addon H the first time zandtao read Eckhart's 2nd mystery he could not accept it.
zeer-vision goes beyond the development model (Addon A) - study this zeer-vision, hold it with mindfulness and see for yourself .... or not. At conception consciousness enters the mother’s womb and during pregnancy establishes mother-love - pure unconditional love. During upbringing consciousness as vinnana is building up the khandhas - kaya - body, vedana - emotions, sanna - memories and perceptions, and sankhara - mental processes. At this stage consciousness goes through a survival process strengthening these khandhas. At the same time consciousness builds up self-esteem to survive society; but sadly and paradoxically this self esteem blocks path connection with restrictions of attachments, suffering and clinging - the paradox being that these restrictions come from a consciousness process - ego-evolve-consciousness.
These restrictions or marks of consciousness attach or cling to our khandhas and cause suffering to our khandhas. But consciousness as vinnana has a life-cycle connected to the khandhas. From conception vinnana builds up the khandhas as part of survival, but later in life eg typically during retirement consciousness slowly detaches from the khandhas eventually leading to death. But with the changing emphasis from khandhas and societal experience humans can process consciousness after transcending conditioning (atammayata) - in autonomy sufficient of the khandhas not being conditioned. As ageing progresses we can end restrictions allowing our paths to include consciousness graces - skills of mindfulness, focus and embodiment and directions of love, wisdom, sila, truth and creativity. With these graces comes vision-without-restriction that enables us to consciously-love-and-evolve-consciousness, the ultimate purpose of human processing.
Sadly the joy of this final stage of life is lost to many because they remain controlled by the egos of their restrictions. As such they try to maintain connections to the khandhas going against the natural process of ageing - vinnana leaving the khandhas. Consciousness that could be used to consciously-love-and-evolve-consciousness is instead redirected to maintaining the egos in the khandhas - in the vihara. What could be the best joy in life - the joy of later life that has fewer restrictions and a life free from wage-slavery hopefully - is replaced by an unnatural attempt to cling to khandhas - often of a younger person; in the worst of old men this shows in attempting to maintain sexual relationships with young women.
Purpose - Evolving consciousness
If we can see this ageing process then purpose becomes straightforward - evolving consciousness. We learn about life, we transcend conditioning becoming autonomy, we love consciousness and as karma intends we then evolve consciousness based on our life’s learning. This evolving can happen unconsciously but as purpose consciously evolving consciousness brings joy especially in old age.
During our lives different aspects of our being search for purpose often within the societal infrastructure. This “societal” purpose is part of life’s journey, and contributes to our learning but is at best part of life’s journey that leads to the purpose of evolving consciousness. Evolving consciousness arises from loving consciousness, and develops understanding from life’s journey that can include many different temporary purposes. The ultimate life’s purpose of consciously evolving consciousness is perhaps best not sought, let it evolve from loving consciousness.
Consciously Loving and Evolving consciousness
Loving consciousness begins with Unity-consciousness - no separation, extending “self-love” to Unity-consciousness. For self-love we need to know and love ourselves in a non-egoic (not narcissism) way, and through unleashing that love there is alignment as Unity-consciousness. This leads us to making our self-love and Unity-consciousness more conscious - consciously loving consciousness.
At a certain stage of transcendence - what happened for zandtao during autonomy, the seeker recognises purpose - to consciously love and evolve consciousness. The seeker follows their path through their practice, learns to love themselves - unleashes love, and through unleashing love they recognise Unity-consciousness - loving consciousness. In this love they see that their love and wisdom evolves consciousness. This all connects with purpose. Why is there manifestation? So that we can evolve consciousness.
This understanding of purpose gives us our lessons for embodiment. Wherever we are with our consciousness is part of the collective consciousness - no matter who we are, no matter how developed we are as humans. In a summative mathematical way our collective societal delusion would appear to be the sum total of individual delusions - zandtao uses the word appear because the gestalt process adds or detracts, that process is not for zandtao to know. What is important to understand is that each individual contributes to the gestalt consciousness, how beneficial is your contribution? Each bit of wisdom we gain in life becomes part of the wisdom of consciousness - thus evolving consciousness.
And by recognising purpose we not only contribute to consciousness but we consciously want to contribute to consciousness; the seeker wants to consciously evolve consciousness - that becomes path and purpose.
If we accept this understanding of path and purpose then we connect our own paths to Unity-consciousness; conscious action evolves consciousness. Long-term solitude for indulgent use of spiritual tools such as meditation - spiritual bypassing - is not the path if there is no embodiment of spiritual development in daily life. It is all connected.
Human Processor
Processing is part of human nature. Purpose is consciously-loving-and-evolving-consciousness, and this loving and evolving occurs through the processing of the human being. Consciousness enters the processor as one of the khandhas - vinnana, and is processed. This processing can lead to love and evolving but it can also lead to attachment, suffering and clinging. Ideally processing would just lead to love and evolving; but because of conditioning egos, that arise through upbringing and societal conditioning from attachment suffering and clinging, processing this vinnana can lead us to supporting the egos.
Through practice we can learn to control this processing. Vinnana can enter as graces thus beginning love and evolving, as the residues of attachment, suffering and clinging leave space after being released. Practice ends the conditioning of upbringing, and in autonomy there can develop a sufficient state of atammayata that releases any attachment, suffering and clinging. For zandtao once crossing the threshold of autonomy his meditation has become the release of the marks of vinnana so hopefully his processing develops love and evolves consciousness.
Starting to Understand Karma
Starting to understand the vision that is karmic vision - the ways of consciousness are such a thing to love; Teal, Nicola and gabiK push towards this loving vision.
Seeing Karma in this way is so complete, it is a wonder to love. Seeing the completeness of Karma requires a stepping back from received understandings of karma as connected with payback and past lives. Seeing Karma in a truer completion brings together what your life is and how it comes together. Karma is destiny or divine plan but it is not obscure in this, it is a complete description of how life can be lived to the full.
The first Karmic agency comes before we are born. Consciousness decides how our lives are to consciously love and evolve consciousness - our bit of loving evolution. Then Karma provides us with our Sacred Wound - basically our personal karmic agency. Mainly Karma’s agents are our parents, and our path includes trying to love our parents - as we love consciousness.
But we need to understand that karmic consciousness has given us our parents to learn from, and in that learning there might well be suffering - dukkha is an agent of karma that teaches us. But the suffering from our parents is real, on our paths we do not hide from that suffering, and the circle of life brings us back to loving our parents as agents of Karma. Through conception we are born with mother-love, and we are also born with love for Karmic consciousness that begins with our nuclear families and home.
Our upbringing brings with it the survival attachments of self-esteem, and these Karmic attachments primarily arise through our parents and early childhood. This tends to be our Sacred Wound that is to teach us for the whole of our lives. At some stage we let go of the surviving self-esteem, learn from our Sacred Wound and follow our paths. Once we can overcome the clinging pain that grows in childhood we can begin to see our Sacred Wound as teacher and start to love - consciousness.
As we more fully understand our upbringing - through inner child reconciliation such as Thay's approach, we examine the attachment and suffering and release them re-integrating the ego into our completeness - complete love. What is so important in seeing this vision of Karma is that it is all planned to bring us joy when we have released it all. There is no greater joy or love than the love that comes from consciously loving and evolving consciousness. And that arises through our practice that basically releases the suffering and attachment that we first began to cling to as self-esteem in our upbringing - with later ongoing release as we more fully understand our Sacred Wound. Our path is to see through the conditioning and conformity of upbringing so that we can consciously love and evolve consciousness. Seeing Karma for its plan means that we see the three aspects of consciousness of anatta, dukkha and anicca - clinging to attachment and suffering - as teachers, teachers that have come from Karma - karmic consciousness. So we can then love the source of our attachments and suffering - on a personal level in full circle we can come to love our parents. For some families there is an attachment that is parental love, we love our parents because they are our parents; this is unconscious and is not the love of karmic consciousness that is the Sacred Wound of which our parents were planned to be a central source of learning. The 3 aspects of consciousness that came from our upbringing - attaching and clinging to egos and suffering - are with us until we mature - the sufficient transcending state of atammayata where we release conditioning and conformity that arose in upbringing as Sacred Wound.
But this does not mean that there is an end to these 3 aspects because our karma still has us vulnerable to the conditions in society that created our conditioning and conformity - that created our Sacred Wound - that created our parents. These conditioning factors that include generational trauma still remain within society, and if we do not use the consciousness skills of mindfulness, focus and embodiment to be aware of these ongoing factors there will still be a level of conditioning and conformity. Through these consciousness skills we embody that awareness by embodying a life that is free from conditioning. This is the stage of non-concoctability, much better remembered by the word Buddhadasa used - atammayata. This is the freedom of autonomy where we are sufficiently not conditioned by the conditioning factors prevalent in society.
With atammayata comes the recognition of loving consciousness and the arising purpose - we are here to consciously love and evolve consciousness, by that stage we have learnt what our path is. We may not have the level of attaching and clinging to egos and suffering that came with our Sacred Wound in our upbringing, but there are still residual aspects of consciousness that come from daily life. zandtao does not know but perhaps at this stage if a seeker forgets what they have learnt these residues would likely produce the attachment and clinging to egos and suffering that occurred in upbringing. So in the stage of atammayata the autonomous seeker is mindful of releasing this residue of daily life. Then the seeker can pursue the purpose of the karmic plan - to consciously love and evolve consciousness.
Consciousness as a mystery
“The mystery of consciousness we have begun unpacking is so elusive because it isn’t possible to package consciousness, weigh it, or examine it” [p40 ln611]. But there is a purpose in the mystery, the more we try to unpack the more we can learn; the purpose is the learning.
As a child bill learnt in school of the atom consisting of a nucleus of protons and neutrons with electrons flying around the nucleus. As a young adult soon after upheaval bill was fascinated by Gary Zukav’s “Dancing Wu-Li Masters” and Fritjov Capra’s “Turning Point” in which momentum (as mass and velocity) meant that the viewpoint of the observer gave different understandings by particle or wave. As measuring instruments became more powerful, there were postulated and found new particles in the atom to explain properties. And from there has come the scifi reality of the quantum popularised by Brian Cox explaining quantum physics in 22 minutes; there is so much more to quantum learning. Also early on bill came across Annie Besant discussing the consciousness of an atom, and that was sufficient for bill not to examine with a rational mind. There is that which science can grasp that pales into insignificance to consciousness, science uses quantum but does not explain rationally - can it? Relegating the atom to part of the mystery of consciousness bill left the scientific mind behind ….
Annie Besant’s consciousness in a single atom meant a universe to explore, and that expanse was reinforced by Buddhism with emptiness - including Buddhadasa’s sunnata. And then the mystery of consciousness was opened up by Eckhart with his two aspects of consciousness in awakening of inner light (Addon H). Initially he only accepted the first mystery but now the second mystery is integral to chapter 5. And he comes to trying to learn from gabiK’s consciousness. All of this expands on his point that consciousness is there to learn about. It is there to evolve and there is no end.
It is for the individual to learn. By this zandtao means that as far as he can see learning about consciousness is limitless. If zandtao were ever able to understand all that gabiK talks of in her book, she would have moved on. Maybe he tries to catch her up but there would still be a never-ending journey of learning - from her and elsewhere. It is necessary to consider how far he writes about it and with what intention? Might a seeker say there is the limit of what zandtao finds or more challenging what Eckhart or gabiK find - in which case just point to their wisdom. Learning about consciousness is an individual journey - it is part of an individual seeker’s path; is more than this necessary to be said in this zeer?
In line with this learning has been zandtao’s consideration of human infrastructure. In the intro he put forward an introductory infrastructure, yet with his studies for ch 5 he came across gabiK’s human infrastructure - see addon I; zandtao felt the need to try to incorporate this in his practice. gabiK discusses the vector of human awareness - the magnitude and direction of awareness. In terms of magnitude “You build the bridge of coherence through curiosity and a willingness to assimilate more universal intelligence into your own field of intelligence, which creates your mindset and overall awareness in life. To expand your consciousness is not just to learn new things mentally by acquiring new definitions or examples of meaning in the world around you, but to learn to apply these meanings by becoming more in touch with your inner world” [p41 ln626]. It is not the education that fills the contents of consciousness with facts and theories that are merely quoted in dissertations and theses, but this is knowledge growing into wisdom that is internalised through grappling and understanding - building a magnitude of conscious awareness.
The other part of our vector awareness is the direction that leads to the purposive direction - consciously loving and evolving consciousness. To love consciousness first means to begin to love oneself as a preparation to love consciousness. At birth in mother-love we have the openness that is the potential for loving consciousness but in our upbringing we meet our Sacred Wound - the learning map of our karmic intention. As we survive into adulthood that learning map can teach us if we are open to it because as our Sacred Wound it is inside ready to teach us to love ourselves and then to love consciousness. “one very important element of awareness is somatic awareness, that is, your connection to your own body. The body is a mirror of our consciousness, constantly projecting different cues and signals to show us where we are creating energetic obstruction rather than coherence and where we need to bring our awareness in order to avoid obstruction” [p43 ln667]. When we bring our awareness to the clues and indicators of our somatic awareness of our Sacred Wound - the learning map developed in upbringing, we can begin to integrate these restrictions into a love of ourselves (such as Nyanga). Loving ourselves can oscillate with loving consciousness, and this oscillation can eventually lead to a transcendence from our conditioning into loving consciousness - and then into the purpose of evolving consciousness. Our inner world holds all the clues and indicators for transcendence into purpose because that Sacred Wound - the learning map built by our upbringing - is what was our karmic intention at birth. The magnitude and direction of our vector awareness is that intention vector - our intention for being born. Our lives can also oscillate between the inner and the outer worlds as we process outer experience into internalised wisdom - building awareness, but that building of awareness needs to transcend - harmonise the direction of loving ourselves in order to love consciousness by using the learning map of our Sacred Wounds to overcome restrictions. As our upbringing builds our learning map our bodies then reflect that learning so that as adults we can follow that path of learning that we carry within us through somatic awareness. The outer journey can only aid the inner journey, what we learn from great teachers is not an objective bank of knowledge that is needed to fill the contents of our consciousness, it is the teachers’ understanding that can advise on your own ability to understand and integrate your learning map - a map that grew from your upbringing - a map that was intended.
That learning map does not end. There can always be an increased awareness of ourselves - we can always learn to love ourselves more. And the more we love ourselves the more we can love consciousness. Loving ourselves ends restrictions, and awareness can then take us into the directions of consciousness - wisdom and truth. Love enables the seeking of wisdom and truth.
From awareness to purpose our path has aligned with Unity-consciousness, but that is not complete until it has been baptised as embodiment.
zandtao allowed zeer vision to pierce further into consciousness. Perhaps there was evolution, perhaps there was reinforcement for the seeker, perhaps it was icing on the cake that was this journey from awareness - a long meaningful and beautiful journey. The journey really begins with enquiry and dedication to practice but in the first chapter zandtao looked at possibilities of awareness and awakening. If as a seeker some of Ch1 resonates then please look at some form of practice. In zandtao's lifetime there has been much development in the use of the tools of practice - sadly for most of his life not spiritually, but reflecting back seeing an unrecognised spiritual journey is comparatively easy.
A practice needs to become a spiritual practice if a seeker is not going to limit the use of tools for survival and reinforcing self-esteem. At some point a seeker recognises that what helps to survive within societal infrastructure can become a hindrance or restriction on the spiritual path, but being a seeker there is unconscious understanding that this path brings joy and is the way forward. Hopefully at some stage a seeker will enquire and find sufficient dedication that they will gain the fruits of the path, and begin to see nature's design. And if there is recognition of that design then dedication can open the doors to understanding our upbringings, the conditioning and conformity those upbringings bring, the restrictions coming from the upbringing, generations and the system-of-accumulation, all of which contribute to a Sacred Wound that we hopefully recognise. By embracing our own Sacred Wounds we can develop the autonomy that takes us into a level of conscious understanding that helps us find purpose. For zandtao that took place with the unleashing of love through hard work with the best books of Nicola and Teal . This journey brought zandtao to consciously loving and evolving consciousness.
zandtao's practice had two themes:-
And in this practice there was holding space for the graces that then helped zandtao align with Unity-consciousness to some extent.
There is one grace that has not been discussed - embodiment; there is no journey without embodiment yet if we look at the society we are a part of our hearts can only sink at the lack of compassionate consciousness. How have our journeys contributed to social consciousness? Consciously loving and evolving consciousness not only means contribution to the gestalt but also means somehow embodying the bringing of that love into a society where it is sorely absent.
But this embodiment has to be wise. On the path we develop love and evolve consciousness but in our society there is vulnerability associated with love and consciousness; wisdom and discernment helps with that vulnerability. With the equanimity of love-wisdom balance we can bring our conscious awareness into society, and that is our duty - our embodiment.
Do we run up a mountain to live in meditational bliss with our consciousness? There is a joy in teaching, there is a place for temporary sanctuary and retreat, but consciousness is for all and by simple observation we can see a lack in society. We can begin to develop a culture of awareness (CoA) by bringing our consciousness into daily life, integration rather than separation, we need money to survive but we don't have to leave our consciousness behind when we are making that money. Trade can have consciousness, accumulation mostly does not.
Daily life is also our teacher. Hiding away our consciousness means we do not learn the lessons of the consciousness of sila and truth, they are the cornerstones of a harmonious society - they follow from our radical love. Can we know of harmony in society if we hide in bypassing? We must respect our vulnerability, be wise about how we embody, but it is not path if there is no embodiment. If we are wise then we can attract like-minded and through havens of collective consciousness there can be societal development - well-needed as observation shows us.
There must be teachers, there must be sanctuaries, but consciousness needs to be integrated into society; in daily life there needs to be embodied consciousness. Bring consciousness into trading, bring consciousness into the office and other workplaces. It is not easy, and whilst your loving evolved consciousness is 24/7 bringing that to daily life 24/7 is not possible - there is just so much suffering. Find a level of harmony where your consciousness can be both embodied and survive - that is the duty of consciousness. Be wise and do good. Bring harmony to the daily life around you - but within reason as your own path is your priority.
Without embodiment there is no path, bypassing can only be temporary learning; choose how you contribute to daily life.
And for zandtao that choice is pathtivism - the next venture - begun with
Looking at consciousness 
Habitual attachment.
Books:-