6 Deepest Acceptance
It was when I started writing this chapter I recognised the necessity for Zandtaomed to be a pathtivist companion rather than being additional (companion) advice on MwB.
In a sense it comes down to the teaching methodology. Let me back up a way. There is a common notion of warriorship on the spiritual path, I think I first met it with Castaneda in Journey to Ixtlan. It is not a notion I like because a warrior fights with another, but for the spiritual warrior in order to fight with another the warrior must perfect her/himself. In general the spiritual warrior’s fight is with his ego but it is not a fight of conquering. It is the development of sati – mindfulness, and with a strong sense of sati there is an awareness of ego and then letting go. It is internal development that leads to the ability to let go, and some might call this development a “fight”.
But when we have let go, we are left with our paths; we are warriors who fight to follow their paths. But broadly what is this path about? Through MwB and this Companion there will be encouragement to develop the Dhamma comrades, the 3 characteristics of Buddhism, an understanding of what is what, and a methodology that hopefully can be worked towards the coolness of atammayata. But what are these about? Ways of following the path but also ways of accepting life as it comes.
Within ourselves there needs to be discipline and strength as we work to let go of attachments, to recognise conditioning so that we can move beyond it, and avoiding the proliferations that sankhara can concoct for us; but in the end what does all this mean? Put simply we just have the deepest acceptance of what happens in our daily life. There is peace and tranquility in adversity, there is love for Nature's bounty, and harmony exists from day-to-day simply because we accept. We become 100% dedicated to our path, and in that dedication all of us is authentic and all of us is at peace accepting what follows from life and loving life.
Let's examine what happens on the second tetrad. Through the first two jhanas of piti and sukha we exhaust sukha, there reaches a stage when we are not enchanted by sukha. As we go into this state of disenchantment we find that we are not interested in sukha, this is upekkha - a jhana and a brahma-vihara (higher vehicle). In this state we are not attracted to anything that arises, we are neither attracted to the positive or the negative, we are not attracted to vedana; isn't this nondualism? Through developing upekkha we are not attracted, do not become attached to anything either positive or negative. We just accept what happens in daily life - deepest acceptance.
When we have followed the 4 tetrads integrating spirit, mind, energy and body, we just accept life for what it is. Whilt the warrior's strength brings discipline to the conditioning that is instinct and the conditioning enhanced by societal interests, the resulting harmony brings peace that accepts from day-to-day the wonders of Mother Earth; this is the love that comes from following the path. Through acceptance we recognise Oneness - no separation, and we remember being a part of Nature:-
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