|
There are so many lessons to take from this, zandtaomed doesn’t know where to begin. What happened?
Event:- For all his adult life bill has had an issue with his hair. Bill has a habit of pulling his hair at the base of his skull. If he was sat watching the TV he would unconsciously start tugging at his hair. He was relaxed and just started tugging until it became uncomfortable and he was not relaxed. He tried discipline to stop tugging but it never worked. In the end he resolved the problem in his retirement - after nearly 40 years of tugging at his hair - by shaving his head so there was no hair to pull. A solution.
Now as zandtaomed with a shaven head he would feel this agitation at the base of his skull, and he could not shake this agitation. The feelings were getting stronger. In his old age zandtao had developed a congenital heart condition, and connected this hair-pulling to his heart and weak circulation. It became so bad he spoke to the acupuncturist.
She quickly said it was not the heart. Then there was a short discussion where the only common language was Pali. She tried to explain about dukkha arising during the day, and zandtao could not see it. He went home resolved to meditate about his agitation and dukkha, and as soon as he did it all began to fit into place. He felt embarrassed.
Embarrassment
Zandtao's acupuncturist is a young woman, he used to call her "Dr Schoolgirl" in his mind (Mor Nakrian), because of how young she looked. Her assistant is almost as young-looking and is very pretty. They must be early 30s now. Zandtao is 72, a supposed meditation adviser, and these young people started explaining basic Buddhist understanding - the 3 characteristics of Buddhism anatta, dukkha and anicca. The assistant persevered through his lack of understanding, and because of that perseverance he went home thinking about agitation and meditation.
When zandtao sat down to meditate he did not have the clarity he now has. It was all befuddled by the habits, the years of the problem, previous efforts to discipline the hair-pulling, his egos associated with his being an adviser, and egos associated with the young women - the situation might have been worsened because she was pretty and young, he hopes not but he doesn’t look good in this. But through the befuddlement there was sufficient clarity that when he thought of dukkha he felt the agitation around his head. The clarity - there was nothing else in the agitation but dukkha.
Now only a day later zandtao cannot understand why he had not seen it before. Dukkha is sometimes translated as agitation. This is dukkha arising through vedana - “I feel agitated” - vedana is feeling. Why didn’t he deal with agitation through calming of vedana - through converting agitation to love? So this agitation ought to have been handled during the 2nd tetrad but it never has been - yet it is basic.
Even stage 14 of ZPAP is quenching dukkha he recalls Buddhadasa talking of “quenching the fires of dukkha”, and this agitation sometimes feels like a fire. The connections are all so clear, and yet zandtao had decided it was heart and circulation - physical - not meditation.
Lessons
Humility:- Zandtao is a meditation adviser. He was too confident about his meditation. Even when acupuncture were explaining dukkha he was not fully listening because they were explaining basic Buddhism. He knew that, he was zandtaomed. But listening to them he couldn’t be humble enough to realise that they were telling him he had made a basic error.
Failure in Practice:- Why hadn’t he just sat down and meditated on the problem of agitation before going to acupuncture with it? He still doesn't know the answer to that. Conclusion - any problem he has sit down and meditate on it first. It still makes no sense - why hadn’t he done that?
The reason is ZPAP - the full enchilada. Where is the scope in the full enchilada to cope with a minor detail of agitation? Arrogance - he is looking at the big stuff and not managing details.
Zandtao now thinks if he was still sitting on his stool this would not have happened. The full ZPAP takes longer than 45 minutes, and he sits in a chair. He does not always complete ZPAP as he sleeps. He has allowed his practice to degrade in terms of these details, he wants the bigness of vision. And not cope with the details of agitation. His shame will motivate a change - hopefully.
Now - how? In his practice he rushes to the big stuff, he must take more time with the details. Releasing attachments has become a feeling, he releases the feeling of attachments. This needs to be more detailed, for example he knows irritation is a sign of poor meditation.
He knows agitation is an issue so at the beginning of vedana he must look for and release agitation. He must then ask “are there any other feelings present in the body, emotions and mind?” Ask and look for them before going onto the big stuff of :-
Solitude
Would this problem have arisen if he was in community? If he had someone to talk to? Instead he had to feel shame. If a problem like this arises again, recognise that he is in solitude and somehow find a way of asking himself as if he was in community. This has got to be better meditation because he has no sangha - except acupuncture!!
Shame
Remember this shame to be better aware in the future.
Back to Buddhadasa
This is really good news that is so exciting for zandtao, he is moving back towards Buddhadasa.
In "Mindfulness with Breathing" by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu Buddhadasa has the unfortunate sexist title of mastering the vedana - being in charge of vedana, and the first two steps of that are piti and sukha. When zandtao first did these he experienced the jhanas, and it felt good; but for a long time there has not been either piti or sukha. And because of the wisdom bias zandtao moved to love being in charge of vedana.
Not using piti and sukha has allowed the fires of dukkha - the agitation. Once zandtao had recognised the agitation as dukkha he began to address the dukkha issue by releasing previous agitation - the attachments to a lifetime of “hair-pulling”. But dukkha kept arising as agitation. With its arising zandtao could calm the dukkha but that was almost constant - not hair-pulling but itching now - no agitation. This morning after 3 days he had begun transforming agitation to love, and he realised that in zandtao’s terms he was doing what Buddhadasa described in piti and sukha because at this stage love is not spiritual love - joy of sukha as the basis of spiritual love is fine but zandtao will describe his sukha as love.
So how does love progress in ZPAP? Love would come from Mother Earth at the end of tetrad 2, so now that will change. The big change is that love as sukha will arise from being in charge of vedana - sukha in charge of feeling agitated - sukha in charge of the daily agitation of dukkha. Then at the end of vedana the sukha will add to the spiritual love from Mother Earth. If the sukha is not calm then during tetrad 2 zandtao will calm the sukha whilst adding it to the spiritual love from Mother Earth at the end of the tetrad.
And this calming will come together in stage 9 where compassion and metta will add to equanimity that will be calm because of tetrad 2.
All of that is good except it lacks the cooling of Nibbana. For Buddhadasa the purpose of MwB is Nibbana - not a zappy enlightenment fly to heaven but an ongoing cooling. Zandtao does not know this, maybe he will come to know it. But there is a cooling that arises at the end of tetrad 2, this morning he realised that maybe he could touch that with his love that is ending agitation and becoming spiritual love with Mother Earth. But there is stage 14 quenching of dukkha, this is also a stage of ZPAP that he glosses over. With agitation transforming to love there is a possibility that quenching dukkha could lead to cooling, in stage 14 he will ask - is there cooling? And maybe there is cooling after vision, zandtao doesn’t know that but it is a possibility. And that possibility brings zandtao’s autonomy back to Buddhadasa. That is great.
When he looked up piti and sukha there was much that was not in ZPAP. Perhaps there is ego but zandtao is not changing his autonomy because he does not feel ego. His autonomy taking him to love has been so beneficial but he had lost his teacher because of Buddhism’s wisdom bias. But there is love in ZPAP, zandtao is comfortable with that being bhavana. Coming back to Buddhadasa in tetrad 2 and stage 14 and allowing for cooling in his ZPAP is all consciously-evolving-consciousness. Maybe connect consciously-evolving-consciousness to cooling. So much to do, and maybe he can use Buddhadasa’s roadmap again - along with Teal and Nicola. Feels good.
|
Advice from Zandtaomed
