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This is a continuation of the process that arose from the agitation described here, for earlier background read that advice. However this advice is more complete, and is less about the learning process that zandtao went through. Zandtao amended ZPAP at the time of writing the advice, but this advice is more comprehensive and it is based on the 4 Noble Truths - Ariya Sacca.
Nearly 10 years ago zandtao studied Buddhadasa and Ariya Sacca in some detail - revolving around the transcription of Buddhadasa talks on Ariya Sacca; sadly he didn’t finish the transcription but the talks and his transcriptions can be found here. This was done at a time when zandtao was still developing his practice but he had not reviewed the Ariya Sacca since autonomy. Part of this review is what zandtao intends to do here, basically how to incorporate Ariya Sacca into ZPAP.
With autonomy came the realisation that for zandtao the vedana are “governed” by spiritual love. This is very significant in understanding why the agitation lasted as long as it did. At the time of his Ariya Sacca study zandtao’s practice was down the line MwB so he attempted to control his agitation through calm; for zandtao this did not work. As he developed his MwB he had worked through piti and sukha, and the jhanas he experienced helped develop his practice. But once he had reached those jhanas he forgot that part of his practice because he did not understand how they would be used on a daily basis. It was like the piti and sukha had dealt with attachments arising from upbringing and conditioning so could be “forgotten”. However he did occasionally use a similar process to develop compassion and metta up the ridgepole, and fuse with interbeing.
Now he is developing those jhanas with dukkha - dukkha arising from the khandhas. Zandtao has now developed a greater understanding of the 1st Ariya Sacca; previously zandtao had described this as the vague there is suffering but for zandtao now that barely touches it. For every event there is the potential for suffering from the minimal level of attachment to the more obvious level of clinging such as ego. It was the more minimal level of attachment that was giving rise to agitation. Zandtao had focussed on the larger egos and ignored the less impactful dukkhas until they pushed their way through as agitation, agitation significant enough that zandtao tried to resolve it and sought medical advice - instead of seeking his own meditation advice.
Zandtao had partially recognised dukkha in khandhas, and had attempted to resolve it with attachments to khandhas in stage 12 - along with the mental egos of kilesa and upadanas. At that stage he did superficially address attachments to all the khandhas but he did not detail those attachments and did not see the source as dukkha. Following the discussion with his acupuncturist he saw the agitation as dukkha, and began looking at dukkha arising in ways he had not considered before. And this has led to this understanding of the Ariya Sacca as khandha-dukkha.
Once he had appreciated this understanding, the issue is completely one of practice. After the first tetrad in which he calms the body - kaya-conditioner, he must search the body for dukkha arising in the body. There will always be this dukkha arising especially from body conditions he has such as the heart condition or the recent heat rashes. There is a tendency to see this dukkha as part of the condition, and not attempt to release dukkha. His heart gives circulation issues to his feet, and there is dukkha arising on a daily basis from this. In stage 5 he will pay attention to his body - particularly the expected places, collect the dukkha and raise it up through the body - for the body he is now doing the stage 5 of piti. In stage 6 he is doing similar with vedana searching the body for smaller aspects of attachment such as agitation raising it up through the body as sukha - stage 6. As the piti and sukha begin to leave the body he transforms them to spiritual love. This is very different to how he tried to calm agitation but is similar to the piti and sukha he used to develop the jhanas that released attachments from upbringing and conditioning. But back then he did not transform piti and sukha to spiritual love.
As part of the interaction with the acupuncturists zandtao listened to Ajaan Dtun - a brief reaction to his talk here. To zandtao he came across as a monk with a powerful mind who could have calmed agitation if it had arisen within him. Zandtao develops spiritual love because he does not have the concentration Dhamma comrade to handle this, and it fits in more with his ZPAP and love arising from autonomy. He is avoiding describing this as institutional wisdom bias as that would be judgement but his piti and sukha adds to spiritual love. Zandtao could imagine that energy from calming agitation would lead to nibbana-dhatu but as yet that is not the way of zandtao’s autonomy.
Sanna-dukkha is so different. Zandtao addresses sanna-dukkha through completeness and Seeker Story, but it would have to be zandtaomed PhD to deal with it properly. Sankhara-dukkha leads to egos of mental process that zandtao released in stage 12 as well as sanna-dukkha that ongoing conditioning might give rise to after the releases of the Seeker Story.
This is a much more detailed approach to dukkha an Ariya Sacca rather than the vague “there is suffering”. For a seeker it is worth considering different descriptions of dukkha so that s/he does not fall into the trap of not seeing dukkha when it knocks you on the head - as in agitation. When you see the dukkha you can see which khandha it is attached to, and adopt piti, sukha or the deeper processes for sanna-khandha (Seeker Story) and sankhara-khandha.
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Advice from Zandtaomed
