Let us observe. When we look at this world, do we see a world that is spiritually dominant? When zandtao means this world he is talking about the global stage, what is politically called the hegemonic power; is the hegemony spiritual? Let's be less demanding, is the hegemony moral - sila?
Or is the hegemony defiled?
On an individual level, if we saw the same level of defilement as there is in the hegemony our compassion would reach out and ask if our help was welcomed.
 Spiritual duty
As we follow our spiritual paths we recognise our spiritual duty, out of conscious awareness comes the need for embodiment - sampajanna - wise action (the right action of the magga of the 4 Ariya Sacca). If we examine the hegemony - system-of-accumulation, do we see spiritual embodiment? zandtao doesn't, he sees defilement (kilesa).
Nature of the Path
Here is a spiritual law that zandtao has always accepted - if we all followed our paths there would be sila in the world; the hegemony, however it would manifest with 100% path-following, would be compassionate and caring. That's a big if - similar to the big if of 100% socialism, yet probably more unattainable.
But in our world there is such a huge chasm between hegemony and spirituality, and for spiritual people that chasm brings with it the need for change.
Embodying the Spiritual Need for Change
The first need of embodiment is the availability of good advice as to how to follow the path - hence the need for advisers or teachers. Yet there is no shortage of such advisers or teachers. In fact the opposite is true, there is too much advice - too many teachings. We have the religions with their teachings, and then we have the spiritual whose first recourse is to provide teaching as to how they followed their path - and how the seeker could follow that particular path. zandtao accepts another spiritual law, all teachings are paths up the mountain; in other words a seeker following teachings will eventually follow their path. If the teachings are limited then the seeker can soon find additional teachings or advice that will get them up the mountain. With teachings often appearing different, seekers have difficulty perceiving that all paths go up the mountain so seekers can get confused. This contributes to but is not the main problem - the lack of the seeker's determination, one of the many issues the path has because there is no CoA - Culture of Awareness.
To help with this limited determination zandtao would like to see more of a mentoring approach. We do not all need Teal Swan, Eckhart Tolle, Nicola Amadora or Michael Beckwith, Ajaan Buddhadasa, Thich Nhat Hanh, HHDL etc. Paths up the mountain are at different stages for seekers, but there is always a mentor just ahead who can help us move forward.
The lack of seekers' determination and the lack of a CoA are a consequence of the system-of-accumulation. As citizens of this system we are expected to adopt systemic ethos to gain the minimal rewards of our wage-slavery, and these systemic ethics are mostly contrary to sila and nature's path. This is a significant cause of the chasm between hegemony and Nature mentioned above, and why there is such a spiritual need for change - such a need for nature's embodiment to reflect the need for change. This understanding is the premise of the choice of pathtivism.
What is pathtivism?
Pathtivism is the embodiment of consciousness within grassroots activism - a pathtivist chooses grassroots activism as her/his arena of embodiment.
Choosing Hell
Grassroots activism is a melee of people who have rejected the system-of-accumulation and choose to become active in some way, usually to fight against the system-of-accumulation. Compared with retreats where spiritual advice happens, this is like choosing hell. This is not saying that activists are bad people, most have good motivation; the problem is that they have set themselves up as opposing the system-of-accumulation and in doing so they are subject to forces that cause "hell" amongst the activism.
Bringing Heaven to Hell
This is the primary catchphrase for pathtivists:-
 Bringing Heaven to Hell
Bringing Harmony to Conflict
As Marianne might say bringing radical love to the movement.
Huge Ask
When you find yourself in the NEVERENDING of grassroots suffering, your own dukkha elevates - dukkha arising from the energy of consciousness that has been used and clung to. Very soon that increased dukkha will attach to egos associated with grassroots action such as compassion and activist's, will cling to old egos, and very quickly the pathtivist can fall out of alignment leading to the hell of immersion. By choosing pathtivism pathtivists are asked to risk this malalignment, it is hell and a huge ask. With this possible immersion it is understandable why people following the path choose spiritual bypassing; but noting how this advice first started we observe the lack of spirituality in this global hegemony, we can see what choosing bypassing has done.
Priority
The priority of a pathtivist is to follow their own path, a bit like the airline announcement - save yourself before trying to save families and friends. But the big difference is that in an aircrash others can be saved, in daily life the only way paths can be followed is if the seeker themselves has the determination to follow.
The dangers of being active in the grassroots is that losing alignment means that the pathtivist is not following their path, and this brings all the stresses of dukkha and ego - including immersion in clinging to the compassion ego and the activist's ego.
Detachment - Conscious Change in Intensity of Practice
Immersion, increased dukkha causing attachment, can be a consequence of grassroots activism, this means that in all likelihood a seeker will lose atammayata. By the very understanding of atammayata - being free from conditioning and conformity, this state is lost when dukkha attaches to egos - leading to immersion in the NEVERENDING.
Discerning the NEVERENDING
It is so important that we bring discernment to our pathtivism. We cannot be concerned with all of the NEVERENDING, we must discern what is our part of grassroots activism - which part of activism we are going to focus our energies in. If we are not discerning we lose control, become immersed in the activist's ego - and other egos, and lose our alignment to the path; our contribution is unlikely to be beneficial if we are immersed.
Quenching Dukkha
Many years ago zandtao did some work transcribing Ajaan Buddhadasa's talks on the Ariya Sacca - sadly he did not finish it, and one notion he recalls was quenching dukkha - to be honest at the time it meant little. It now feels integral to the practice of a pathtivist. Because the pathtivist is choosing to participate in the hell of grassroots activism, then s/he is opening themselves up to increasing dukkha's heat. If that increased suffering leading to attachment is not addressed the pathtivist becomes immersed, loses alignment and develops the sufferings of ego - particularly the compassion and activist's ego.
From Energy to Dukkha's Heat
Consciousness gives us energy for our daily lives, and our paths choose how we use this energy from consciousness. But once this energy is used up it can be clung to as a residue of dukkha, and if this residue is not released it seeks attachment. Dukkha's heat arises naturally, and of itself this residue need not be a problem. However with the attention and ego arising from embodiment in grassroots action, dukkha's heat can bring with it attachment to the next cause, the next activism, the next part of the NEVERENDING; it can also bring attachment to other egos such as the compassion ego. These attachments block the integrity of the path.
There are 2 strategies to deal with dukkha's heat and the ensuing attachment:-
Recognise the ego restrictions and release them
Quench the dukkha energy - cooling
For pathtivism the ego restrictions are likely to be compassion ego and the activist's ego, but maybe there are other connected individual egos that the individual clings to. If we feel immersion these are the egos to examine - to release?
Over the long term of good practice there will be an improved state of atammayata, less of the egos, and we can also focus on cooling dukkha's heat - quenching dukkha. zandtao thinks of this cooling as bringing the cooling love of compassion to let go of the heat, Buddhadasa spoke of this as being Nibbana-cooling.
Bringing Cool Love to your Practice
Once zandtao began to see the importance of dealing with dukkha - after agitation and the acupuncturists - he found that he was able to release dukkha during meditation; at least he was able to release sufficient dukkha to enable some Unity-consciousness. As a limited pathtivist this did not work, even when he recognised that he was out of alignment he was still not able to release the dukkha - because dukkha's heat was attaching to new egos of embodiment - compassion ego and activist's ego - as well as old egos not fully released. Detaching from the dukkha that led to zeer-consciousness is far different from the dukkha that comes from pathtivism; that means a change of practice before he can continue with pathtivism.
Detached embodiment
With the changes brought about by embodiment there came the need for detached embodiment - embodiment detached in the vihara. This means a change in practice. So for each tetrad of the vihara there needs to be an examination of whether the embodiment is detached.
Practice begins by calming kaya, if there is immersion this will be hard. Once the kaya is calm we can begin to examine changes in the other two tetrads of the vihara. In tetrad 2 we are looking at energy - vedana. Once the body is calmed we are likely to see dukkha's heat - the residue of energy that has been clung to. When we bring in love from deep in the earth, we can also focus on the cooling of deep love to release dukkha's heat - not the heating of passionate "love". Going hand-in-hand with this are the egos associated with zandbag embodiment - compassion ego and activist's ego. So maybe we oscillate with the deep cooling of dukkha's heat in tetrad 2 and the discerning detachment from compassion and activist's ego in tetrad 3. In tetrad 3 we also need to examine any egos that we have clung to over time as the increased dukkha's heat is likely to attach to addicted egos. Over time there will be a cooling of dukkha's heat and discerning detachment from compassion and activist's ego leading to a state of atammayata.
For zandtao there was additional attachment because he has never fully addressed the issue of writing as embodiment - as distinct from path-consciousness; this is an individual ego referred to. Quite often esp. recently, if he wakes up wanting to write he will write - immersion in writing, but this immersion never led to significant attachment, attachment that needed to be addressed because of immersive egos. With zandbagging the compassion ego and the activist's ego combined with the writing leading to the immersion.
zandbag embodiment can bring improvement to the path - consciously love and evolve consciousness.
So we have as changing practice the necessity of detaching from ego, suffering and clinging in the vihara tetrads, with the quenching of dukkha through cooling if dukkha cannot be released. Zeer practice is altered.
[At this point zandtao intended to include details on journalling the process of dealing with the immersion of the Venez Debacle but he could see it being confusing. However he thinks this journalling is worth reading so he has included it as separate zandbag advice - Journal leading to Huge Ask . ]
Warning - be ready for pathtivism.
The path is the priority, it is the ultimate in change; nature knows. Pathtivism is embodiment, it is not path. Do your practice first. Through your practice you follow your path. If pathtivism SUCKS you into the NEVERENDING, then detach and align. The NEVERENDING is always there, your purpose is to consciously love and evolve consciousness.
Are you ready? If you get SUCKED into the NEVERENDING you are not ready.
HUGE ASK
Zandtao has got sucked into the NEVERENDING through writing - zandbagging. But what about being active with grassroots activism - being active in pathtivism? What will happen when your compassion gets stirred up as it must with whatever activates you? When you are with people? It is so hard to remain detached. zandtao is tempted to withdraw all that is pathtivism because of these dangers but in the end when he sees the lack of spirituality in the hegemony he cannot. But please put your path first - the airline safety factor. Path first, be detached, be ready - then pathtivism.
If you recognise immersion in malalignment, do COLD TURKEY - feign illness, withdraw, isolation, realign, cool the heat!!! An external let go so that you can end internal attachment. Regain atammayata.
| RADICAL LOVE AS GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM |
 | | RADICAL LOVE AS PATHTIVISM |
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