 Beginning our Outer Journey to Awakening Community
Spirit in hegemony?
Look at the hegemony, where is spirit? Within the hegemonic leaders, nowhere. Look at activism, where is spirit? And we get some answers - mainly concerning the planet understandably. Look at organisations for change especially within grassroots activism, where is spiritual leadership? And again we get no answer.
For some in the spiritual world this opening paragraph might well be triggering. There are some for whom considering spirit as connected to hegemony is an acceptance of attachment. Yet hegemony is the primary influence on the societal conditions that cause attachment. How important is that primary influence? As seekers we recognise that conditions lead to attachment. In zeer-consciousness zandtao felt it important to describe the framework of societal infrastructure within which awareness becomes purpose - it was intentionally described minimally just sufficient for the seeker to understand whether restrictions are internal or come from societal conditioning. For the awakened, hegemony does not impact their transcendence; but it does affect their compassion because of the way that hegemony impacts humanity. But most importantly it impacts the process of awakening; and as this book is Awakening Community, the tathata of hegemony is central.
Tathata of Hegemony
Tathata is a Buddhist word whose meaning is central to this book, tathata means seeing the way things are. In zeer-consciousness seeing the way things are with our intro-visions helped the book take us from awareness to purpose, those intros were seeing the way people are and seeing the societal infrastructure. On our inner journeys we consider all kinds of conditions esp. conditions that might impact on our upbringings and thus affect our Sacred Wounds. For the awakened they reach a state of atammayata - a state that is sufficiently beyond conditioning and conformity (discussed throughout zeer-consciousness ), so any conditioning and conformity has limited impact but it does impact the inner journey of the awakening process. When it comes to Awakening Community we need to give more detail to our way of seeing societal infrastructure - expanding our understanding of societal infrastructure to hegemony, so that we can help rebuild our communities; seeing the tathata of hegemony is central for the awakened to help rebuild our communities. In zeer-consciousness , zandtao felt that system-of-accumulation was powerful and influential in conditioning - it obviously impacts on egos connected with greed, but when it comes to community such power and influence is all pervasive. Because of their state of atammayata hegemony does not impact the awakened because of their autonomy, but it does influence the conditioning and conformity of those awakening; seeing how has to be central to a process of awakening community.
Hegemony is not a word particularly used in the spiritual world yet hegemony impacts all including those in the spiritual world. For many people in the spiritual world hegemony is a word used in Marxism (Gramsci) and many associate hegemony with Marxists - hence the possible triggering referred to above. But hegemony derives from the Greek hegemonia meaning rule, sovereignty or reign initially being used in terms of Athens and Sparta. But its usage started to change esp. in the 19th century when referring to European countries such as Britain and her colonies. In the 20th century its usage changed again because of the 2 World Wars and the ensuing Cold War.
But its understanding also changed. Whilst in Greece it was considered militarily, in the 19th century it began to include financial and industrial as well as militarily - wider to include the seas. And with the Cold War organisations of influence and intelligence such as the CIA and KGB developed as parts of hegemony.
For considering the pervasive impact of hegemony on awakening we are concerned with how this global power of hegemony influences the awakening process in our communities; in building awakening community, we need to see this - tathata.
Relationship between spiritual and hegemony
Can the spiritual world confront hegemony? Of course not. But could there not be spiritual presence - a spiritual influence on the pervasive hegemonic influence? For zandtao there is a spiritual understanding that if we all follow our paths there will be global sila and harmony - a truth but a pipedream now. Does the hegemony however we might look at it bring sila and harmony? By observation we see not.
Does hegemony impact awareness and awakening? Throughout both books (zeer-consciousness and Awakening Community), it is accepted that there is such an impact; how we address this impact is a key aspect of our outer journey - embodiment.
In this book we will be asking the awakened and to some extent the awakening community to consider the hegemony in which they live but with a purpose. Hegemony - whatever the way it is - cannot be confronted but it can be influenced. When zandtao asks where spirit is in hegemony, he is asking - where is the spiritual influence? Sadly the answer is still that it is very limited but at least the question is out there.
To develop this possible spiritual influence it becomes necessary to understand hegemony and the limitations hegemony presents. What are the limitations placed on the awakening process if we are to build awakening community - rebuild our communities. Rather than the bypassing of many teachers this book proposes incorporating seeing hegemony into a strategy for awakening community, and in this seeing the strategy will try to develop a harmonious path whilst helping the community avoid emotionally destructive reactions to policies within the hegemony. The tathata of hegemony is a central theme throughout this embodiment.
But to develop any influence on hegemony we have to begin to see it, we have to see how it affects the awakening process; that seeing comes from the awakened. How do we see awakening arising during the awakening process?
Awakening - need for change
First Awareness
As soon as there is any awareness or awakening there is a feeling of a deep-rooted need for change. In the hegemony? As seekers are coming from upbringings of conditioning and conformity they focus that need as personal development. Yet at the same time they know there is a deep-rooted need for societal change. But where does the spiritual world show that it is active in this need for change? If we are honest with ourselves we cannot see spiritual involvement in this urgent need for change.
Perhaps the spiritual world is hiding - spiritual bypassing - for spiritual reasons. We have spiritual teachers telling us some version of the Age of Aquarius - it is all changing for the better - ride the storm. When we look, we can see the storm; can we see it getting better? Do we just accept the changing age with faith, do we continue with spiritual bypassing? Or do we consider some form of active embodiment to help ride the storm - some means of effecting beneficial change?
So we gather around our teachers, we develop our paths - that is already so hard in this world, and we say it is OK to be detached from any commitment to change because finding the path is hard enough. So instead of spiritual awakening impacting hegemony, we struggle to even develop a clear culture for awakening itself.
Eckhart says we will go through a rough patch and get out the other side; zandtao is concerned about the living conditions of this other side. Where will spirituality be on this other side? Being negative, maybe the destruction of the storm will leave the other side as a chance to start again? When zandtao looks at his own spirituality he knows that it arose in "civilisation" - within the western hegemony - within this system-of-accumulation. What happens to the conditions for spirituality if the other side is apocalyptic? What happens to contemporary spirituality if the other side is apocalyptic?
Tacit Acceptance of Hegemony
For the spiritual in the West do we begrudgingly but tacitly condone the hegemony we live in - its system-of-accumulation, its oil wars and other defilements (Addon B) - as we find our paths? Yet perhaps the first quality that arises on the path is the radical love of compassion. Is this compassion only for relationships in daily life or is it also there to see the hegemony - bring compassion to the hegemony - develop the hegemony spiritually?
When considering the world and its hegemony some spiritual teachers actively encourage detachment from this compassion because it is so hard - IT IS HARD ENOUGH FOLLOWING OUR PATHS WITHOUT ALSO DEALING WITH EMBODIMENT AND ATTACHMENT. It is understandable as following the path IS hard enough, but can it be acceptable for those already following their path significantly to advocate bypassing?
Plethora of Teachings
For each seeker following their path there becomes a new teaching from their own experience - understandable as giving back is a nature and duty of path. Perhaps this teaching reaches others through religious institutions or online. But step back, look at the teachings - isn't there a plethora (sometimes contradictory)? Or perhaps a better question - when we compare it with the impact of spirit on the hegemony do we need more teachings? Or do we need some form of embodiment that can help bring spirit to the hegemony and its peoples? zandtao does not ask this question of seekers whose priority is following their own path, but isn't this a question for those experienced on the path - where in this world is the most notable absence of spirit? In teachers and the availability of teachings or in the hegemony?
Is the path of the experienced to hide, focus on individual seekers and not consider path embodiment in hegemony? Being content with bypassing because of the spiritual joy? For those bypassing who try to bring love to Unity-consciousness is this enough? When we look at suffering and the causes of suffering is this enough?
Embodiment for Purpose
Instead of hiding, doesn't purpose need to somehow find a way to shine in embodiment? Purpose (developed as consciously love-and-evolve-consciousness in zeer-consciousness ) loves consciousness - loving and evolving, where is this loving consciousness in the world? Lost - as the West uses bombs and drones to destroy - Addon B ? Purpose loves humanity - unity amongst humans, and does not want separation or hiding; love has no such separation.
Pathtivism as a Choice?
As an embodiment zandtao first put forward pathtivism in his zandtaomed trilogy - the Manual. At that point he mainly thought of pathtivism as wise embodiment - bringing the wisdom of the path to grassroots activism. Since then zandtao has found autonomy that immediately addressed a love-wisdom imbalance. Following that, autonomy chose to address one particular embodiment - pathtivism as wise embodiment in the grassroots movement, addressed the lack of unity and prevalence of egoic ditthis in this grassroots activism, and worked towards increasing emphasis on radical love that has been lost in daily life - and lost in grassroots activism? Pathtivist purpose is a choice of embodiment that tries to bring love and wisdom to the movement, and with this love enabling activism we can maybe help reclaim our spiritual responsibility - not tacitly ceding it to the delusions of the hegemony's system-of-accumulation whilst bypassing.
sangha of autonomous path
Stepping Back
Let us step back and look again at the beginning of this part:-
Look at the hegemony, where is spirit? Within the hegemony itself, nowhere. Look at activism, where is spirit? And we get some answers - mainly concerning the planet understandably. Look at organisations for change especially within grassroots activism, where is spiritual leadership?. And again we get no answer.
Now for anyone on their path as autonomy, authenticity or any such path word step back and look:-
Look at the hegemony, where is spirit? Within the hegemony itself, nowhere. Look at activism, where is spirit? And we get some answers - mainly concerning the planet understandably. Look at organisations for change especially within grassroots activism, where is spiritual leadership?. And again we get no answer.
Responsibility comes with Autonomy
Whose responsibility is it to bring sila to daily life? Bring spirit to daily life? With his crossing of the threshold of autonomy zandtao answers "it is his responsibility to bring sila to daily life". It is with this intention zandtao began looking at pathtivism and zandbagging. Looking at embodiment.
Let's retrace where these considerations - sila to daily life - came from:- the crossing of the threshold of autonomy. Prior to that his path had meant Buddhadasa Buddhism - following the Buddhist teachings of Ajaan Buddhadasa as his practice (Mindfulness with Breathing). At that time he only saw Buddhism for himself and his future - it seemed that was his path. In the writing of Viveka-Zandtao there came a disturbance that he saw as some form of transcendence - later seeing it more accurately as crossing the threshold of autonomy. This autonomy became very important as it was necessary for zandtao to determine his own path - autonomy. In that path-directing he began with love-wisdom balance - Real Love - a consideration of Secular Path? And all his earlier Buddhist practice and the changes made during autonomy led to zeer-consciousness. And initially this book on zeer-consciousness was to include a chapter on embodiment as pathtivism but it became more and more - leading to this book on Awakening Community that feels more important than anything previously done.
sangha of the path
This consideration of embodiment comes from autonomy, it does not come from Buddhism, Christianity or Marxism - it comes from autonomy. Now the Buddhist term of Ariya Sangha has a description of stream-enterer - rather than describing sangha as monk, so when the Buddhist bows to the Triplegem - Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha - it does not necessarily include the robes. Is that important? Thich Nhat Hanh often spoke of the raft of teachings that takes the seeker to the shore, but once on the shore the raft if carried could be a burden - "raft sutta". For zandtao there is an indication here that in autonomy it is not the practice that matters, it is the state of autonomy itself. Does this state of autonomy require maintaining the prior raft of teachings?
What if we could be allowed to use the term sangha as the community of autonomous, of stream-enterers, of those who have left the dogma behind, of those who have transcended? Could sangha be a term to describe a community of the path, paths that have led to this autonomous state from any diverse position or teaching? As the word sangha has a meaning in some circles zandtao wants to introduce a clarity that he will be addressing the sangha, not as a collection of monks of one religion, but as a collection of the autonomous - whatever paths and practices they have followed.
Now dear and respected sangha zandtao asks you to look again at how he began this part:-
Look at the hegemony, where is spirit? Within the hegemony itself, nowhere. Look at activism, where is spirit? And we get some answers - mainly concerning the planet understandably. Look at organisations for change especially within grassroots activism, where is spiritual leadership?. And again we get no answer.
Sangha, is it not your responsibility to bring sila to daily life?
Sangha, some of you remain in the institutions of the religions whose practice brought you to autonomy. Is your life bringing sila to daily life? Do you see your path in the workings of hegemony?
Who is to awaken community?
Apologies, dear sangha, but zandtao wants to bring discomfort to your life. Hegemony is taking us to existential threat, a possible new apocalyptic existence; how does your autonomy feel about that, dear sangha of the autonomous? zandtao does not ask how your institution or tradition feels about this, he asks your autonomy, he asks that autonomy which makes you part of the this sangha community of the path. How does your autonomy feel about the existential threats? zandtao does not want to hear institutional dogma or justification, he is talking to the autonomy. How can your autonomy see that lack of spirit in hegemony and your compassion not weep?
It is you, dear sangha, who are here to awaken community.
zandtao has spoken of bringing sila to daily life. But to you, sangha of the path, is given sila, the way of life that nature has given the world to live harmoniously together. That way of life has no denomination but it has its own autonomy. It is not a set of rules or laws, it is perhaps a law that there is one way of life for all as nature describes. For those following this law they would know that if the world followed this law there would be no existential threat, contemplate the harmony if hegemony were following this law. Dear sangha of the path, how happy would people be if their community were living by this natural law? Can we as sangha of the path begin to awaken communities to this natural harmony of daily life?
For those of us who have arrived at autonomy through a religious institution we know that our religions are not dedicated to building this deep harmony in our lay communities. Whilst undoubtedly they bring some good to their communities, does this good negate the harm arising from the hegemony? Is the work of the religion ending existential threat? Is the work of the religion bringing spirit to hegemony?
Can we whose autonomy arose through religion and tradition join with other path-followers and establish a sangha of the path dedicated to building harmony in our communities through being dedicated to awakening those communities? Can we see a possibility that we as sangha of the path can awaken communities giving those people the strength to cope with hegemony and its existential threats? Can we not be dedicated to awakening community?
Can awakening community not be our embodiment?
Sampajanna-consciousness
The Focus of an Inner Journey
Sangha of autonomous path, we have to be ready for this embodiment of awakening community; for zandtao after his journey towards zeer-consciousness he was not ready because his focus quite wisely was on the inner journey. Whilst in daily life towards that inner journey zandtao went through various flips between inner and outer, in retirement focusing on the path the journey had primarily been inner. For you, sangha of autonomous path, did you have a similar focus on whatever path took you to autonomy? When it comes to embodiment there is a balance between inner and outer. Do we need to prepare for such a balance?
Focus of Seekers
For seekers, there is a similar inner focus. Because our upbringing of conditioning and conformity focuses on the outer emphasising survival through self-esteem, as we mature and release conditioning and conformity it is quite natural to focus on the inner journey - that through conditioning might well have been absent. Through our inner journeys we learn the importance of awareness - of our conditioned absence of awareness, and through our natural duty we then encourage the inner journey of awareness for others. Instinctively, as natural duty, this encouragement, deriving from our personal experience, becomes embodiment - part of our outer spiritual journey; helping others become aware is an embodiment as teaching - advising. This embodiment is a natural part of the path - as awareness arises we wish to pass it on - give back, but is this advice - passing on our experience - sufficient for our total embodiment?
No new work is required from our awareness to have the desire to help others become aware, we feel it as a natural characteristic of awareness or awakening. Once we start to become aware, we gain the fruits of that awareness and our spiritual joy wants to give it back - pass it on. It is perfectly natural to want to scream and shout at the world the wonders of the path, this might be considered a natural embodiment. Such instinctive evangelising is not necessarily a good idea as following on from first grace (Addon C) there is much to be learnt - however advanced that awakening (first grace) is; this instinctive evangelising has sometimes been called inflation and this danger is discussed amongst others here. At the same time we must know that individuals learn only when they are ready, and then it is their determination that teaches - guiding themselves to appropriate teachers or otherwise. How much is the instinctive reaction of evangelising for our own benefit? Given the plethora of wise teachings might we consider a changing from teaching as our choice of embodiment?
Introducing ego of bypassing for all
As already noted there is a bypassing ego that characterises the world. When we look at hegemony where is the path? Where is sila? Where is compassionate liberation? This is a spiritual imbalance - a spiritual disease in the world. And if a reader sees Ajaan Buddhadasa in this phrasing s/he is completely correct. In his teachings concerning Mindfulness with Breathing Buddhadasa speaks of 4 Dhamma Comrades - mindfulness, concentration wisdom sampajanna - arising through his meditation approach of anapanasati - MwB. Through institutionalism or otherwise, teachings on the path have become imbalanced with bypassing and insufficient compassion as our world suffers from spiritual disease - there is a lack of influence of the totality of the path. With his crossing of the threshold of autonomy zandtao then worked to overcome his own imbalances leading to zeer-consciousness . Amongst what was not present was wise embodiment. Because of recognising his own bypassing zandtao now asks that all seekers develop a balanced path that includes sampajanna leading to wise embodiment.
When there is an inner focus, before embodiment there is a need to develop sampajanna.
Previously zandtao has accepted the need for bypassing as an ego as seekers learned about the inner journey in following the path. Previously he has asked questions of "more advanced seekers" as to why they accepted spiritual bypassing as a way of life, but now he realises that bypassing on any stage of the path causes personal imbalance - and contributes to spiritual disease in the world. This is why sampajanna is part of practice for all, he asks that sangha and seekers address this question of inner focus.
Embodiment
With a balanced path comes embodiment. but as with compassion we can observe that insufficient emphasis is placed on embodiment. Accompanying embodiment any interactions in daily life often have egoic attachments. For new(er) seekers understandable emphasis is placed on the inner journey of releasing egos attached to conditioning and conformity associated with upbringing, adding egos associated with new embodiment makes such release even harder and some teachers avoid these additional attachments - even though as part of their teachings they would include detachment from new egos. But the path is not balanced without embodiment, and this imbalance is bypassing.
Sampajanna-consciousness
Following Buddhadasa's guidance zandtao sees sampajanna as the consciousness that enables wise embodiment; unfortunately for himself this is a lesson he has only just learnt and why pathtivism has caused him so much confusion - discussed below to help seekers understand wise embodiment and bypassing.
Out of the path can arise sampajanna, consciousness that enables wise embodiment. Let us consider the 2 themes of practice :-
Out of daily life and upbringing comes restrictions and through consciousness we can overcome these restrictions. If we do not include sampajanna in that consciousness, then we can mistakenly include embodiment as egoic restrictions because it is not inner journey; this can cause confusion when we try to release them. With sampajanna-consciousness can come the balance on the path with wise embodiment.
Sampajanna-khandha
Khandhas are aggregates around consciousness that make up our daily lives, but there can be much ego in khandha. There is no I or mine in the 5 khandhas (a Buddhadasa teaching again) helped zandtao understand sources of many egos, and now wants to recognise that there are egos arising from the consciousness that is sampajanna-consciousness; this could be called unwise embodiment.
Sampajanna as Practice
In recognising sampajanna zandtao could see an important change to his practice, when we bring in the skills and directions of consciousness such as love, compassion, mindfulness, concentration and sila we need to bring in sampajanna-consciousness. For seekers focussing on the inner journey and seeking balance with embodiment might also feel the benefit of bringing in sampajanna-consciousness.
But having sampajanna-consciousness as a direction of consciousness also brings with it 2 considerations:-
 If there is no embodiment there is imbalance on the path
With the evangelising energy of a new seeker, the seeker is at risk of becoming attached in unwise embodiment
zandtao has already highlighted the possible unwise embodiment concerning the plethora of teachings. So maybe embodiment directs us towards the caring professions. But in our system-of-accumulation that system has corrupted many of our caring professions so that choosing a caring profession does not mean that all your active time in those professions is actually compassionate - as an example of a corrupted caring profession see Matriellez on teaching.
But even with the risks of unwise embodiment, henceforward we take the key understanding of sampajanna-consciousness as a direction of consciousness, and adjust our practice accordingly.
Sampajanna as atammayata
This inclusion of sampajanna-consciousness impacts on our atammayata - our state of non-conditioned and non-conformed mind that we have developed through good practice. Once we recognise that sampajanna-consciousness is part of our consciousness and that wise embodiment becomes part of our daily life then our state of atammayata changes as our view of some conditioning and conformity changes; a detached view concerning participation in climate change rallies might change because of embodiment that arises from sampajanna-consciousness. As we bring in more sampajanna-consciousness, atammayata develops now including actions arising from sampajanna-consciousness as right action. In our practice we have to ensure wise embodiment, we move away from bypassing ego and look out for the traps of attachments and egos to unwise embodiment. Recognising these consequences of sampajanna-consciousness means that we can maintain atammayata with wise embodiment.
Dedication - Filter not Ego
Based on the 2 themes of practice developed in zeer-consciousness :-
we have begun bringing in consciousness described in different ways - the latest description being sampajanna-consciousness. This opens us up into a potential error in thinking because there is only one consciousness - Unity-consciousness - integrated consciousness; when we see with one consciousness we see with tathata - clear vision. So why does zandtao talk of directions and skills of consciousness - and now the new sampajanna-consciousness?
Because of dedication. One spiritual aim is 100% dedication to the path but it is important to be clear on what dedication is and how we focus it. As abidance it is one of the 8 core components of practice, and in zeer-consciousness "dedicated to practice" is one of the 5 chapters; dedication is core. But dedication can become imbalanced; how do we see this imbalance? Is it connected to ego?
Let us step back to our two themes of practice:-
We hold space for consciousness and that consciousness is Unity-consciousness. But different practices can lead us to dedication to an aspect of consciousness such as love as devotion or wisdom as in wisdom traditions. Or as discussed with the bypassing ego a focus on the inner journey where focus on the inner journey can be temporarily beneficial. Because of the mental focus we do not experience Unity-consciousness but see consciousness through a filter - love, wisdom, inner etc. This need not necessarily be an egoic focus although ego can easily be involved, so zandtao uses the word filter as distinct from ego when focus is beneficial.
But as seekers we need to be aware that consciousness that is not Unity-consciousness can lead to imbalance, so if our path leads to a dedication that is focused on one aspect of consciousness such as love, wisdom, inner journey etc we need to be aware that balancing or integration will be required. In the case of embodiment it is quite natural for the journey to have been an inner journey and as such a rebalancing of our consciousness filters will be required - and to help with this particular imbalance zandtao describes sampajanna-consciousness. If we don't rebalance at the appropriate time restrictive egos and attachment become involved. Recognising the possible arising of filters through focus leads us to an improved understanding of Unity-consciousness.
Integrated consciousness
Following the path leads us to an approach of integrated consciousness where there are no filters and we can see the way life is and the way life is for us - the seeker - without restrictions. Integration is often discussed in terms of ego such as fragmentation or the less intrusive releasing restrictions. But zandtao now asks seekers to consider a further aspect of integration - rebalancing because of a dedication filter. Even though zandtao has been discussing sampajanna-consciousness he did this with the purpose of integrated consciousness - Unity-consciousness; it is imbalance that takes him to these different aspects of consciousness - skills and directions - mindfulness, focus and embodiment and love, wisdom, sila, truth and creativity. And now sampajanna-consciousness - without sampajanna-consciousness zandtao has applied a filter (zeer-consciousness?) of consciousness concerning the inner journey. With sampajanna-consciousness zandtao is removing that filter and hopes there is a balanced approach of integrated consciousness that follows - both inner and outer - knowing, seeing, feeling and acting. With this Unity-consciousness zandtao hopes that there can be tathata - seeing the way life is and seeing the way life is for his seeking. Hopefully he can then live a balanced life of knowing feeling seeing and acting with the purpose of consciously loving and evolving consciousness.
And to you, sangha of autonomous path, your autonomy can integrate consciousness through the outer application of sampajanna-consciousness - perhaps redressing institutional imbalances. With that integration the sangha can take the lead in building a Culture of Awakening (CoA).
Culture of Awakening
Sangha developing CoA
We are now looking at the first step of community - building to awaken community, that step is developing a CoA - Culture of Awakening. Given that awakening is such a natural function it seems amazing that there is no such CoA already.
Summative so far, there is only one consciousness - Unity-consciousness - an integrated consciousness but sadly our minds create filters or worse, egoic attachments, that prevent us from knowing, feeling and seeing this one consciousness and acting in an integrated way. Filters are an imbalance that can be counter-balanced but for zandtao their purpose in this rebalancing is consciously loving and evolving this one Unity-consciousness as described in zeer-consciousness . As part of this integration there is both an inner and outer journey - zandtao has put forward his approach to the inner journey as zeer-consciousness ; but please remember his is only one approach - there are many ways up the mountain, autonomy and beyond; each seeker finds the one that suits them. But from autonomy the outer journey might just be beginning. In discussing the need for sampajanna-consciousness because of the approaches up the mountain, zandtao is implicitly recognising that embodiment is part of autonomy; in this book zandtao is putting forward awakening community as a path for the outer journey.
At this point the hope is that there is a sangha - described above as sangha of autonomous path - who are working through Unity-consciousness (having balanced the sampajanna-consciousness?). In other words these leaders through their autonomy have become conscious of possible bypassing as they were developing their practice. Whatever imbalances their practice had introduced - in zandtao's case there was a love-wisdom imbalance as well as the lack of sampajanna-consciousness, their autonomy has balanced this out and our leaders - sangha of autonomous path - are ready to develop a CoA.
Showing Awakening as Not-fitting-in
To develop a CoA we need to begin to see the arising of awakening - usually in our upbringings of conditioning and conformity; once we see it arising this awakening can be engaged with.
In their upbringings seekers in some way did not fit in, and the first time we don't fit in is likely to be in adolescence but not-fitting-in at that age could well be far from awakening. Adolescence could just be an expression of dissatisfaction - Jack Dee. As young people become aware of what is required of being an adult there is a sense of fear and rejection, what is there to look forward to? This might well be an expression akin to awakening but in many cases the rejection-expression could be far from awakening. Some adolescents become rebellious - even turning to crime; this is not awakening behaviour of itself but awakening might be contributing. Out of this collection of adolescent behaviours that somewhere does contain awakening could be creativity, turning to religion or others yet at the same time awakening could choose repression by focussing their energy on excelling in what is socially acceptable such as academia. Alternatively for some adolescents who don't fit in, they could turn to love, music or fashion. For those whose not-fitting-in is awakening there are many ways to hide. And they do hide because awakening is not recognised societally; because of this lack of recognition awakening could choose to remain unconscious as awakening at a time when the young person cannot cope just leads to turmoil.
Adolescent expression of rebellion is often temporary - a growing-up phase, and after that phase these adolescents in adulthood find their role in society usually through marriage or relationship and the acceptance of wage-slavery that comes with that. But for those whose not-fitting-in is a deeper awakening there develops a search - what the knights and occult called quest; in this day and age this quest mostly turns to travel - even institutionalised as a gap year for some. For society the gap year is an acceptance of phase again, young people travel, blow off steam, get it out of their system and become disciplined in accepting some form of wage-slavery. For awakening it is not a phase and the search continues. The search has maybe turned to creativity, religion or self-esteem strategies. Self-esteem strategies for seekers of awakening would be hiding in academic success, focusing on societal success in careers, materialism or fame. Or sadly for some seekers none of these satisfy their awakening and they turn to cults. Cults are an attraction because they meet fellow seekers who do not fit in and are searching, sadly for many in cults esp. women there is exploitation.
Meeting Awakening
Awakening takes many forms - many paths up the mountain; for zandtao it is an ongoing process. After first grace LINK there is a newness in everything brought about by the level of awakening. For bill this meant an ongoing search for awakening in others. In his early time of newfound bliss he saw some level of awakening in so many people but in retrospect that can be legitimately questioned. He saw glimpses of awakening in people everywhere - deep wishing? As the newness naturally died down there was still the yearning; whilst the power of this yearning waned it was everpresent - throughout the 26 years from first grace to starting Buddhism at Wat Phra Keau to a further 22 years for autonomy. (To give a context there is an online biopic at his website - would be part of this book if it ever got near publishing.)
But there was much awakening met in the 26 years before Wat Phra Keau from when his path-without-practice began to develop the meditation practice that led to his being ready for autonomy. Jumping out of chronology he had one sober year in his late 20s where he met theosophy. In this year he met so many awakening glimpses in others it was fascinating. He strongly remembers one old guy at meetings who in the discussion of the talks always stood up and said "The mind is the great slayer of real"; to me it is his quote, but AI tells zandtao that it is from "the Voice of the Silence" by HPB - no wonder this guy was always saying it in theosophy meetings. It is clearly a quote that opens up so much - esp. for this long-gone guy, but at the time it was just tedious to hear this guy stand up and tell us the quote as if it was going to be everyone's epiphany. But it was a glimpse of awakening for him. Practice was part of theosophy, he tried but wasn't ready and his clinging to the booze took him again.
For the first half of the 26 years - before his taking the needed pledge, he had summers of sobriety and elements of solitude. Once he had released teaching stress a little, his path arose through the booze and his inner guide would connect with some book and teaching. As he was living in London at the time this book would lead to a bookshop, society, meeting and a set of teachings. All of this appealed to his ditthupadana - clinging to different ideals as he went around eclectic dabbling. His sankhara-khandha conditioning was still telling him that it was ideas that mattered. Even though theosophy had told him about practice, his conditioning was still too intellectual - he was not ready.
Zandtao presumes that all of these places of ideas and teachings (ditthis) were awakening for some there, they never gave bill a practice; Buddhism was always there but something inside him said it was tedious - now he cannot see where that came from (except Mara? MUtt LINK). Maybe they were places of awakening for a few in the society but for bill they appeared to function as sanctuaries - partial homes where the people felt comfortable and life had some meaning. At that time zandtao's yearning did not have the practice for dedication and abidance so he was not attracted to awakening "homes" whether as monasteries, communes or even these societies if they existed there.
Turmoil in Awakening?
Recently zandtao has been seeing utube clips where people are describing their awakenings as difficult - discussed with examples in this addon. Zandtao has 2 reactions to this.
His first reaction is to ask these seekers to be patient. Your awakening has been repressed through your upbringing of conditioning and conformity, and has taken time to come through. The turmoil that you are feeling is three-fold:-
you are feeling the bliss of awakening (to whatever extent your awakening is), and society is not ready for this.
Your erstwhile acceptance of conditioning and conformity gave you a false sense of comfort and satisfaction. You accepted this survival aspect of your upbringing, but now awakening is coming through and is encouraging you to live the life of your authenticity.
Your awakening is coming as a path from nature, our society (hegemony) does not follow a natural path so there is a conflict between your authenticity and society. This might be especially true later on in life where your acceptance of conditioning and conformity has maybe led you to a life in which you have societal responsibilities.
Awakening is not there to cause you turmoil so please be patient. Develop a practice that will bring you calm and accept this wonderful gift of awakening consciousness. In the end be grateful you have found your path.
His second reaction is that he feels a small sense of joy at this turmoil. His own experience was that in his own upbringing he never truly invested in the conditioning and conformity offered him. So whilst he gained qualifications he was not committed to the process, and once in the world of work he was in turmoil. His awakening freed him up from much of this conditioning and conformity enabling some development towards autonomy, an autonomy that took a long time before it was meant-to-be. Now he is seeing these seekers whose upbringing brought stability and fitting-in finding their awakening breaking through; this is good.
Choosing Religion
Throughout all of this search for awakening one choice is religion. In the Western religions there appears to be little search and awakening but compassion finds a home in service. Whilst service is ultimately what seekers do in awakening, there is an awakening yearning that is not satisfied without a community of awakening. In Eastern religions esp. Buddhism there is awakening as part of the dogma, but monks don't always awaken and those that do can accept the bypassing home the religion offers. As places to learn, such religious institutions do offer teaching; but does their teaching lead to embodiment other than more teaching? Because they offer places of service some seekers could be satisfied enough not to continue their search for awakening.
If not-fitting-in has not led to some form of "home" then it becomes harder and harder to be an outsider, eventually it becomes easier not to continue searching. Searchers opt to repress awakening and fit in with one of the above suggestions - they learn to live in society whilst at the same time deep down not-fitting-in - often finding an escape valve of addiction or a repressed partial-awakening "home".
Well-being a false "home"
Compared to when zandtao was young, search can now find a more common-place partial-awakened "home" in well-being; when zandtao was young there wasn't a community of well-being. But the wellness industry did not arise to help the awakened, it arose as a way of coping at the workplace. zandtao saw this arising along two avenues - Google and Jon Kabatt-Zinn. zandtao sees the wellness industry as applications of spiritual tools to enable coping with daily life. Typically wellness people encourage the use of techniques such as meditation because it helps people in the world of work; historically it seemed that Google pioneered this - presumably because it helped productivity. J K-Z developed MBSR (mindfulness-based-stress-reduction) amongst others at MIT - he brought the Buddhist technique of mindfulness to help people cope with stress. zandtao calls them spiritual tools because nature gave us these tools to help with awakening, but coping is a survival mechanism - not the same as awakening. Whilst well-being might well be a personal stage on the path to awakening, the spiritual search for awakening is different from well-being.
Awakening "Homes"
So let us examine the situation for awakening. There is not a mainstream culture of awakening but there are marginalised communities where awakening is respected. In the West these marginalised communities revolve around approaches such as ascension but the mainstream religions don't overtly work towards awakening. These religions provide communities of support - service for people who find it difficult to cope; this of course is worthwhile (ultimately service is a purpose of awakening) but it is not an expression of the yearning of awakening. In the East there is a path towards awakening that is understood in daily life - seekers engaging with that path join monasteries and if awakening occurs it happens within monasteries. In the East monasteries have close links with daily-life communities thus maintaining mainstream awareness that there is this path to awakening within monasteries. In the East of Buddhist countries there is a greater awareness of awakening but as with the West this awakening occurs within the marginalised situation of the monastery.
In the processing of awakening itself it is good that there is such awakening within marginalised setups whether we have the erratic awakenings typified in Batgap or the institutionalised process towards awakening typified by Buddhism. But when we ask where is spirit in hegemony?, we have no answer. In these Eastern and Western descriptions the effects of embodiment are limited, there is awakening and some embodiment esp teaching - but sampajanna-consciousness is lacking. In whatever form this lacking is bypassing; Unity-consciousness knows that awakening is not the end, autonomy requires embodiment.
Bypassing ego
Some teachers of the path legitimise avoidance of embodiment or even encourage it; for some "wisdom institutions" there can be an issue with love-wisdom imbalance. Crossing his own threshold of autonomy zandtao worked on this issue - through the z-quest of Real Love; was this imbalance his own learning failure or an institutional weakness? In zeer-consciousness this issue is addressed through the 2 best books - unleashing love with Nicola Amadora "Love Unleashed" and/or through loving yourself with Teal Swan "How to Love Yourself".
As a direction of consciousness there is a need for compassion but if there is no desire to embody this compassion then why would it happen? Unlike Ajaan Buddhadasa not all teachers have sampajanna-consciousness as part of their practice so such embodiment does not necessarily arise through their teaching. There is a kind of closed teaching loop for some advanced path-seekers that comes from bypassing. In such a loop, from the path comes sampajanna-consciousness and to satisfy that spiritual direction of embodiment there arises compassion that leads to teaching. In this teaching the first job of spiritual teachings might well be considered the releasing of the restrictions of conditioning and conformity that arises from upbringing. But these particular spiritual teachers also recognise that additional restrictions arise with unwise embodiment, so such teachers avoid encouraging embodiment because of these egos. But it is not only advice that suggests seekers avoid embodiment because of the diffcult egos, those same teachers might accept the bypassing ego of not encouraging wider embodiment in their own practice.
zandtao suggests that teachers develop a practice of sampajanna-consciousness, and encourage the love-wisdom balance of equanimity. In so doing they will promote wise embodiment, and naturally release conflict within the plethora of teachings. When teachers accept this balanced Unity-consciousness they will begin to see embodiment as more than teaching.
Bypassing is the avoidance of embodiment
For Unity-consciousness embodiment follows awakening on the path - sampajanna-consciousness. Whatever reclusive situation awakened seekers find themselves in, if as part of their purpose there is no move towards embodiment then it is ego - bypassing ego. That is not to say there is no place for the solitary but it is saying that there is no place for the solitary whose purpose is not embodiment eg if the solitary is meditation for meditation's sake then it is bypassing. Solitary is a theme in Viveka-Zandtao, it was during this z-quest that zandtao crossed the threshold of autonomy.
Sangha of autonomous path, from awakening to embodiment is not stressed enough in the marginalised awakening "homes". From embodiment would come a CoA, what we have now is a Culture of Marginalised Awakening - apologies for this pun CoMA. It is an exaggeration to describe the current paths of marginalised awakening as comatose but awakening requires embodiment. If we can say there is no spirit in hegemony then essentially we are describing bypassing. Nature gives us paths to bring sila to society, if there is no spirit then it is spiritual disease caused on one level by bypassing.
Focus on embodiment then a CoA will arise.
Awakening is accepted as part of personal development.
This is the main lesson we can learn from societies where Buddhism is more prominent. From not-fitting-in the seeker can immediately connect to awakening, and such seekers join monasteries. In the West awakening does not have an immediate outlet although outlets are there if the seeker perseveres with their search.
In this book we are working towards awakening community but before we can even conceive of this there needs to be a CoA - Culture of Awakening, and before there can be such a CoA there needs to be a path rebalance towards embodiment - towards a sangha of autonomous path. This lack of embodiment is shown by the bypassing ego including institutional acceptance of bypassing.
In our exploration so far we can see that awakening can be flagged by not-fitting-in although not in most cases; this not-fitting-in is a fragmented subconscious reaction - it is not an integrated approach to awakening.
Spiritual Heuristics
From recognising a sense of not-fitting-in that might be the path we move to recognition of path - how path happens - how awakening arises. There are spiritual rules-of-thumb that describe this, zandtao is calling these rules-of-thumb spiritual heuristics (as a formalisation):-
When we are ready the next stage of the path happens.
when we look back at our paths we see that these stages were meant-to-be.
Retrospectively we can see how our paths happened and we can see how our paths were meant-to-be. In Addon G describing "Readiness and Meant-to-be in his path" zandtao sees these processes clearly in his development. These are stages to look out for but in truth the way we develop our paths is through good practice rather than trying to be ready or trying to understand what is meant-to-be. These stages need to be interpreted carefully, because being ready and what was meant-to-be cannot be "taught"; they can only arise through being good and being dedicated to our practice. These stages go some way to explaining some passivity on the part of institutions, communes and some teachers in developing a CoA.
In Buddhism this being ready and meant-to-be is described as arising when the conditions are right, and to be more spiritually aware right conditions arise from abidance when the seeker is dedicated to practice. It is not a question of believing in Buddhism but following the practice that zandtao describes as
Let me reiterate that this practice is non-denominational, has no component of belief but requires a level of understanding of restrictions and consciousness. Whilst zandtao got that understanding through studying Buddhadasa's Buddhism, in Secular Path? LINK after autonomy he recognised there were many paths up the mountain.
So being ready for what is meant-to-be brings awakening. Various of the awakening paths see this process as when the seeker is ready they arrive at the retreat or place of learning such as monastery or commune - a sense of coming home. In these places of learning to awaken the advisers/teachers help provide the right conditions - abidance - that with proper dedication the seeker can awaken. Given their tradition in awakening, in this learning abidance there is love and wisdom that can help awakening.
Zandtao is not concerned about which tradition of awakening the seeker follows nor is zandtao concerned about which "home" the seeker reaches in order to awaken, but zandtao is deeply concerned about the process of reaching this awakening-home. Yet he would also point out that such an awakening-home need not be an institution or a teacher's commune, it can be in reclusion. Again zandtao refers to the diverse paths of the Batgap interviews. LINK.
Glimpses of Awakening
Zandtao describes bill's upheaval as a partial awakening - powerful but partial. As described above he was not ready to awaken but he was lucky that this partial awakening was sufficient to guide him through life where in retirement he could be dedicated and become ready for autonomy. Throughout his life after upheaval he experienced glimpses of awakening from insights through to more powerful aspects of awakening that are often called glimpses. Through much institutional help from the Harnham monastery and the institution that enabled Buddhadasa's awakening he reached his home in reclusion after dedicating to practice.
What happens to seekers who experience glimpses in isolation? With bill's upheaval his more intense glimpses were validated by the Arts Centre but are all such glimpses validated without a CoA? Zandtao's emotional answer is no, but in truth he does not know. What he feels is that throughout society there are individuals experiencing these glimpses, and when they are in need of validation these glimpses are mocked or ridiculed in society. Or if they are discussed in an institution are used as recruitment to dogma. Or worse they are used for exploitation in cults. Zandtao is of the view that many such glimpses occur, go unrecognised by the seeker, disturb the seeker for a while, and then get repressed by the seeker as they follow necessary duties of daily life. Or the disturbance can lead to escapism such as with drugs.
How did this view arise?
Above zandtao described how often he met awakening glimpses, but he wonders how many of these people became awakened. How many had glimpses that did not lead to awakening - for simplification he will use the term unrequited glimpses, how many had unrequited glimpses? The seeking in his life brought bill into contact with so many people who had stories of glimpses that remained unrequited. These glimpses might lead to a religious adherence in daily life, they might have led to a political understanding, they might have led to a "New Age" approach, they might have led to a commitment to the planet, or they might have led to escapism because the seeker had lost control. But he guesses that many did not awaken; this is the waste that zandtao spoke of earlier. Waste is emotional and disparaging and zandtao is likely to be being unfair, but the purpose of these glimpses if fulfilled is awakening; for many such glimpses there is no awakening. Did these people find awakening "homes", develop a practice and reach autonomy - become awakened to whatever extent? He cannot know the answer to this question but he fears a low percentage.
Sangha of autonomous path, it is these unrequited glimpses that need your support. It is these unrequited glimpses that need a CoA. When these glimpses arise there needs to be a culture that has reached out so that each individual with a glimpse knows of someone who can validate their awakening, and who can mentor their development until they are ready to dedicate themselves in an awakening home. Zandtao's initial validation was not through awakened people but through an Arts Centre; their Muse had given them a partial awakening. But he doubts whether their art led them to awakening because the CoA was not there to connect their artistic glimpses with awakening to the path - those glimpses remain in the art for others to recognise. Sangha of autonomous path, if there are unrequited glimpses that have not been validated, is there not a lacking in the spiritual community?
CoA Purpose
From outside observation on the surface of Thai Buddhism it appears that an awakening seeker would join a monastery where there are many levels of understanding that could help that seeker awaken. No search is needed, no eclectic dabbling; the culture is there, Buddhism is integrated into the society and a seeker knows where to go. Let zandtao reiterate "outside observation on the surface". He does not know whether in Thai Buddhism unrequited glimpses turn into awakening but the infrastructure is there because of Buddhist integration in schools and society. At the same time there will be issues concerning awakening - it is never simple; zandtao does not have the experience to go beyond noting that there is a cultural infrastructure that people with glimpses could connect with monasteries where hopefully there are awakened teachers. This is Thailand's CoA, and zandtao does not know how effective it is. But CoA purpose could be satisfied; an individual has a glimpse of awakening and begins to know where to go to find an awakening home. Zandtao does not have sufficient knowledge to debate this. Any issues are not with regards to CoA purpose, there is an infrastructure for seekers.
Compare this simple infrastructure with the array of choices that an individual with an awakening glimpse has. After firstgracefirst grace a western seeker doesn't even know if what they have experienced is a glimpse of awakening, let alone do they know where to go. In many parts of western society an awakening glimpse could be met with ridicule because it is beyond the conditioning and conformity of western society. If there were a CoA there would be sufficient people associated with awakening in society who could recognise glimpses as connected to awakening. These glimpses would be validated by this recognition and hopefully there would be various levels of mentoring until the seeker developed sufficient practice to be ready to go to an awakening home and dedicate their practice to following their path to autonomy - and further?
Looking back at bill's eclectic dabbling did all the institutions and societies know that their business was awakening. If the founders of those societies were keeping alive teachings of a dead erudite, did they know the original teacher was on a path to awakening? Do these founders and the followers know their business is awakening? Do religious institutions know that whatever dogma they are teaching their institution is fundamentally an institution of awakening (whatever phraseology is used)? This is the awakened deep tolerance of there being many paths up the mountain. Followers of institutions and societies may not see this deep tolerance of awakening as their following might mean adhering to dogma (in a partial home); many good people do this. This is not awakening but it is often from within the ranks of followers unrequited seekers reside. In a CoA such seekers would be encouraged to see their glimpses as a level of awakening and would connect with the CoA. From within such a culture these seekers would not feel alien and ridiculed, and would meet mentorship that would help develop practice so that they would eventually be ready and know where their awakened home was.
This is a cultural process and not evangelising. In a CoA there will not be people promoting a dogma defining steps to a dogmatic institution. From a CoA there will be a deep tolerance for which all paths lead to awakening, and through the development of practice the culture would help seekers find their own path up the mountain. Helping a seeker find their awakening is the objective, it matters not what set of teachings takes the seeker there. This is CoA purpose. Do we have anything like this?
3 Pillars of a CoA
Once the yearning for awakening has reached its home then nature can take its course, but zandtao has to ask this disturbing question:-
How many glimpses remain unrequited and never find a home?
Sangha of autonomous path, zandtao asks you to provide 3 supporting pillars of a CoA:-
Validation
Outreach
Mentoring
To be honest these 3 pillars exist in part and glimpses do become recognised. For example there are the different groups bill attended during his eclectic dabbling where these pillars gave him some support. When older (after Wat Phra Keau) there were Buddhist groups such as those connected to Harnham; on retirement there was the Buddhist group in Bangkok. With the Buddhism bill's path to an awakening home was almost "complete" - no CoA was required - just dedication to practice. But in the early years this culture was fringe. It was often based on examining different dogmas - ditthis - rarely did he meet an emphasis on practice; to be fair he was not ready for practice.
But that does not alter the main point, the CoA was fringe. What exists as a CoA lacks the outreach that could make awakening socially acceptable. It lacks the integration and focus on practice that could help turn a glimpse into awakening by guiding the seeker into an awakened home. Sangha of autonomous path, isn't such a CoA necessary?
Cultural awareness of matters relating to awakening has evolved since bill's youth, most significantly well-being is mainstream. But well-being is not awakening; well-being could be on the way to awakening but techniques of the spiritual path have been appropriated by well-being to promote self-esteem and more exploitatively by Google (etc.) productivity. Other than noting this zandtao cannot evaluate further as it is not part of his experience. Sangha of autonomous path, when you meet it you will know whether such well-being is leading to awakening. Many of the teachers in well-being have had contact with awakening such as J K-Z's development, zandtao suspects there is sufficient CoA in the well-being movement that if a seeker is ready they can be encouraged towards an awakening home; that, sangha of autonomous path, is for you to assess.
But zandtao feels there is a wider movement of unrequited glimpses that just get lost - or worse leaves a deep-rooted disturbance in the life of an unconscious seeker. It is these unrequited glimpses that zandtao asks the sangha of autonomous path to reclaim through the 3 pillars, and hopefully work with these unrequited to help them find their awakening-home.
Mentoring not Plethora
For the awakening there is a natural drive and duty to give back. Because of the elation associated with their own bliss, newly-awakened want to give back how they became awakened. Whilst all experience of awakening is helpful in bringing an awareness of awakening within a CoA - as collected in the Batgap interviews, what is not needed is new dogma. Without the awakening experience itself the teachings of such newly-awakened becomes just another dogma - ditthi. What is lacking in the West is the CoA purpose - reaching out to isolated seekers, validating their glimpses of awakening, helping develop their practice, and helping their inner guide find a suitable awakening home. This can only happen with the outreach, more awakened working in the community to recognise the glimpses.
Because of deep tolerance the autonomous recognise that it is not dogma that is important because all paths lead up to the mountain of autonomy. What matters with dogma is the practice of depth. It is not the ideas that are important but the deep connection of practice to the dogma's infrastructure. When zandtao describes his themes of practice:-
Image 2 themes
they have deep meaning because his practice has connected to this ditthi (dogma). In zeer-consciousness zandtao has tried to help seekers see why it has worked for him, but he knows that the book's content is just another ditthi - however deep and meaningful it is for zandtao because of his practice.
CoA mentoring is not concerned with advocating a different ditthi or a particular dogma, it is concerned with helping the seeker move on from their own glimpse into their particular awakening home. Essentially mentoring is guiding until the seeker finds their own inner guide, and primarily that guiding is practice. And the purpose of this practice is to clear the way for awakening - help make the seeker ready. What is blocking the awakening? Mainly upbringings of conditioning and conformity - Sacred Wound, in a CoA through practice a mentor helps the seeker identify their Sacred Wound, the inner guide within and then nature will take the seeker to their awakened home. No dogma!!
CoA and Sacred Wound
For zandtao upbringing is greatly misunderstood. As young people enter adulthood many carry scars even trauma, and others maintain delusions of family love and self esteem as they fit seamlessly into the world of work. When awakening glimpses arise there is no explanation within this view of upbringing, and because there is limited outreach in current awakening cultures. At present there are forms of outreach in which representatives of awakening homes go out into the community evangelising. For those genuine in this evangelising, this outreach is access - if the seeker shows interest in the teachings of the awakening home then they can access speakers or community groups; this is the type of access zandtao spoke of earlier with regards to Harnham. But this is not outreach into the community that zandtao is asking for in a CoA, for that outreach zandtao is talking of awakened working (daily life) within the community, and mixing with the awakening glimpses in their daily life.
What happens when awakened outreach meets the scars and traumas of upbringing? They can place it in the context of Sacred Wounds - they were meant-to-be. Zandtao doubts whether bill would have been ready for such Sacred Wound understanding at the time of his upheaval but family relationships could have been so much closer if he had understood his own family dynamics as Sacred Wound - as he does now. With the inner guidance of the path he did learn but if there had been a mentor developing his practice and noting the intended nature (ego-evolve-consciousness) of his family dynamics as a Sacred Wound so much could have been learned so much quicker. Was he 70 when he learned of Sacred Wound? Zandtao does not resent this as he can see it was meant-to-be, but one aspect of that learning is to highlight the importance of outreach and the need for outreach within the community to promote awakening.
At this point zandtao wants to reinforce the need for the "best books". For those with scars and traumas from upbringing the need for love is central to their Sacred Wound. He learnt about the approach of Sacred Wound mainly through Nicola Amadora even though throughout his life he was conscious of how his upbringing affected his spiritual development. But he never thoroughly understood the constant giving that is the nature of Sacred Wound - that came from Nicola. Love also came from Teal and he focuses on the 2 Best Books LINK in the final chapter of zeer-consciousness .
What about the deluded "successes"? By these "successes" zandtao means those whose family love and self esteem fit them seamlessly into the world of work. These are the people who are lost to the path through their delusions accepting conditioning and conformity. As mentioned above there are some "successes" who are now in turmoil because of awakening, CoA outreach can alleviate that turmoil with validation - in much the same way as the Arts Centre validated bill. For those "successes" (Addon) early years must have been awful, unlike bill they were comfortable in the world of work and then along came awakening. What must life have been like immersed in the world of work without any validation and yet living with awakening? Where was the outreach? What is the Sacred Wound for these "successes"? Success itself? Whilst these "successes" have perhaps reached awakening glimpses without trauma, is their love deep …. are they integrated? Despite the seamless entry into the world of work a deep understanding of love from the best books would not go amiss.
At this point sangha of autonomous path, do you see a need for a CoA? Is waiting for seekers to reach the awakened home sufficient in this world where spirit in hegemony is so limited? Is embodiment limited to the teachings and the institutions of these teachings many of which dogmatically are conflicting? And what of those who end up exploited in cults, how many of them would have been saved by validation in a CoA?
For zandtao the embodiment that is the sangha of autonomous path outreaching through contact is the basis of building an awakening community. Zandtao is asking for contact that does not reside in institutions that seekers come to but in developing contact through outreach; let outreach be the signs that start to awaken and create glimpses. Let outreach turn the unrequited glimpses into fulfilling steps towards the path of awakening. If the individual accepted that the suffering was by design and they were intended to learn from the pain that arose in the dynamics that built the Sacred Wound, how much more could be learnt if it was understood that the suffering was intended to teach us? The awakened know this. With outreach they could go out and a CoA could then know this. How much could psychiatry be improved if psychiatrists knew that the suffering arising from Sacred Wound that showed itself in mental disease was intended to teach? Some know, some don't; would that more could know? Wouldn't they know if they had learnt themselves within a CoA?
sangha of autonomous path, is there a need for a CoA? Is there a need for awakened encouraging awakening within community? An awakening community?
Awakening - Going into Community
Sacrifice
Sacrifice - Choosing Ego-hell
This is a HUGE ASK. Sangha of autonomous path, remember all those egos in community that you left behind as you entered your awakening home; zandtao is asking you to return to living in that community. He is asking you to leave your awakening home, not lose contact with that home, and leave the more harmonious existence of your awakening home. He is asking you to return to the community of daily life.
"Airline" priority - maintaining atammayata
Sangha, not only is this sacrifice of awakened-returning-to-community a HUGE ASK, it is extremely difficult. Re-entering daily life into the world of conditioning and conformity is the very daily life that awakening took you away from. This tests your state of atammayata; is it strong enough to withstand the old conditioning and conformity that came from your upbringing - but is still present in society? And is it strong enough to withstand new egos arising such as compassion dragging you into immersion? What about reactions to the delusions that people live in? Can you deal with the attachments that arise from seeing people in delusion? You need to develop boundaries to avoid these egos. Your own practice has to be strong enough to release the daily restrictions that arise in daily life but you will also need retreats to escape and realign yourself - at least you have your awakening home to go to. This sacrifice is a HUGE ASK.
awakened-returning-to-community
The first milieu zandtao is asking you to return to is the world of work as you will have to provide for yourself within daily life community. At this point the approach of right livelihood arises. Given the societal infrastructure there is never going to be a pure livelihood. You might choose teaching within the education system but that is compromised ( Matriellez LINK). You might choose healing as a doctor or nurse but that system is also tainted by society's infrastructure. But whilst right livelihood is a guiding principle it can never be an attainable goal currently. However do not confuse attaching to your livelihood as your purpose, your purpose is CoA with its 3 pillars:-
Validation
Outreach
Mentoring
By leaving the institution or commune of your awakening you have begun outreach.
Accepting Mentoring rather than Teaching
Spiritual teaching has many unique aspects to it. Firstly the seekers/students search out the spiritual teachers, and in that search bring a uniqueness to the teaching - a spiritual motivation. Within the education system of daily life, perhaps the biggest bugbear for the teachers is the lack of motivation, and how the system requires of teachers to attempt to provide motivation - often blaming teachers if they cannot (a ludicrous demand). Sangha, in accepting mentoring rather than teaching you do not have the motivation in the people you will be working with.
The main characteristic of such people is likely to be confusion, and as mentor your work would be to work through this confusion. Your primary objective would be to help the seeker find their awakening home but from first glimpse or firstgrace LINK to awakening home is a long journey. Think about the current situation for seekers who live their lives in that confusion. Their inner guide is likely to be deeply buried in conditioning and conformity yet somehow these confused people are expected to find their way to an awakening home under their own steam. Sangha, when presented with consideration of this confusion do you not feel a duty to make it easier? Zandtao does and that is the purpose of this book.
Deep Tolerance
Sangha, from your own path to awakening and autonomy you have followed a deep study and practice. However you arrived at your practice is your path and preference, and there is a tendency to feel that this way is the best because it worked for you. In mentoring you have to forget your own preference and work with the direction the seeker's inner guide chooses; this will be a mentoring skill. To understand this we need to consider a theme that will be developed constantly throughout this book - visions and ideals - tathata and ditthi using Buddhist terms.
For this deep tolerance the sangha needs to be clear as to the relationship between autonomy and the study and practice that led to this autonomy. To present his view on this relationship zandtao is going to use his understanding of the Buddhist term ditthi. As he is primarily addressing western sangha he wants to avoid the equivalent western term of idealism as it carries additional meaning - as does any concept in a culture. Beliefs, dogma, ideals and thoughts are all aspects of ditthi - they are all different aspects of ideas that we cling to. On our paths to autonomy and awakening we need these ideas to help us understand what is in our practice and develop that practice. But once we have used these ideas and developed a meaningful practice that is detached from attachment we release ideas and idealisms that have led you there.
This release is so difficult because you know how your own understanding of ideas led to autonomy. You will be tempted to use this as a roadmap for your mentoring; this attachment has to be avoided. We do not know which beliefs or dogmas are most suited to a newly-awakening seeker. What do we know? We know that these glimpses hopefully can lead to awakening and that there are many paths up the mountain - deep tolerance. But we also know this. In awakening our deep tolerance can see the different paths but whilst immersed in a ditthi - beliefs or dogma - different idealisms clash and cause confusion. As a mentor we focus on awakening and help the seeker with the ditthi on their own path; presenting conflicting ideas could cause alienation certainly from you as mentor but perhaps from awakening itself if the seeker conflates awakening with a belief system that the mentor used to develop practice.
In outreach when a mentor first meets unrequited glimpses of awakening the first step is validation. In the state of confusion between upbringing and developing practice towards awakening there is much misunderstanding on the part of the seeker. Their upbringing based on survival and conforming is taking them into a societal direction which currently functions around materialism and wage-slavery yet there are these glimpses of awakening that speak of so much more around authenticity - compassion and freedom. The art of the mentoring is to work through the confusion by helping the seeker see their own authenticity. This will begin the long journey through practice to the awakening home. The mentor will need a deep tolerance to accept that there are many paths up the mountain, and not attempt to guide (even force) the newly-arising seeker onto the mentor's path. This requires the mentor to be part of a culture of different paths, how this would work out zandtao does not know.
Tapping into Arenas of Awareness
Within society there are levels of awareness that are loosely connected with awakening. Let me try to identify these awarenesses.
When awakening starts to break through what sorts of things do we experience?
A rejection of conditioning and conformity.
A need for healing
A need for freedom and compassion.
A need for societal change.
A need for unity
The greater the awakening the deeper the understanding that awakening is the way forward.
The last comes with awakening but the other 5 have their reflections within societal infrastructure. Rejection can lead to activism, healing can lead to healing institutions, compassion leads to charity and caring, freedom to forms of liberation, the need for societal change exists throughout society often with deep frustration attached with government politics and other systemic avenues for change. Within society there are levels of awareness concerning:-
Rejection
Healing
Compassionate Liberation (uniting compassion and freedom)
A change leading to unity
Exploring these Arenas
Rejection:- We have already touched on adolescent rejection ( LINK ) but this might not be awakening. Such rejection can become a need for change. We have discussed one milieu for the awakened-returning-to-community, that is the world of work. But within the community there is activism. Activism is where the unawakened go to develop change in society. Unawakened is unfair but there is a point to be made. When there is awakening there always arises an understanding that there is a need for change in society. Awareness through rejection takes some people into activism, and this awareness could be the beginning of awakening. Awakened-returning-to-community could help this awareness change society, and awakened could help activists become more effective. Zandtao calls this pathtivism - bringing the path to activism and discusses it in the next part.
There is also rejection that arises from within the world of work as the individual becomes aware of the impact of system-of-accumulation on society. How this can be addressed from a world of right livelihood zandtao doesn't know but glimpses will arise from within this world of accumulation and such people need help. In bill's case his glimpse within confusion took him out of this corporate world and into work within the caring community, but what if glimpses were not that strong? What if within the corporate world the conditioning and conformity is too strong and buries the glimpse? This is a real possibility.
Healing and Caring Community:- In a sense these communities could be considered as communities of satiated partial awakening - in terms of awakening individuals with this awareness are stuck within the compassion of their caring. In terms of daily life these caring people maintain a level of caring that makes daily life tolerable but in truth their very attachment to compassion prevents them from awakening. Often because they are the stalwarts who are always overworked they never find the space to develop awakening - if it were trying to get out.
Freedom:- For those individuals who feel a lack of freedom this aspect of awakening (liberation) is deeply consuming. It brings with it a focus that does not see the totality of awakening - compassion also has these blinkers. Both for freedom and compassion this focus is attachment, and for personal development and awakening this clinging needs to be released. This outer focus on freedom or compassion tends to hide the need for awakening - the inner journey - by focussing on government or caring at the expense of the individual.
Change:- Awareness of the need for change is commonplace in society but hegemony is adept at making this need ineffective. Whilst we cannot change hegemony we might be able to influence it. But the best way forward is in uniting community for their own benefit - not simply against hegemony. In terms of change we need to see hegemony, need to see that change is required, and find the best way of uniting community. Zandtao promotes this in terms of activism through pathtivism - bringing path to activism.
Unity:- As already mentioned uniting community within our arenas of awareness, in terms of awakening community such spiritual Unity is an obvious purpose. But within this spiritual Unity there are a group of people who have had strong glimpses of awakening - the creative community. But many of these artists are stuck within their creativity yielding all kinds of blocks. Whilst they are lucky with their spiritual connection - sometimes from an early age, they might become stuck because they don't see their art as part of awakening. Connecting creativity to consciousness is part of the work of CoA.
A CoA will recognise these awarenesses and tap into them. The livelihood of an awakened in daily life is likely to be within these arenas of awareness, and especially in terms of change awakened-returning-to-community will choose to work with existing activism - grassroots activism. As mentioned bringing the path to grassroots activism will be discussed in the pathtivist part of this book on awakening community.
In recognising these arenas of awareness awakened-returning-to-community now have their milieus to find and develop the glimpses of awakening they meet. It is likely that out of these arenas will come the glimpses the CoA wants to work with to build an awakening community.
Needs for a CoA
For those sangha of autonomous path who choose to participate in the embodiment of a CoA we have examined what is required of a CoA in terms of:-
Supporting seekers towards awakening through the 3 pillars of a CoA
enabling inner guides to turn their glimpses towards an awakening home
Sangha, having resolved to be awakened-returning-to-community your embodiment has avoided a major spiritual ego - that of bypassing. In your awakening home there will however be a state of compassionate liberation that is free from the conditioning and conformity of daily life; by making the choice to return to daily life such sangha become vulnerable to that conditioning and conformity again - or in new forms. So sangha the first priority is to maintain a state of atammayata. You will have your practice and the retreat of your awakening home, but without maintaining your state of atammayata then you will get sucked back into the restrictions of daily life - restrictions that you had left behind with awakening. Let zandtao reiterate, this task of awakening community is a HUGE ASK.
But as sangha you are in a position to see the conditioning and conformity clearly. Apart from our own awakening the arenas of awareness give us a good guidance as to what is lacking in conditioning and conformity; we will use our spiritual tools to work in those arenas. But what do we have in conditioning and conformity? In zeer-consciousness zandtao initially described these as the human and societal infrastructure. At an early age the human infrastructure was essentially self-esteem to survive, but, sangha, in working towards your own autonomy your understanding of human infrastructure will have expanded beyond this survival. At the same time you will have developed a greater understanding of the societal infrastructure, and that will be expanded with your embodiment; that is the hegemony zandtao asked you to consider. In zeer-consciousness zandtao examined and developed an understanding of restrictions that arose in our personal development; sangha, you will have a similar understanding based on your own path up the mountain. But with embodiment and awakening community we are concerned with restrictions that arise with survival and restrictions that arise from hegemony.
Survival and self-esteem are not concerned with authenticity, whilst they are subjective (and that subjective aspect can lead to an inner journey towards autonomy) objectively they are concerned with fitting-in. Primarily fitting-in is two-fold:-
developing sufficient understanding of who you are to live in societal relationships
developing sufficient personal skills to earn money to survive
One might describe the first as a level of well-being, and whilst well-being is not awakening many of the spiritual skills we develop in awakening can be applied to develop well-being. Well-being is a stage towards awakening so well-being is therefore going to arise as part of our work in awakening community. But well-being will be restricted if an individual does not have a skillset to earn money, and if the society that is based on the earning of money does not provide sufficient opportunities to earn money. Does the system-of-accumulation provide these opportunities? Does society give the opportunity to develop the skillsets - education? And does society offer sufficient opportunity to use these skillsets to earn money - world of work? When zandtao asks the sangha of autonomous path to see hegemony, in the seeing he is essentially asking whether the hegemony will provide these. When the system-of-accumulation is part of the hegemony these - education and world-of-work - are deeply affected. Awakening community requires well-being, education and world-of-work, and these are deeply affected by hegemony. For an individual to awaken there needs to be sufficient well-being and money arising from education and world-of-work (even if donation). If there is no spirit in hegemony how can we have an awakening community? If there is no embodiment (bypassing) how can we have the spirit in hegemony for an awakening community? This points to a CoA and some form of activism on the part of the CoA to develop spirit in hegemony. For an awakening community there needs to be spirit in hegemony that will provide a sufficient infrastructure of money and well-being that can enable awakening.
At present what do we have? Happenstance spirituality. With a CoA perhaps we can start to build spirit in hegemony sufficient to enable broader awakening. This is a long job because hegemony has not been addressed by awakening. If there is going to be a CoA attempting to build an awakening community then hegemony needs to be addressed whilst recognising that hegemony cannot be confronted. Awakening needs to influence hegemony so that awakening community can be built.
Seeing CoA and Hegemony
There is an unwritten spiritual law that the path will provide, so by this spiritual law on the path arises sufficient money and well-being to enable the seeker to awaken. Whilst zandtao has no reason to dispute this law - it seems to work with the current happenstance spirituality, but, sangha, what happens if we attempt to develop awakening community? Does this spiritual law apply?
Zandtao has already stated that for an awakening community there needs to be spirit in hegemony that will provide a sufficient infrastructure of money and well-being that can enable awakening. Having recognised there are needs for a CoA then there are implications within hegemonic balance. With happenstance spirituality and the path-will-provide spiritual law there is no impact on hegemony; happenstance spirituality does not require anything of hegemony. With the development of CoA and its needs there are requirements - sufficient money and well-being; the more a CoA is developed the greater the need for well-being and sufficient money. With happenstance spirituality from the point of view of awakening only there has been no need for spirit in hegemony - even though sila and compassion for others would require these needs of hegemony. Essentially awakening tacitly accepts the current lack of spirit in hegemony because happenstance spirituality requires nothing of it but if we start to build an awakening community then requirements change. These requirements of earning capability, sufficient money and well-being are in a sense human rights but given all the difficulties of awakening when there is no CoA any awakening has not addressed these needs. There is a status quo between hegemony and happenstance spirituality, with the spiritual path-providing law awakening does not involve itself in these human needs within hegemony. As soon as we start to consider CoA needs that changes. As soon as awakened-returning-to-community start to enter daily life to build a CoA then an awakening community, there become requirements of hegemony - the requirements of basic human needs of earning capacity, sufficient money and well-being. These needs are basic, compassion sees them as basic yet does hegemony? If there isn't sufficient spirit in hegemony to provide these, then isn't there a level of avoidance on the part of spirituality? On the part of embodiment of the awakening?
Hence we arrive at the situation where the CoA needs to influence hegemony to enable these basic human needs - to realign hegemony so that it accepts these needs. When we look at societal infrastructure in our introductory vision LINK we can see the system-of-accumulation and how balance has been lost. It becomes part of the work of CoA to realign this balance.
Harmonious Alignment
How can the CoA influence the hegemony towards a more harmonious alignment? It is not a radical position to ask of hegemony that we have these basic human needs to enable the possibility of awakening. At the same time it is not a radical position to ask of hegemony to be compassionate enough that we have these basic needs irrespective of awakening. At the same time it is not a radical position to ask of the spiritual community to call for hegemony to provide these basic human needs to enable the situation for the potential development of awakening. When hegemony has become so far out of alignment it is not radical to ask to realign.
Given that the hegemony has fallen out of alignment then it is harmony - as in harmonious re-alignment - that is being asked for, and spiritually any calls for change can have the overarching approach of harmony whilst hegemony realigns. Embodiment needs to participate in this but it can do so with harmony as it is clear that hegemony is out of alignment. If the spiritual are not calling for such an alignment then they are avoiding, and this avoidance needs addressing whether the spiritual choose their embodiment in CoA or not.
CoA works through compassionate liberation
We have explored arenas of awareness in terms of how awakened-returning-to-community would happen. Now we will look at those same arenas in terms of promoting harmonious realignment. Here are the 5 arenas:-
Image link
When we explored these arenas we could see them in terms of world-of-work and activism. In the world-of-work we could see both the awakened and newly-awakening choosing to work in the healing and caring community. But for many conditioning and conformity led to the newly-aware choosing rejection and hopefully constructively choosing activism. Hopefully sangha, awakened-returning-to-community would also choose activism, but the problem with activism is that it has mostly failed and been controlled by hegemony. CoA working towards awakening community would hopefully change this activism through harmonious realignment. In terms of hegemony they would be working for this harmony, and in terms of making activism effective they would be working with the new awarenesses to promote unity, and promoting that unity through compassionate liberation as indicated by the way awareness shows itself.
Without favouring any particular way up the mountain we do need to establish a this unifying characteristic of awakening - compassionate liberation. Sangha of autonomous path, in all our autonomies there is this compassionate liberation - and of course so much more. But compassionate liberation is a good rallying call for awakening as it unites compassion and freedom - as mentioned in the arenas; when we see woke-adjacent (see below) we see compassion, when we hear sheeple-callers (see below) we see freedom - but sadly because of divide-and-rule hegemony at the same time we see division. Beginning to understand compassionate liberation unites in awakening - brings all into the CoA.
Zandtao has a term for activism that the CoA could promote - path-activism - pathtivism - bringing the path to grassroots activism, and he will be examining this in the next part LINK.
Pre-empting Restrictions
We can consider 2 ways in which such restrictions can arise. We have discussed the first already - seeing the restrictions that arise through activism and awakened-returning-to-community maintaining atammayata.
Compassion ego
zandtao knows this ego well as teaching was his wage-slavery and socialism was his activism. bill focussed on actions following from compassion and socialism, and this ego was critical of those who did not bring such caring into their lives. But compassion is freedom from suffering for all, while the caring aspect of compassion would consider suffering, his compassion rarely looked at the need for freedom. To overcome this ego is one reason to see the sila of the path as compassionate liberation rather than just compassion.
Following his upheaval his compassion ego brought compassion and socialism together for bill. Although there were clear restrictions on freedom within socialism and, more so, with communist states, his compassion felt that the greater good that came from socialist governance overcame any such restrictions. Even now it is hard for zandtao to see beyond this when he sees the global harm caused by the system-of-accumulation. Amongst others socialism is a compassionate clinging to the ditthupadana (discussed below LINK) that was described by Marx and developed from there - a theme of part 2, each socialist has some level of commitment to this compassion. But this is not a compassion of compassionate liberation - it does not have compassion for the need for freedom, it is a compassion that is limited by the clinging to ideas - whatever ideas the individual sees as socialism. This zandtao called above woke-adjacent. There is some awakening of compassion but if that compassion is limited - maybe it doesn't show compassion for those who do not feel free, then it is not awakening; woke-adjacent?
If we can encourage the compassion ego to work for compassionate liberation there is a lessening of division. But entrenched within the societal division of left and right is the left's disparaging view that the right promotes freedom - and is stuck in that promotion only. They see that freedom drive as lacking compassion. Compassionate liberation on the part of the left would begin to respect the freedom that is liberation, and would be a direction that starts to bring the egos together.
Freedom ego
This ego is particularly problematic, if an individual does not feel free then that need for freedom becomes a priority above all else. When zandtao looks back at the conforming impositions of his middle-class upbringing, he deeply felt the lack of freedom - it seemed to be all that mattered. In his repressed upbringing he did not feel the urge for compassion, he only wanted to be free. At his upheaval (firstgrace) the first thing he felt was a liberation but his focus turned to compassion and he forgot that he first needed liberation - a weakness of his compassion ego. He sees both now working harmoniously in compassionate liberation. As young bill he experienced this ego as a big problem with its personal focus - the need for freedom - it loses balance and does not see the importance of compassion. This also brings it into conflict with the compassion ego that requires caring from all. With the tolerance and understanding that comes with the liberation of compassionate liberation there is a balance of both compassion and freedom that releases both of these egos.
When freedom is discussed in terms of a social movement such as libertarianism, the term sheeple is often used. When the term sheeple is used it is a criticism that the other person does not realise how much conditioning and conformity is carried out by the government. It has to be understood that there is some truth in this. But the misunderstanding is far deeper than this, the prison that restricts is the spiritual prison of conditioning and conformity that comes from our upbringing. In some government practices there is designed conditioning and conforming, but for zandtao most conditioning and conforming is not by human or governmental design - it just happens as part of upbringing.
Taking this understanding further, freedom has 2 aspects - inner and outer - conditioning and conformity, and in some cases such as with libertarianism there is a focus on the outer - conforming. But for freedom priority needs to address inner freedom - freedom from conditioning especially with those egos arising in upbringing. For those people who seek freedom politically - outer freedom, the political limitations are that of regulation and governmental interference with personal choice. For such people socialist systems are an antithesis because the socialist ideal is a country's management to provide for the economic needs of all - needs being the survival basics of housing, food, healing and learning. What if an individual genuinely feels that they cannot be free in a socialist country, what do they do? In general socialists do not have compassion for such freedom-seeking individuals on the grounds that they should support the good works of the socialist government - community pressure; this intolerance towards freedom is a weakness. This intolerance is a lack of understanding for how deep the drive for freedom is, in a compassionate society a sense of freedom - liberation - needs to come first. Addon E - More on bill and libertarianism.
If you study zeer-consciousness then you can see that freedom comes first - freeing oneself of the restrictions of ego, suffering and clinging. What follows is then an autonomy that because of his Sacred Wound was equanimity - love-wisdom balance, and this autonomy led to aligning with consciousness - compassionate liberation. Understanding how we can implement an approach towards compassionate liberation is part of zandtao's bag - zandbagging. The zandbag embodiment attempts to unite the forces for freedom and compassion to follow the path that is compassionate liberation. This means bringing together people whose emphasis is on freedom with those whose emphasis is on compassion. This is very hard when we talk of the different reactions to socialism.
Immersion ego
Zandtao stresses again the need for awakened-returning-to-community to maintain atammayata. There is a restrictive ego that can arise for the awakened that zandtao calls the immersion ego.
It is aspects of this immersion ego that zandtao suggests the teachers are trying to avoid, rather than developing sampajanna-consciousness leading to wise embodiment many teachers suggest bypassing is the way forward for new seekers until they have advanced along the path. zandtao suggests that wise embodiment could help that advance but clearly recognises the importance of releasing the conditioning and conformity of upbringing.
What can happen with unwise embodiment is the compassion ego arising as the unwise embodiment sucks the new seeker into activism. When this issue is raised many teachers will urge detachment because they themselves have not focussed on sampajanna-consciousness. Accepting the advice the seeker draws in their compassion so rather than wise embodiment there is no embodiment, and given how much this happens we have the spiritual disease of humanity in which the path does not prevail in the global decision-making of the hegemony; the greed (and hate with war) of the system-of-accumulation dominates. When the freedom ego becomes active through freedom's embodiment there is the outer focus of freedom such as free speech but their embodiment is not balanced (in a similar way to the compassion ego not being balanced). Rather than these embodiments working together towards compassionate liberation there is egoic conflict as egos as usual choose their own exclusive egoic ways.
Whilst the sila of path brings out the embodiment these egos can drag the seeker out of path-alignment. Practice including sampajanna-consciousness can realign such egoic behaviour but the egos can pull the seeker deeper and deeper out of alignment into what zandtao calls immersion - out of alignment to such an extent that the seeker is immersed into their ego (compassion or freedom).
Boundaries
Immersion is an issue for all activists as they want change, and to avoid this we need an element of inner reflection to consider boundaries.
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