This book began life as an embodiment chapter in zeer-consciousness , zandtao's path to autonomy and zeer vision. At the time of writing zeer-consciousness zandtao considered that book as important and summative, but he increasingly sees it as - just? - another legitimate path up the mountain. As this current book Awakening Community has built up, first with the initial withdrawn chapters from zeer-consciousness, then as pathtivism and zandbagging, it became more and more important to zandtao - leading to his now seeing it as his life's work.
This book is a HUGE ASK. It starts with a triggering question - where is spirit in hegemony? Throughout this book on bringing awakening to community there is a theme of seeing hegemony, does hegemony impact awakening? What has hegemony got to do with awakening - isn't it just part of the suffering? That sounds like a legit spiritual question - it sounds like a question as to whether zandtao is attaching hegemony-defilement to awakening. Yet we all live in hegemony. In terms of awakening, how many teachers go near this question?
Awakening people, has your triggering allowed you to reach this far?
But for awakening people should there be any triggering? Isn't triggering an aspect of shadow? But of course as awakening people, shadow has been integrated; so if there is a summary rejection of spirit lacking in hegemony then isn't that an integrated response? Awakened, do you accept that what you do with your path addresses spirit in daily life so allowing avoidance of the understanding that there is a lack of spirit in hegemony?
So awakening people what is your embodiment - the embodiment that comes with awakening? There is a quite natural response of giving back through writing and teaching; zandtao has a massive website of this - each part of some value to someone somewhere on the path to awakening. Yet how much real awakening value is there for the newly-awakening in zandtao's website - assess how much value in your wonderful website - how much value in the wonderful totality of websites?
The way zandtao's life progressed he never had to run the gauntlet of having to make money through spirituality in this defiled world - in this hegemony. Whilst bill was fortunate enough to have a partial awakening at 23, a good fortune that carried him through life, being zandtao a teacher of awakening was never meant-to-be for him; this book was meant-to-be. His life was spent in community meeting people who had glimpses of awakening but whose lives were spent surviving the defiled world - unless their yearning for awakening was so strong they were able to find their own way to an awakening home. Although zandtao addresses the sangha throughout, he is writing this book for all these forlorn in the defiled world, and his HUGE ASK is for awakened to go back into this defiled world and help these glimpses become awakening.
If this has not triggered you, awakening people, then look at this approach to building awakening community. Say goodbye to bypassing?
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