As soon as zandtao the seeker crossed this threshold of autonomy, engagement with daily life got disrupted. Here this is described as disturbance, and it is this disturbance that the warning is about. Please heed the warning. This warning is placed at the main entrance of the Prajna portal, and is on every page within the portal please heed it.
As a seeker zandtao still has “warts’n’all” – selves and egos that are still a part of daily life, crossing the threshold they exploded. This could have been a danger for zandtao only but as he experienced it there is this warning.
At present zandtaomed advises on dhamma practice – what is accessible from the front page of zandtao except for the Prajna portal; crossing the threshold of autonomy zandtao is a seeker questing into the unknown. Zandtaomed's advice does not encourage or discourage crossing this threshold; that is for the individual's autonomy to decide.
Once your seeking takes you across the threshold of autonomy there can be dangers. For zandtao his seeker's path took him across this autonomy threshold, and zandtao has faith in path. Quest into the unknown is now within this Prajna portal, and sadly that quest now includes these dangers. This requires more work on dhamma practice to develop atammayata whilst keeping 100% engagement with daily life.
What has taken zandtao across? This is very important because of the disturbances experienced. What took the seeker across was creativity – the search for the unknown, the final “stages” of what was reached as a search for the unknown as described in Viveka-Zandtao. This creativity was zandtao's autonomy.
For zandtao it was observed when zandtao was studying Thay’s significant sutras in Awakening the Heart. The first sutra Thay focussed on with regards to this threshold was the Diamond Sutra - discussed in "Awakening the Heart". For zandtao the essence of the Diamond sutra is this warning,whatever happens as you cross this threshold of autonomy hold strong to the dhamma practice that gave you the autonomy leading to the threshold. As zandtao enters the unknown there is strength in the 4 Foundations of Mindfulness, and the release of conditioning that came from his Seeker Story. Zandtaomed follows Buddhadasa with these 4 Foundations, Buddhadasa's Anapanasati Bhavana, Mindfulness with Breathing – MwB - is the meditation method that zandtaomed uses to prepare the vihara and build the faith that searches in the unknown. His Seeker Story released the conditioned egos that arose from his upbringing and the egos that continued to arise from society's kilesa. There is a state, atammayata, in which conditioning does not affect the seeker, this state (translated as unconcoctability) means that your vehicle cannot be affected by conditioning in the search for the unknown. With the focus on this unknown there is a strong risk of intellectual egotism and proliferation if the vehicle is not prepared to resist conditioning, it is this lack of preparation that made crossing of the threshold disturbing.
But once the threshold has been crossed then the search for the unknown has to be affected by what arises including Prajna-paramitta. Because writings have happened across the threshold, zandtao has opened the Prajna portal as a symbol of this crossing. As you cross the portal there is the warning to hold to the Diamond sutra - maintain your dhamma practice, and on each page there is the Diamond sutra marquee warning. In zandtaomed terms, be in a state of atammayata before studying anything in the portal.
Does your path need to cross the Prajna threshold? As a seeker the answer for that arises with your own search for the unknown - within your own autonomy. In Viveka-Zandtao zandtao developed that search for himself, if there is no search why go through the disturbance that the threshold can cause? For zandtaomed the path is described sufficiently in the trilogy and Viveka-zandtao – with zandtaomed advice to help.
Buddhadasa taught emptiness using the Pali sunnata, Mahayana uses Shunyata. It was a focus on this teaching that zandtao led to the disturbance when he crossed the threshold of autonomy. The Diamond sutra warns to hold to your dhamma practice, that zandtao takes as atammayata – perfecting the vihara and having faith; zandtao takes the Diamond sutra as a warning that this disturbance was to be expected. Throughout the Prajna portal this warning is passed on.
Please be warned about the disturbance this threshold brought and remember to hold to your own dhamma practice, or as zandtaomed says be atammayata:-
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Advice from Zandtaomed