The Zeer began as zandtao decided to end unleashing as a z-quest, and then went further into vision. Unleashing Love is an extremely important process for any seeker. Nicola’s “Love Unleashed” is a best book as is Teal’s “How to Love yourself". Dig into yourself through these books, and when you do that you can see these are “best books” but what they are not are books for z-quests. But that’s not exactly true, they are not books for zandtao’s written z-quests now because what is arising is tedious. Yet even that is not true because what is arising is far from tedious for zandtao but on review it might appear from the outside that zandtao is going down a tunnel of mindful tedium. These are wow moments of discovery for zandtao.
What was happening with the writing of the z-quests on these best books? Starting Nicola coincided with the recognition of Sacred Wounds. Spiritually Sacred Wounds are huge, living through the holy khandha is essentially the path. As became so much clearer in his studies of gabikov (Gabi Kovalenko utube and website), the choice of his soul is exhibited through the Sacred Wound; the 3 characteristics work through the Sacred Wound. With his Sacred Wound there was much pain in upbringing leading to numbness. Dukkha chose numbness and then alcohol addiction as his early experience whilst he came to terms with romantic love. After 20 years the consequences of this love and addiction led to travel and then a later review which began the letting go of clinging, the releasing of attachment and ending of some suffering that developed autonomy as he crossed that autonomy threshold. After autonomy his authenticity was not tied to a dogma - a set of ideals, no matter how beneficial this tradition and dogma of Buddhadasa's Buddhism had been in zandtao’s bhavana - development. zandtao’s isolation in daily life has now enabled a consciously-loving-and-evolving-consciousness.
This last paragraph contains so much in describing zandtao's path and 70 years of experience. But it’s a wonderful digression because thezeer is about vision and not the details of how zandtao reached his limited liberation so far. z-quest is a tool for healing the Sacred Wound, it had reached the stage where this journalling was almost a requirement for zandtao to go deeper. But burrowing the way through an internal blockage is now depth for zandtao but perhaps might appear as minutiae or be tedious for seekers. Any such burrowing is valid as a way of showing bhavana (development) - as a recognition of the path but that is not now what zandtao is writing for, that is what the zandtao writing started as - what formative zandtao writing has been.
What zandtao called the pathtivist trilogy consisted of the Treatise, Manual and Companion. The Treatise was a description of how bill crossed from the conditioned daily life to life on the path. It was about the fortune of upheaval, a powerful firstgrace experience at 23, and how developing the 3 tenets of the vihara (kaya, vedana and mind) together with experience enabled an early retirement of developing abidance. The Treatise could raise positive flags in a seeker as signposts. Have you felt these signposts? Then the path is for you, join a Culture of Awakening. In the Manual he developed pathtivism, being active on the path is both activism and the path. It is not a set of ideals - no matter any compassionate intention of such ideals. Ideals are restrictive. Compassion can work with good ideals but ideals build traps as the Manual pointed out. For zandtao the way out of the traps that are in conditioning was through his practice that grew from Buddhadasa’s MwB (mindfulness with breathing). Whilst his practice now focuses on the 3 freedoms zandtao still sees it as MwB but followers of Buddhadasa might not so he now calls it ZPAP.
Key to this pathtivist trilogy is what zandtao saw as zandtaomed, at that stage zandtao did minimal work as a meditation adviser. This was part of his development, and as far as he can see was beneficial for all concerned but it was risky. Patriarchy is now creating so much mental illness that there are dangers in meditation without good supervision and advice. Nicola and Teal are both highly conscious of this, and adopt strategies to compensate for this conditioned mental illness. Nicola’s strategy was systemic - becoming a PhD, and her strategy included all the systemic knowledge concerning this mental illness. zandtao had no such knowledge and this was the risk of his meditation so he withdrew as adviser. But the trilogy and advice can all be beneficial especially with the help of an adviser.
Viveka-zandtao noted how centring in solitude had been constant through his life after upheaval. Looking back and finding that space in solitude and the awakening studies of Thay led to what he called his autonomy - Prajna - the crossing of the threshold into autonomy. zandtao saw this threshold as distinct from his path up to that point because of his autonomy from Buddhism. In autonomy it was only his soul directing even though his soul was still strongly entangled with Buddhism. But most significant was that his autonomy recognised the love-wisdom balance that he developed through Real Love.
He took this love-wisdom balance further with Secular Path? starting with secular Buddhism and then a broader secularism. Whilst this was based in autonomy he was still following z-quests. Recognising the broad theme of love was not a process that delved into minutiae; examining Stephen Batchelor’s scythe that led into embodiment still does not seem to be concerned with minutiae. But now studying the two best books of Nicola and Teal on unleashing love, on review there just seems a sort of minutiae. It appears trivial but is far from trivial; what zandtao now learns is not for advice but for the evolving of consciousness through his fractal.
zandtao's books based on z-quests are formative, check book synopsis for all links - - to see where you might like to read.
When zandtao calls Nicola and Teal as best books he means it. Take each word of those books and make them part of your seeking. One definition of seeking could be unleashing love, another could be learning to love yourself. Completion of seeking cannot occur without this loving, and questions have to be asked of the wisdom traditions concerning this. There is no doubt in zandtao’s understanding that patriarchy has compromised some traditional approaches into a form of spiritual bypassing where the institution focuses on the wisdom marginalising the power of love from daily life. The equanimity of love-wisdom balance is described in such traditions but is it embodied? Patriarchy is satisfied that it is not.
Nicola describes two foundations of unleashing love as feminine and masculine and gives us many practices to develop these two foundations - there is no point in zandtao diluting these. His study helped him see the usage of Nicola's "Love Unleashed" in his development, followed this up with Teal's "How to Love Yourself", and so there are the two best books for seekers to unleash their own love and so love themselves - without any zandtao dilution. Love and love-wisdom balance are significant in thezeer vision.
z-quests had become a "lazy" way of development, find a book bounce off it and let the path develop. But that is now not working because the development is deep for zandtao but not suitable for advice. zandtao now needs to consider writing in terms of vision from his autonomy although for his own consciously-loving-and-evolving-consciousness he will continue journalling. zandtao's latest study has been gabikov. Whilst he has yet to study her book her teaching style is not suited to zandtao’s z-quests as a book. There was learning based on her science of the soul youtube clips, and the consolidation he gained from that learning has given him a much clearer grasp of the soul’s journey - the fractal. But to make use of that consolidation zandtao needs to step out of z-quests into zeer - moving forward into the visions of his autonomy.
zandtao has spoken of autonomy so that suggests there is no vested interest or agenda if it is genuine autonomy. There is no traditional dogma for zandtao to be aligned with. Before there was - Buddhism, and it was so important for zandtao as a seeker to be dedicated to this Buddhism AT THE TIME. But now even Buddhist ideals are dithupadana - clinging. It is the intention of thezeer vision that there is no clinging to tradition (even though any new creative writing becomes an ideal that clings once written ).
Hopefully thezeer is some form of summative, z-quests being formative. Through the vision of his autonomy zandtao hopes to be able to present advice in a concise form that is not bound up with and confused by all the formative learning. The advantage of not being bound by print is that as zandtao continues his own needed autonomous learning new understanding can be fitted into the infrastructure that is thezeer. thezeer will never be complete but within the summative structure the seeker might be able to access easier than the z-quests timeline - .
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