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Ajaan Dtun

The real story of this was the fiasco that happened before listening to Ajaan Dtun (known as Ajaan Tan). Zandtao had allowed agitation to become a problem. This had started when young, and he pulled (plus) his hair when agitated, the plus of this agitation led to embarrassment sometimes - Neshia and that time in the Chinese classroom when they were clamouring around to look at the back of his head; Thandi tried as well but gave up. This agitation continued after he retired, and he resolved it after a few years when he started shaving his head. But he had noticed it being a problem again recently where he could not control the agitation - sometimes for more than a day. He had recently had a panic due to the parking fine, he was in a state and they gave him heart pills. He was happy to see this panic as a heart problem. He then mooted that the agitation was a blood circulation problem, and was dismissed by the acupuncturist. Zandtao was then given a Buddhist lecture, how stuff happened during the day, and that it was dukkha. Because of language he didn’t understand her but also because he was not prepared to listen to her properly - she was less than half his age. He went home, meditated on the issue, and when he thought of dukkha he felt the agitation around his head. Over the next few days he realised that ZPAP was not dealing with the dukkha of daily life because he was ignoring piti and sukha of MwB. Since then his practice has included this cleaning out using sukha that he transformed to spiritual love (not calm); the agitation has mostly gone. She gave him Ajaan Dtun to study without realising that for zandtao the problem had been mostly resolved. He listened to the Ajaan out of duty. Ajaan Tan was clearly wise and clearly understood the mind. He came across as a very disciplined man who controlled his mind. Zandtao came away strongly disagreeing with this position of tradition; it was not natural to be so rigid and disciplined. Ajaan Tan spoke of upekkha - equanimity, but his upekkha seemed only concerned with discipline through wisdom and mind. It was the meditation of Dhamma Dan where you maintained the gate at phassa, and did not allow anger etc to come in. The acupuncturists spoke of calm for his agitation but for zandtao it is transforming the minor dukkha attachments into spiritual love once sukha had collected them. This method isn’t discipline to control the agitation, it is using the attachments that arise as spiritual love. Ajaan Dtun is Ajaan Winai (Discipline) but upekkha arises out of the graces - mindfulness/sati, love/karuna, wisdom/panna, concentration/samadhi and embodiment/sampajanna. He spoke of balance but it was the balance of the 8-fold path - sila samadhi and panna - (samyutta nikaya 45) right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration. No compassion or love. This is worth noting because it is consistent. Zandtao’s autonomy took him to equanimity as love-wisdom balance and vision - and possibly nibbana-dhatu. It took him away from Buddhist institutions. But Ajaan Dtun’s talk was complete and comprehensive - like Ajaan Buddhadasa.