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 The Process of Dealing with immersion
Having established the changes in his practice, zandtao wishes to record the process that led to this need to deal with immersion because the path was so badly disrupted; zandtao journalled about it as he was working through it but did not put that online - he now journals online as part of his process. zandtao had let himself get out of alignment. For a week he had been focused on zandbagging about Venezuela and the Monroe doctrine; he had got out of alignment and then it got worse - this zeersight was finished on 11 Feb zandbagging on Venez began around Jan 6. Just writing about activism caused zandtao's misalignment yet he is suggesting pathtivism as embodiment - a HUGE ASK (see conclusion below). He can see the attraction of bypassing at this moment - being out of alignment is no fun; but here's the rub - it is still path for zandtao esp. after observing hegemony.
IT NEVER STOPS
As part of this ongoing process zandtao wrote "It is more than a week since zandtao recognised he was out of alignment, usually with recognition comes a solution. But as yet there has been none. There is always more - Venez, Minnesota, ongoing Iran and Gaza, then the less global - Andy Burnham. IT NEVER STOPS".
Big Decision
This was the first recognition of the HUGE ASK. "Pathtivism is a big decision, it is like saying 'I am going into hell but still want to maintain heaven in me'. Are you ready to do this?" Is zandtao ready to do this?
Does Zandtao have the answer?
Above zandtao feels he has changed his practice to cope with his immersion, during the process he wrote "zandtao is still working out whether he has the answer to this - he hopes he has. When he started his recent work on pathtivism with the book and zandbagging he thought he had but in truth maybe he doesn't. Starting with Venez he has got sucked in, and he is out of alignment; being out of alignment is not the problem the problem is realigning.
Realigning is the question - there can be positive short-term bypassing. There has to be equanimity that means the pathtivist is not sucked in.
First melodrama! "
Reflecting on Personal Path and Pathtivism
After retirement is when his path work really started - until then he had maintained connection with the path, the path had some impact on his life after the initial upheaval that was so wonderful. With retirement came a disgorging of the attachment to the world of work through Matriellez and then STC blogging. Once there had been the disgorging the path became the focus, it just happened that way.
There was always a recognition that there needed to be embodiment - sampajanna, but apart from writing embodiment was sidelined; he had to be ready for embodiment.
How could he be ready?
His focus became finding the path - fair enough. There was always the giving back - meditation adviser at one stage, ongoing writing and website. Throughout the finding of the path were the flags of pathtivism such as in the Manual but it never became substantive (first draft of book and zandbagging) until he had understood zeer-consciousness.
And what was going to be an additional chapter on embodiment in zeer-consciousness became the first draft of a separate book on pathtivism.
Zandbagging
As he was reviewing and completing zeer-consciousness zandbagging started. For a few months it was fine, but then with Venezuela issues of shortcomings and boundaries had come in. The process led to questioning:-
"IT NEVER STOPS, is he getting sucked in? This journal is about whether he resolves the sucking-in, essentially he has to resolve it or stop with the pathtivism.
Second melodrama!"
Reflecting on Natural oscillation
Throughout his life bill has oscillated between emphasis on the inner or the outer, mostly caused by the world of work and his lack of meditation at the time. This oscillation and potential misalignment is a consequence of the need for both path (inner) and embodiment (outer) - it is a consequence of the reality of daily life and all its defilement. Does that alter the need for embodiment? No. It means that there is a need for amendment of practice. With this immersion problem zandtao initially thought that there was no issue because of his isolated life, but that is far from the case.
General Suggestions for a pathtivist to amend practice
For many seekers zandtao recommends retreats - not the intensity of Goenka, but a realigning weekend. Unknowingly bill did this through walking but because his practice was not good this walking usually only occurred during the Summer. However there are many places offering retreats, most involve teaching but zandtao could imagine recovering weekend retreats at Harnham - the abbot even mentioned once that this was a valuable meaning for himself at Harnham.
And if it becomes too much take time out of embodiment, go and be solitary for a year or whatever; despite the angst that exists amongst activism the grassroots movement will always be there and zandtao doubts whether one campaign, one struggle, one protest, one moment in time is so valuable that the pathtivist is needed for momentous change. Within daily life there are many time pressures - pressure about time is an aspect of conditioning and conformity, it is understandable esp. in the movement; after all the system-of-accumulation is killing people.
Activist Ego - Compassionate Ego pressured
It is unlikely that any immediate action within the movement is going to make a momentous change. The system-of-accumulation is huge and powerful, in the case of the Monroe doctrine many people in the long term will have lives changed - some killed - throughout Latin America. But in any one moment what can an activist do? When we see the system-of-accumulation, compassion can create passions that lead to dukkha (that will need quenching), and these passions can create anxiety; time pressures can create anxiety. The pathtivist sees this and needs detachment - needs time management; they must be aware of being sucked into these passions and maintain equanimity and connection to the path. The activist ego drives itself wanting to be involved in all activism seeing that each turn in daily life is so important. For the pathtivist it is necessary not to get sucked into this ego; be detached.
Maintaining equanimity
Maintaining equanimity, reinforcing connection to the path, these are the top priorities of pathtivism. But for the pathtivist that balance cannot be achieved without embodiment, for the spiritual bypasser can that balance ever be achieved without embodiment? Let love and wisdom control the passions, and prevent the pathtivist from being sucked in; the path and harmonising the struggle are for life.
Advice on Over-commitment
Within the grassroots, the activist ego over-commits itself because they feel the pressure because there are not sufficient activists. Their ego exaggerates their self importance and their contribution to the action. Their activist egos drain them; this over-commitment is self-destructive. Take time - avoid commitments, the name of the pathtivist is not necessarily known within the movement. Be discerning and selective, choose your activism, manage your time and don't get sucked in. The pathtivist steers and guides, their priority is the path not the object of the struggle. Pathtivist, please don't get sucked in - that is not your path.
Still sucked in
Even with all these good suggestions zandtao found himself still sucked in. "If he doesn't determine his own equanimity and a strategy for obtaining that equanimity then perhaps that is the end of zandbagging - or at least zandtao's contribution to pathtivism.
Third melodrama! He knew this was melodramatic when he wrote it  , it was self-motivational."
Out of Alignment
At this point in the process he began to recognise what was causing his mal-alignment. zandtao had allowed attachment to the issues to distance himself from the path; this was shown in his poor meditation. One answer of course is discipline; but whilst we always need discipline, discipline can also mean forced.
Boundaries and Limitations
Because IT NEVER STOPS, a pathtivist has to have boundaries and limitations. The first of these is always:-
 The priority is the path.
zandtao had lost this priority.
Too much to learn!!
The immersion that started with Venezuela showed zandtao he had too much to learn, and it was not simply zandbagging. The Maduro kidnapping opened the door to the Monroe doctrine but those two advice were not what have caused his attachment issues. He had also not fully resolved the Dogmaton issue. And he had not resolved the sucking in - learning and attachment issues.
Dogmatons
In Yoxa Love WaiZ explored the issues of liberalism and freedom, but it had not personally become integrated with his still clinging to aspects of socialism. After his initial reset over Venezuela he then saw that freedom was a key issue with libertarianism, and that compassion rejecting freedom was not appropriate; there has to be freedom from conditioning and conformity as well as compassion. For a pathtivist compassion and freedom have to be harmonised so that greed-defilement can be isolated. This was an important gap in his pathtivism.
Lost atammayata
Because of his immersion and having too much to learn with his new venture into zandbagging, zandtao lost atammayata. In his immersion he ended up taking on too much at once.
Zandbagging needs to be able to respond to particular events that zandtao sees as significant - without getting sucked in too much. Sadly there has to be some attachment to daily life in order to understand what advice to offer. In the case of Venez there was way too much to respond to because this is the start of zandbagging.
Current system-of-accumulation
Before zandtao finishes his process and details his response (already done in the first part of this advice), it is important to recognise that the current phase of the system-of-accumulation is intended to destabilise - to keep us away from sound activism and to encourage us not to follow our paths and remain detached. There is a narcissist nominally in charge of the hegemony who is living out his insanity overtly on the world stage. Attracting other narcissists around him there is a level of defilement in US policy that is historically staggering. Around him there is a huge media circus responding to his narcissism and we can all get sucked in. Meanwhile the system-of-accumulation accumulates. For our own sanity within this insanity we have to be disciplined in choosing our boundaries and limitations.
zandtao did not do this with his zandbagging since Venez.
How did zandbagging lose this good state of atammayata?
The simple answer is the correct one, he lost good practice.
From zeer-consciousness we have the two themes of practice:-
As he became immersed in the Venez debacle, dukkha built up naturally - built up on unresolved dukkha; managing and releasing this dukkha is what keeps zandtao in a state of atammayata. Zandbagging became immersed in Venez and then the Monroe doctrine through the National Security Strategy - soon an additional immersion the national defence strategy that he will look at in his own time when realigned.
Much of his consideration of Venez and the Monroe doctrine was learning about his pathtivism. Despite revising socialism and integrating compassion and freedom to some extent as explored with the Dogmatons in Yoxa Love, that integration was not deep enough - nor was there sufficient depth in his understanding of Venez. Putting these 2 together took him a while to see that objectivity (external atammayata?) had been lost and he had become subject to propaganda. Seeing through that propagandising (discussed here) was the first part of his immersion.
Once he had seen through the propaganda, he had to then see with pathtivist vision. This seeing began with the inevitable suffering that comes for people in a socialist country within a world whose system is accumulation. Socialists have to see that suffering and ask whether they are creating more suffering than the suffering that occurs in the system-of-accumulation itself. Those clinging to socialism like bill did see it as worth it, but many Venezuelans did not as they were leaving their homeland. This is not new, it is a strategy of the system-of-accumulation epitomised by the Sandinista squeeze.
But recognising this system-of-accumulation strategy did not address the lack of integration in bill's clinging to socialism that had not been completely eschewed. Socialists accept that all people who collude with the system-of-accumulation are some form of "traitor to the cause", that is because socialists only see through their compassion ego. In some way they perceive that socialism is the system-of-compassion, and that everyone ought to comply with it - or they are traitorous to the class; bill knows this because this is the way bill used to feel. There was still some clinging to this feeling.
Compassionate liberation balances this out - compassion and freedom - described in zeer-consciousness. But within daily life have people reached this compassionate liberation? It is important to understand that people are at different levels of spiritual development, and that people develop spiritually in different ways.
bill fell into freedom from conditioning and conformity through upheaval - so lucky; from that stage he focussed on compassion. With his clinging to socialism bill forgot how integral freedom was to his own spiritual development - freedom that he was so fortunate to fall into with upheaval. Sadly the spiritual development of so many people is stuck in freedom as they have not taken an inner journey to reach towards a level of atammayata where they have some control over their conditioning and conformity. Politically this leads to confrontation between people sympathetic to freedom such as US-libertarianism and people sympathetic to compassion through socialism. As pathtivists we need to see both, and attempt to work in harmony through the radical love of compassionate liberation.
Getting back to Practice
Having spent 4 weeks immersed in these zandbagging issues, zandtao was out of alignment.
Dukkha had transformed attaching itself to clinging and egos. There were new egos associated with zandbagging and the old issues of socialist egos that had not been eschewed - plus warts'n'all. zandtao did not see this was happening so his practice was not able to hold space for consciousness because dukkha had turned to attachment; he was filling up with restrictions and going out of alignment.
Remedial Strategies
These remedial strategies were so important in ending his immersion:-
End immersion - the advice has been taken offline. No more zandbagging until his practice has created alignment.
In future watch out for these periods of immersion, and do not let them go on for so long. Avoid immersion in media.
Recognise boundaries and limitations and DON'T GET SUCKED IN.
A pathtivist has to remain detached. This is the diamond sutra warning in a different form. Remember that your practice has its own infrastructure, and if your practice is losing shape - losing atammayata, then question what is happening in daily life. IT NEVER STOPS so avoid immersion.
Maintain focus on purpose - consciously loving and evolving consciousness. We learn from daily life but be conscious with our purpose.
COLD TURKEY
It feels now in the writing of this pathtivism advice that the most important part of the remedial strategies was ending zandbagging. No more zandbagging, no following the news, no involvement. In this way the immersion was not attached to the NEVERENDING, his attention being pulled from one awful event to another. He withdrew, it was a minimal form of cold turkey. When he first did cold turkey, he wanted to follow - he stopped himself. Even though he has left the dates on the zandbagging list, that was not when they were finished - not completed yet. The zandbagging writing had to stop. Over 2 or 3 days without writing his mind cleared. He recognised that the dukkha had become attachments - mainly in citta, and he began chakra alignments in the 3 tetrads of vihara. Slowly these alignments led towards equanimity but the peace came with the cooling - finding the heat of the dukkha and quenching it with deep cool loving. Once the cooling had been applied there felt like detached embodiment, and so he felt he could finish - collate - this long advice on the dangers of immersion in pathtivism.
| RADICAL LOVE AS GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM |
 | | RADICAL LOVE AS PATHTIVISM |
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