Seeker Story - Awakening

To help with the awakening part of the seeker story, at the time zandtao wrote an awakening seeker story. It is not intended to be complete - is not being updated. it is there as guide to the trypes of contemplations and recordings he felt beneficial to recognise.

This awakening story shows itself through the 3rd part of compassion, insight and creativity:-



As bill zandtao's first real awakening was firstgrace in upheaval, but his first writing/creativity was Captain Zed, Rosenella and Bub. Bill had an angry relationship with his English teacher, N. It began in the 3rd year (9) when he hadn’t done homework, borrowed a friend’s book, and copied the homework during registration. His form teacher saw him, took both books and gave them to N. N then gave his friend a public dressing down intentionally reducing his friend to tears; in the dressing down N hardly focused on bill who was at fault. At the end of the dressing down, early in the term, N made the class sit in score order where his zero placed bill very low.

Bill's lazy accomplishment in maths gave him a science bias in school; his writing never surfaced. Bill always felt this N was vindictive after this incident, but that could be just a kid’s thing – his English results were low. He thought N was popular – he went on TOTP recorded in Manchester at the time. In the 6th form bill was forced to do English for scientists, and N set a creative piece of work as an assignment. Bill wrote Captain Zed, Rosenella and Bub that ended up with their finding ideograms in a cave on another planet – leading to the racist conclusion that Chinese were aliens. Pretty racist – sorry, fortunately no Chinese in the class. Apart from the racism the story was on genre, and the class were amused and enjoyed it even though N criticised it. It had a good result because no-one else had done the assignment; bill was surprised, he asked and they all said N was a dickhead. As a teacher bill always remember what N did – a bullying teacher shaming his friend to tears because his friend was susceptible to such dressing-downs. The dressing down deeply upset bill at the time, and he was found outside his next Latin class (#1 in Latin) being comforted by the Latin teacher – he recalls blubbing mainly because N had victimised his friend because of what bill did. Top stream in grammar schools! Wai Zandtao's first writing.

Academic maths all came too easy so there was no genuine effort in learning until uni exams – at uni failure in year 1 needing September repeats, avoiding failure in year 2, and disciplined study for his finals. II(2) was satisfactory but was clearly screwed by the stats department moderation - he got a II(1) in maths and was allowed to do stats postgrad; any year 8 maths student would tell you that in a joint degree a joint II(2) would mean a likely 3rd or a weak II(2) in stats. Stats department moderation was a serious problem in his postgrad year as well – many hard-working undergrads were getting 3rds and there were failures. Bill saw the source of the manipulated moderation as the prof who was some guy from industry taking over from Kendall – a famous statistician. Bill has mentioned this learning experience before, he had the conviction to know that his stats was better than the result after all the exam revision. This is a diversion in awakening, the awakening was the scifi story that he got immersed in when writing. Perhaps it is an indication of how conflict arises in life for those on the path?

Next bill remembers the party in Peckham - holiday from his first year at uni? There was a Hyde Park free gig – Edgar Broughton, not the gentler hippy music he usually liked. He went from Sale with a schoolfriend he had hardly known for years. After Hyde Park we all went back to Peckham, his first experience of travelling in London – it took ages and he was waiting to party. For bill party meant drinking; at our uni mostly we didn’t have parties, it was the pub and uni discos. But in London it was weed. Bill of course headed for the booze but weed was pushed on him. There was this “psychedelic” poster; he started banging on about the esoteric meaning of this poster as a boozy lads’ piss-take and his friend said people were seriously into what he was saying. He has no idea what was said but accepts the friend's assessment that what he said had meaning simply because the incident stuck. But apart from addiction to alcohol thankfully he was never attracted to drugs.

Zandtao now sees both of these small glimpses as path - nibbana-dhatu - becauze of the wider context of path in his life; the blocks of academia and booze were very strong in him then even though the conditioning wasn’t.

Nothing to recall until upheaval at 23. At the early stage of upheaval bill had blown up his job, and returned to stay with his parents. Whilst there he went for a walk around Manchester and found himself outside a Xmas office party in a pub; he looked at it and felt that it was fun but such a strong feeling that it was not for him - that office lifestyle was not for him. But the real meaning of upheaval were those bells and banjoes awakenings in the Chiswick loft. He doesn’t recall how they started because meditation had previously not been allowed entry into his life - mocked. But as part of the upheaval period there was a building up - upheaval pressure had increased because his conditioning had run to the abeyance of his parents where the awakening forces of firstgrace were frustrated. Bill does recall sometimes rushing home from work to Chiswick just so that he could sit and feel the bells and banjoes coming.

Somehow he had reconnected with W. She had taken him under her wing in his 1st job, God knows what she saw. He recalls nothing of the path in his 1st job – just enjoying being UpWest and the football at the weekends. Bill accepts that there was something to see because of W’s wisdom, but he has no idea what that was; even if he was doing wise shit he wouldn’t have known at the time.

How had he reconnected with W? When he was in Sevenoaks (2nd job) his most interesting days were nights out at the UpWest pubs of his 1st job; he guesses that once in Chiswick he went back there and must have met her. He does recall a rare occasion later being in an UpWest pub and hearing comments about him and Morphon. But by that time UpWest pubs meant nothing, so why was he there? W took him to the Arts Centre – a life-saver, such a place had never previously been a part of his life and in truth after art was never a part either.

The art (writing) of bells and banjoes began with Martin Smoothchatter. He would rush home, sit still and the guys of meditation (bells and banjoes) would come. As they filled the small loft space, he would write about Martin Smoothchatter at Bert O'Smellies - there were other characters but he has forgotten them; the Arts people liked them. They encouraged more writing and he began Morphon with the Chiswick guys that was serialised in the Arts Centre magazine.

He went to Belgium and had a Summer of writing in a cottage; that writing was an awakening. The 1st of many of those Summer awakenings was in the Ardennes with the getting lost in the forest that was Castaneda. From Journey to Ixtlan he had deeply felt he could not get lost so he walked deep into the forest without direction, and then turned and walked out; he didn't get lost but it sounds foolish and dangerous in retrospect - maybe safe in Belgium? But the real awakening was the writing – the early z-quests, where he would get any book from the British Council library and just bang on about some crap. He felt the guys in that cottage but not quite the full-blown bells and banjoes of Chiswick. The guys were with him almost at will at that stage.

Returning to the UK he started at Ealing, where the booze took over. Compassion was there with the kids’ home, the memory of Muse experiences was always there to anchor him to who he deeply was, but 2nd childhood started to distance him from the path; although anchored to the path, daily life was mostly not connected. Three of the key Arts people now had bedsits in the same house in Coldharbour Lane. But the significant Tooting talks gathered around a small housefire deep into the night had gone, there were Coldharbour talks but mainly with W. After upheaval he had started work in a Manor Park kids’ home and spent off-days at the Elephant, hanging around the Arts Centre looking for something and feeling in the way, taking people for a drink and then all-nighter Tooting talks – that became Coldharbour talks just before he went to Belgium.

He saw W occasionally for several years but the initial togetherness that had consolidated his upheaval into path was gone, his immaturity mainly and the booze took care of that. Over that time meeting her was bringing him back to writing, but her influence was losing to immaturity, the vocational consequences of the compassion decision, and the booze. His 1st school was near where she lived but his personal infrastructure became teaching and boozing for experience; the path was always there but not awakenings, the Muse or even intuitions and insights. By then through experience he was trying to link path, compassion and teaching but never managed it until after retirement and then especially the Centring Summer that became part 2 of Matriellez.

W typed up the Parables of Hexoto that he sent off – bill thinks to Gollancz; they returned it with a polite No. He liked Hexoto at the time but now when he reads it to put on his website he finds much writing structure to change. Even given that improved quality of writing Wai Zandtao doesn’t know whether any of his scifi stories are commercial. He would kind of like to know if they were but he is not willing to put in the time and lifestyle - and now is too old. By the time he submitted Hexoto he was teaching and that was a 100%-job when you add booze to it. Creativity and jhanas just left his life as he compromised with teaching and booze. Lidors happened as he left his 1st school, there was still a possibility of a creative life then as he gave up teaching for the magazine. But then romantic love got a grip and ended the connection of art to his 2nd childhood life. Once the cosmic had gone, there was just politics and then travel interspersed by Kirramura that ended his 2nd school but still kept him connected to the Muse – with the strong relation to the guys when he was writing Kirramura. Writing had gone when he travelled except for voluminous education stuff including the M Ed. As discussed in Viveka-Zandtao his Summers had become his solitude, often through holidays and the binge Doris Lessing Summer in London. Awakenings during his 2nd childhood were the solitude that was the centring of holidays – interspersed by writing the very occasional scifi book.

Zandtao doubts that writing could have become a living but you never know - if there had been a necessity? Upheaval gave him some worldly strength and resilience, there was the ill-fated world trip following Ealing. A few hundred pounds in savings to start him off, bill was going to work bars or whatever when that ran out. Instead he lost the money – or it was stolen, and he returned to become a teacher; a double-edged ill-fatedness as the "disaster" led to his starting teaching. No real conviction for the struggle of a writing life.

During his 2nd childhood bill did investigate some paths in different forms. One intense year he “did” theosophy. He attended a course North of London in a huge house somewhere (he regularly spent weekends at Camberley). At this course there was a shared meditation in which we were asked to follow a light, bill remembers that meditation awakening fondly. Perhaps surprisingly meditation has not produced "bigger" awakening events for bill. When the meditation was erratic there were sometimes awakenings, but grander awakening (bells and banjoes) in formal meditation did not happen. At upheaval they happened, during writing esp Kirramura they happened; please don’t associate awakenings as things that only happen during meditation. Zandtao sees formal meditation as a preparation for awakenings although listening to Batgap undoubtedly awakenings have happened during meditation.

Occasional awakenings re-emerged towards the end of his 2nd childhood with the mid-life review as meditation came back to his life a little. Writing as M Ed returned but not creatively. Conversion to Buddhism after leaving Africa brought meditation more formally into his life but awakenings only happened as insight and they didn’t start fully until he retired - insights were plentiful then and could be relied on. Harnham became his formal Buddhist involvement. His 1st Buddhist retreat somehow became only an overnight stop - not usually allowed, and Buddhism and the monastery became part of his life when the guys appeared in the middle of the night. The guest monk could not understand his vehemence concerning this justifcation but Harnham was a regular retreat on contract breaks until he left the UK.

Sometimes zandtao has felt the guys but not powerfully, there is none of the downward sinking into the bed and the almost leaving-my-body that Wai felt with Kirramura. But Prajna is much more as a daily presence ending the bells and banjoes (which bill remembers fondly); zandtao sees this way of presence as much better verifying the Prajna state. The guys came to bill a little with the mid-life review because meditation then was erratic. Once it became formal the jhanas developed on from bells and banjoes and life was less of a helter-skelter, even with the meditation it was still far too up-and-down in Botswana; leaving Botswana was the end of the playing of 2nd childhood – end of relationships.

It was then the travel that became the experience of 2nd childhood - the awakenings of being in nature. Walking had always taken bill back to the path esp during the ending of cosmic love through the South Downs. But he was also centring from teaching as he walked the coast paths many Summers as well as Ireland. Botswana was very much about getting back to nature with Shashe Dam and the camping, and the later travel gave that natural aspect variety. Nature was awakening but in a kind of grounding and anchoring way. On a typical 1st day of a walking holiday bill can remember using a Castaneda teaching of a walk-routine – similar to walking meditation; still full of school, instead of walking in nature his mind would be chattering as he walked on top of nature. Curling his fingers into the Buddha fingers and thumb position, he watched each step of where he put his feet. It was a gesture to walking discipline, didn’t last long but by the end of that discipline he was walking in nature, his mind was with him in the walking and the chattering about teaching had gone.

Bill could have used walking in nature so much more for grounding but booze and then tiredness meant he had no weekends when he was working. Apart from solitude summers he was 100%-teacher. When he was young and active, weekends were ended by booze (until he was 36). During politics weekends were political – either organising work or demos, at least in Botswana they became Shashe Dam esp with the M Ed. Bill lost weekends because of his compassion decision to become a teacher, lost in the compromise that started with booze and ended with tiredness. Even with the overseas teaching jobs weekends were rest even though marking and preparing for marking was always there as part of that time.

Once bill retired his path became insight and creativity. Meditation became a mostly-daily constant, and often there would be an insight leading to a blog. Or an insight that developed his spiritual writing. Or the development of themes for his Wai Zandtao scifi. With the development of Dhamma comrades during meditation the inner guide directed his study that meant his continued work on the path.

Zandtao’s approach improved significantly with 100% dedication to the path. Following his retirement there was meditation, insights and creativity but the blogging was of a wider interest – zandtao blog; at that time his lifestyle included long periods of contemplation at the beach as well as volunteer teaching. This stopped with a number of factors that built up and came together effecting greater dedication. His minimal teaching started to have greater impact on his health so he stopped the volunteer engagement. His ageing health ended his swimming reducing the beach attraction. At the same time the beach environment worsened with the increased hostility of MAWPs. He went to beaches further away but whilst they were more peaceful it did not feel the same. Without making the decision to dedicate there became far greater dedication to the path that led to the awakenings of the Centring Summer. In this dedication there was an end to the limited social involvement of the beach community and a complete disenchantment with any political approach. In terms of recognising awakening, for zandtao it was important that there was greater dedication even though that was not a specific decision he made.

During that Centring Summer there grew greater use of the chakras and the TaiChi ridgepole housing the chakras with the help of the teachings of Teal Swan. In the Manual zandtao spoke of finding “chakras by the bootstraps”, zandtao asks the seeker to find their own relationship with the ridgepole and chakras. Seeker, investigate them for yourselves and see how they can be brought into your dhamma practice; if it doesn't happen don't worry. For zandtao this Centring Summer helped him awaken to the benefits of working with the ridgepole and chakras to such an extent that it is now part of his practice. In writing this change of focus meant an end mostly to the zandtao blog, and a focus on the work of zandtaomed the elder and his advice. There was an awakening awareness of focus as a consequence of the dedication; when young there had been an issue with unfocussed eclecticism, now came a recognition of the pointlessness of developing an increasing political awareness involvement with such began to be seen as attachment. Once we know the way things are - tathata, we focus on our own purpose/path; this was an awakening as there was so much more energy and faith for the path.

The next awakenings revolved around the crossing of the threshold of Prajna, with the crossing of the threshold being characterised by increased disturbance and agitation until understanding had been resolved; this type of disturbance and agitation of ego has now become a characteristic that can lead to recognition of further awakening. This crossing occurred when he was working with "Awakening the Heart" by Thich Nhat Hanh, hence he named the threshold Prajna opening a Prajna portal on his website for all his new writings. It took a while for zandtao to awaken to the understanding that this was an awakening to his autonomy. This was an awakening that focussed on his autonomy (developing from the inner guide), and became his autonomy directing his path; his path and autonomy had become the same. Whilst taking the warning of the Diamond Sutra to continue with his dhamma practice, zandtao now had his quest into the unknown as conscious evolution of consciousness guided or driven by his own autonomy.

Now there is Prajna and writing, Prajna is mellow but true, an equanimous presence of love-wisdom without bells and banjoes. After the writing there is rest as there is preparation for more writing but usually only one session a day. But when Wai Zandtao tells stories the writing is longer and sometimes more than one session. The incidents that were noted as awakening experiences have coalesced into a path presence of autonomy that develops as ongoing writing and study in abidance.



Seeker Story as cause and conditions

The Buddhist law of paticcasamuppada says that our story arises out of causes and conditions - causes and conditions without self. Can you see your seeker story in terms of causes and conditions, not causes and conditions that impact on you creating a self but just causes and conditions interacting - interbeing? Zandtao tried to examine his seeker story in terms of cause and conditions, maybe you will find it of interest.

The most important time in his life was the Chiswick Loft. Bill had always seen this as his upheaval – his partial awakening, but what about writing it as causes and conditions – tathata – the way it was. Can he see other aspects of this story just in terms of cause and conditions?

Upheaval starts with his father and mother but only as conditions that "led to my father and mother". From his mother there came spirit – love ....

personal details omitted here

Zandtao always writes any personal analysis of his history with depth and does not pull punches - but he writes such analyses for himself as a way of learning. Why do you or anyone else need to know the details of other people in his upbringing? But if you want help developing your own seeker story Zandtaomed is more than willing to advise - and discuss his own personal history if necessary.

Through his parents conditioning had given him inherited academic ability that eventually funneled into maths and a repressed spirituality that he saw coming from his mother – both arising from conditions that "led to my father and mother" in their lives – to a certain extent the conditions of sankhara from father and conditions connected to sunnata from mother. But there was no deep investment from bill, no conditioning that wanted educational success.

In this way growing up led to a shell in which there was ostensibly middle-class conformity but no strong ego invested in it. Hence Nana being upset when at 13 or so his conditioning said there will be ticking over to get to uni and she was sad because she could see no educational desire....

personal details omitted here

When possible less time was spent at the home - to begin with through the usual conformed ways – football in primary school, and cycling in secondary school. But conditioning did not allow bill to sustain cycling friends so conditioning took him out through sport – Old Trafford, football, cricket and tennis. School sport was alone – cross-country and athletics until his cartilege knee problem, but mostly there was aloneness walking the streets of Sale and the banks of the Mersey.

But when the repression got to him there was the violent bullying he displayed.

Conditioning through instinct is there to build up an ego but this ego requires conscious attachment – an investment of vinnana. Out of the Sale home there was little conditioning for attachment through vinnana to create self.

At uni started some sort of self as there developed a self of maths and stats. That self had first started in the lower sixth with one particularly good exam result, this led to teacher expectation that never really panned out. To begin with at uni there was little interest in academia as there was only alcohol and sexual frustration dominating year 1. But the end-of-year exam failure forced some investment in maths at the resits in September, then more investment in the year as a whole (but not good) in year 2, and then finally the egoic investment in the finals. And with that attachment came the egoic attachment in the postgrad year. But in the postgrad year conditioning led bill to see that academia was not real for him then, and by the end of the year conformity was leading him to the world of work.

And there was a good job, his ego got a good job. But there was no discipline so there was no success for this ego. When that fragile ego broke with the token salary increase, the ego jumped to a new job – still full of itself. But the good job had much going for it, good people, being Up West and a football team, the broken ego took all that away in the move to Sevenoaks, and in Sevenoaks the job was not good, no football, no social people and occasional memory trips Up West. The ego turned more and more to drink and there came upheaval.

At upheaval the ego ran home but home still had all the causes and conditions that led to an isolated teenager again. What little middle-class conformity had taken him to uni and the jobs had gone, the fragile ego had nothing to cling to. In Manchester there were glimpses of the path eg the pub where the path said this was not your life. Eventually (approx 3 weeks) conditions led to the decision to return to London, the ego amazingly looking for community in some family-feel job. Instead there was a cubicle in a soulless Cobol office – a long way from the first job that the ego saw as success.

But the upheaval so far had brought with it survival – the need to work, so during the day at the Cobol cubicle there was discipline – no investment, no interest, just discipline for the money. No ego.

Because at this stage there was no ego, just spirit, there arose the path in the Chiswick Loft. Causes and conditions had taken away all ego leaving only the path to reconnect with itself.

Without the Arts Centre what would have happened? There was path, no ego, and discipline at work. Path took him to bells and banjoes and reconnected him with W then to the Arts Centre. That was the beginning of 2nd childhood connected with the path, only in the 2nd childhood there was self - attachment and investment; 2nd childhood was not driven solely by path a delusion he occasionally tried on himself. Once there was path from upheaval that could never disappear, but it could be covered over by ego. Path and upheaval decided the direction of his life through compassion, it showed him writing but there was no experience for wisdom to learn from. So there developed the egos of addiction, teaching, romantic love and whatever else that amounted to the experience of 2nd childhood.

Once the path had sufficient experience there came retirement, the start of Buddhism’s lessons that then led back to path that became writing, zandtao the seeker and zandtaomed the elder. Causes and conditions led to upheaval. But this analysis importantly shows that 2nd childhood was also about causes and conditions leading to egos, before the path stopped that childhood leading to the development of love-wisdom. This understanding of causes and conditions without self is a way of seeing the Seeker Story.