What people need is conviction to deal with ongoing manipulation, and that conviction best comes from the path. Conviction is needed so we are not swayed by the financed quantity of false views. For the pathtivist whose harmonious approach might not be in line with the prevailing grassroots idealisms, this conviction has to be particularly strong, clear and honourable.
No Conviction without Tathata
Tathata is a Buddhist approach of seeing clearly what is, and developing tathata is essential to the 3 pinned zandbag advice. zandtao chooses Pali words (used in Buddhism) to indicate a bootstrap process. When he uses tathata for clear seeing, he indicates a bootstrap process in which he asks the pathtivist to completely enquire about their way of seeing because of all the ways of seeing from others that comes through our upbringings - and then the way of seeing that comes from society. Given all the conditioning and conformity that we grow up with it is zandtao's approach that we cannot rely on views - even if we react against the views of our upbringing - without developing a bootstrap enquiry that leads to authenticity; from authenticity we can clearly see facts and views and trust ourselves in our words and actions. All of this is included in his understanding of tathata, does that depth of understanding come from just using "clear seeing"?
When a pathtivist talks about seeing clearly what is, there is much work involved. It requires two approaches:-
Trying to develop an inner clarity Using that clarity to try to see the truth of what is
In the pinned advice concerning hegemony zandtao talks about seeing accumulation clearly; in order to try to see accumulation zandtao needed to work on developing an inner clarity, and then use that clarity to see accumulation. There needs to be both a developing inner clarity and the seeing towards truth.
As soon as we talk of inner clarity and seeing truth we are at the great risk of ego; for zandtao it is an ego to say we have complete inner clarity and can completely see accumulation - and with ego comes the legitimate criticism of arrogance. This is why zandtao chooses the word "advice". He is not saying anyone should do what is said, he is promoting enquiry:-
Have you developed inner clarity? Are you clearly seeing towards the truth?
When there is talk of conviction it is understandable to think of ego and close-mindedness but that is not the conviction that comes with tathata; there is a false conviction that comes with clinging - clinging to received views, clinging to an idealism. When there is clinging this false conviction leads to defensive behaviour, with tathata there is an openness that brings tolerance - tolerance an aspect of radical love. To start to develop this inner clarity zandtao has put forward zeer-consciousness - this is zandtao's advice for following the path. Using this approach or similar to develop inner clarity a pathtivist can begin to see the way things are, and with clear seeing comes conviction.
Starting to see with clear conviction
Starting clear conviction comes from trusting yourself. Through our upbringings we do not see clearly, we see what others want us to see - these others being family, education, peers and media. Whilst within these others there is some manipulation, others are not necessarily trying to cause harm. In many cases parents, for example, love their children, and in their upbringing processes they think they are trying to help. But is this the case?
There is only one result of upbringing that could be considered "successful", and that is if the upbringing leads to the child becoming authentic - being who they truly are. In many cases adults do not feel authentic, in many ways through upbringings of conditioning and conformity adults feel more that they have been moulded into what others want of them; these others have moulded them. Let zandtao be clear, not all of this conditioning and conformity is manipulative; it is often natural and unintentional - but not always.
Trusting yourself comes from being authentic in your words and actions - knowing who we are and being that person. This is not easy, and it is why zandtao's writing concerning authenticity - from awareness to purpose - is a book on zeer-consciousness. Work is required to become authentic, for inner clarity it is necessary to do that work - whichever approach you choose.
From a position of authenticity you can begin to trust yourself and your decision-making. Our decisions lead to our words and actions, so let's examine what can contribute to a decision:-
The facts we accept The views we hold
So in order to trust ourselves we must take responsibility for these two contributions to our decisions. Where do our facts and views come from? As we ask this we must lose trust in what comes from our upbringing; facts and views initially come from others - family, peers, schooling and media - this is natural. At some point as we mature we must enquire about these facts and views so that we can say we trust these facts and views ourselves, and so we can become responsible for our decisions. We must start to enquire so that we can TRUST OURSELVES.
Decision-making Process
But we need something else in order to trust ourselves - confidence in our decision-making process. How do we make decisions? We take the facts and views, apply them to the situation, come up with a decision and carry out this decision through words and actions.
If the situation is completely new we have no choice but to go through this decision-making process, but if the situation has happened before in our daily lives or in our upbringings we maybe just accept previous decisions made by family, peers, schooling and media. But to trust ourselves we take responsibility for all decisions, we cannot accept the facts and views of others - and the views and decisions that have been passed onto us.
Taking Responsibility
Who is responsible for what we do? We are.
Who is responsible for what we say? We are.
If we tell a lie, who is responsible? We are.
Who is responsible for what we believe? We are.
If what we believe leads to actions or words that are harmful, who is responsible? WE ARE.
Given that we are responsible for our words and actions that might produce harm, it is essential that we take control of the processes that lead to our words and actions. When we take control of those processes we can TRUST that our words and actions will not be harmful. Each situation needs to be considered a new situation, and each word or action needs to be based on our own decision-making process. For many this appears an impossible ask - so many words, so many actions, but if we do this we trust ourselves and feel so much better. When we blame our upbringing or others, we are not comfortable because, whilst there might be some truth in apportioning the blame, deep down we know that we are responsible for what we say and do.
Once we decide to make our own decisions, to develop our own views, and only accept facts that we know, we begin to trust ourselves and it all becomes simpler. If it is not our own decision we do not act - if possible. Whilst the pace of life is so fast, being decisive in this way might initially appear impossible; what happens is that we develop a balance where we can begin to trust ourselves. We take responsibility for our commitments, and slow our lives down to a certain extent so that we can trust that we can be responsible for all our words and actions.
Discerning Portfolio
Trusting oneself means that less and less input is relied on. With clear seeing we observe, but we know that what is presented by mainstream media - now legacy media? - has a vested interest. This means we might choose to get the facts and views that we use from social media, but we cannot rely on legacy or social media - we have to be discerning as to how we use both. Legacy media has more money having full-time journalists but these journalists are often embedded - and therefore their facts and views are embedded propaganda. On podcasting and youtube there is less money and the podcasters do not have the resources for in-depth investigation. There is more money for right-wing podcasters as their views such as libertarianism support the deregulation wanted by big business. Podcasting and youtube cannot be seen as a balanced source of views because of this investment and because there is not sufficient depth. We need to see the biases of media, yet given this collective bias we need to develop a portfolio of trustworthy sources that can give us facts and views with discernment. Developing this portfolio needs to be deeply discerning so that we can rely on what is said - so that we can rely on any facts and views used in making our decisions. Take care building this portfolio.
Upadana - can we trust views?
zandtao again uses a Pali word, upadana, because he wishes to emphasise the need for consideration of clinging to views, a bootstrap examination of clinging. This clinging to ideas and views starts with upbringing within the western education system; whilst there is more to western education than this, the basis of the system is to gain qualifications by repeating ideas that have been taught - for more on this see Matriellez. Krishnamurti describes this as "filling the contents of consciousness" and his advised "cure" is emptying the contents of consciousness - the tathata of clear seeing.
Let us start with the economic view that is the basis of western society - capitalism; the path of compassionate liberation asks where is compassion in "caring capitalism"? Capitalism is reinforced by libertarianism - freedom as an idealism; this freedom supports deregulation that benefits Big Capitalism, the freedom of the individual, often at the disservice of less-free individuals. Adhering to the path of compassionate liberation is the risk of clinging to 2 egos (upadana) - clinging to compassion ego and clinging to freedom ego. Can we trust the views of someone who only talks of compassion .... only talks of freedom? The path brings balance and clear seeing through both.
In Theravada Buddhism they also speak of 4 upadanas, and zandtao wishes to consider these as well as the clinging to the 2 egos already discussed. Please let me repeat this is not a promotion of Buddhism - this branch of Buddhism (nor the the promotion of the use of a dead language ), it is to emphasise an approach that is not promoted in western education - a bootstraps understanding of upadana.
The first upadana is clinging to sensual desire, and the clinging to those desires is exacerbated by capitalism. Through promoting the materialism of those desires capitalism increases the clinging to develop profits. One particular desire that fits in well with capitalism is male lust (as a man zandtao is unwilling to speculate on the nature of lust in women). Connected with various "ethos" within capitalism is the wealthy man controlling women and satisfying desires - a basis of patriarchy. Currently Western elites are going through the Epstein scandal where the sexual desires of western-elite men were manipulated by Epstein - as well as his own illegal desires being met. It is understood that Epstein held dossiers on individuals, and used this as "leverage" or "informational capital". It is not clear how far Epstien's influence extended, and whether there are connections between that influence and the war against Iran - as Yanis regularly says "Netanyahu has something on Trump". Essentially it is possible that male sexual desires have been manipulated to cause war.
The second is clinging to views - very relevant to this discussion on tathata. It follows from western education that views get replaced, so it is often the case that young people become aware of the harm within the capitalist system, react, replace their learnt view by that of socialism or Marxism, and cling to that. Whilst this is a compassionate step forward as socialism has an aim of benefitting all people, there is often clinging to socialism. As with all forms of clinging they limit their facts to those which conform to the idealism they believe in - in this case socialism. Whilst socialism does put forward compassionate and beneficial practices such as welfare and education, it can infringe on individual freedoms. As with all idealisms we cannot accept the facts and views of socialism as the totality of facts and views - they are limited by the bias of the particular set of ideals.
The third is clinging to rites and rituals, and zandtao sees this in terms of religion - when you combine rite and ritual with a set of beliefs (religious views) you have what could be considered as a totality of institutional religion. Whilst much religious thinking can be considered as compassionate and liberal, clinging to a religious institution especially at the exclusion of other religions has led to war historically. It is not clear as to the full extent that religion is playing in the war against Iran. There is a Jewish religion but is zionism a religion? There is Christianity, but is the Christian Nationalism that backs Trump a religion? Some Christian Nationalists (here is a viewpoint against Christian Nationalists with clips of Christians supporting Trump and war) call themselves Christian Zionists, is this religion? Whilst the US and Israel attacked Iran when they were negotiating about nuclear weapons, it is possible that Iran being Muslim is a contributory factor to the war. Within most religions there is an element of compassionate liberation, but we have to question whether the institutions themselves are guided by compassionate liberation. Do religions not see with a religious view? Are these views a complete view or are they limited by the religious viewpoint or even worse limited by the religious institution?
The last of the 4 upadanas (Theravadan) is clinging to self. In zeer-consciousness there is much consideration of self and clinging as restrictions, here zandtao wishes to consider an aspect of clinging to self that it is important for pathtivists to examine concerning facts and views - vested interest. When there is clinging to self as vested interest that invested self presents facts and views that are beneficial to those interests but are limited. For a pathtivist it is necessary to determine these vested interests so that they can see the bias in the facts and views presented.
As already stated the path brings the clear seeing of tathata to a pathtivist's understanding and activism. For that clear seeing they have to recognise that there can be the limitations of ego that comes with clinging to compassion or freedom on the path of compassionate liberation. But any form of clinging (upadana) means that decision-making cannot be trusted because facts and views are suspect. It is especially important to consider upadana when using discernment to develop a portfolio, it will be necessary to accept sources that are not free from upadana. Using our discernment we can see the view presenting the information, note the bias, and evaluate the facts and views within context; a discerning portfolio cannot be free from bias.
Widening Responsibility - Sila
Once we start to trust ourselves and begin to take responsibility, we start to widen what we take responsibility for. What began as a conviction concerning our words and actions in pathtivism spreads to taking responsibility for our words and actions in life in general - sila.
Sila is pervasive in pathtivism. There is similar depth in his use of the word sila, and as with his other use of Pali words he asks pathtivists to follow a bootstrap process to understand this word. Sila has a specific meaning in Buddhism coming from the practice of Magga -the Noble 8-fold Path of the 4 Noble Truths , and sila is Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood. However developing sila for zandtao has a great depth taking responsibility for our words and actions - and to as great an extent as possible the morality of our livelihood. Trusting ourselves and developing the strength of conviction is part of the sila of the pathtivist, the pathtivist brings compassionate liberation to all words and actions - not just through conviction in pathtivism.
Interconnection
In zeer-consciousness zandtao described sila as a direction of consciousness. In daily life incomplete sila came to bill with the partial awareness of upheaval, but that level of awareness and sila only marginally changed in 30 years until he began to practice. He recalls early blogging in retirement as the importance of sila but sila only developed when bill worked towards taking responsibility for all his actions through his practice. Practice led to autonomy, and with autonomy came a state of sila but his mindfulness still had to be circumspect.
Sila arises with the path and brings with it natural harmony, it is the blueprint for social stability - social harmony. In terms of societal well-being it is the sila of the path of compassionate liberation that zandtao asks activism to work towards - sila that pathtivism promotes. It is not a moral judgement concerning war that is sila. It is not a moral ideal that all are treated equally that is sila. Sila is a state of being compassionate and liberated working towards this state in all our words and actions. Sila interconnects thoroughly with tathata and conviction; through the path tathata sees clearly, we see the natural importance of sila, and become convinced that this is the way forward for ourselves and society - unity in harmony.
Out of conviction and sila comes the authenticity that is the foundation of activism - tathata of activism.
Tathata Conviction and Sila 
Tathata Conviction and Sila
Trying to develop an inner clarity 
), it is to emphasise an approach that is not promoted in western education - a bootstraps understanding of upadana. 
Books:-