Gossip

The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.

Will Rogers

#####

It doesn't take much, as far as brain-cells go, to see the wisdom of this statement and it makes us laugh at ourselves. I believe that the best humor is the humor that holds a mirror to my face. It has, however, been to my benefit to find comfort in the idea that someone else is thinking about me enough to make me the center of their gossip. I loved the Gracie and George Burns series where George would plant a seed of gossip, go upstairs to his den, turn on his TV and watch Gracie turn the item into a comical drama, from a comfortable distance. We felt as though we were let in on the joke. That is what it takes at times… go upstairs and watch what goes down with a sense of humor. When I remember Rule 62; “Don’t take yourself so damned seriously!” I can find humor in what others say and do before I go off on a scheme for revenge.

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Impermanence

Ask yourself these two questions: Do I remember at every moment that I am dying, and that everyone and everything else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion? Has my understanding become so keen and so urgent that I am devoting every second to the pursuit of enlightenment? If you can answer “yes” to both of these, then you really understand impermanence.
Sogyal Rinpoche
Glimpse After Glimpse

۞۞۞۞۞

I've always considered spiritual practices featuring a  morbid obsession with death to be fear based and, therefore, unworthy of my attention until I read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. Here was another take on death that wasn’t morbid at all. It was about living life to its fullest… isn’t that what enlightenment is really about?  If I am living in fear of death my motivation is that of a reward in an undetermined future whether that reward is in heaven, purgatory, hell, or in any other Nirvana. We in Alcoholics Anonymous can be heard to say, “We can’t be frightened by Hell because we have already been there!” And, furthermore, “We are drawn by the promise of Heaven because we have had a taste of it in this life.” By simply cleaning house, trusting God (the Heart of Compassion) and giving myself to helping others so afflicted it has worked for me and I am so very sure that it will work for anyone else.

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Being Here... Now

There is something to do, but at the same time whatever you are doing is only related to the moment rather than being related to achieving some goal in the future, which brings us back to the practice of meditation. Meditation is not a matter of beginning to set foot on a path; it is realizing that you are already on the path --- fully being in the nowness of this very moment --- now, now, now. You do not actually begin because you have never really left the path.
 


Chogyam Trungpa;
Shunyata,
Cutting Through
Spiritual Materialism, p. 203

۞۞۞۞۞

This being in the now means to me that all I have to take care of is what is to be taken care of that is right before me. A boxer goes into the ring with the immediacy of the arena in a very real and practical sense of the now. A chess player of any consequence sees several moves ahead but each move is predicated on the one at hand. The carpenter pays attention to the wood that is being cut in the moment and here I am in the moment… sitting at my desk as I type out words that try to capture my thoughts as they flow. I have to say that it is most important that I pay attention to what I am doing now than it is to envision the end result. On a certain level the one who hones a craft is as much or more of a yogi than some guy that sits on a mountain top honing the contrivances of the mind.
    I am a bit distracted today as we prepare to go to LA to attend Lenore’s funeral services. In times such as these the little glimpse of life that is framed between birth and death becomes more accentuated as a brief candle of light that is snuffed out and returns to eternity. The big questions of, “what is the use” and “why bother” are highlighted by the present moment demanding that if I am ever to care, I must care now... if I am ever to understand, it is to understand now... if I am ever going to practice compassion, I must do so in this very moment.
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Change

Everything changes, everything passes,
Things appearing, things disappearing
When all is over --- everything having appeared and
   having disappeared,
Being and extinction both transcended ---
Still the basic emptiness and silence abides
   and that is blissful Peace.
 
From: The
Buddhist Bible;
Selections from
 Sanskrit Sources, p. 84
۞۞۞۞۞

Bonnie has been in the hospital since last Friday for tests to find the source of anemia and to have another transfusion; her third since December 2nd. While Bonnie was there her mom, Lenore, passed away Saturday. Because Lenore’s brain was gradually being eaten away with Alzheimer’s, it wasn’t unexpected and there was a certain relief that went with the loss. The process is so gradual that it just seems to be the most natural procession. I like the term “passed away”, especially in these cases, because the word death is so damned final. I admire her father’s commitment to stay with her to the end instead of putting her out of sight in the final months.

    I do freely admit, however, that thinking about the ultimate change evokes a mild discomfort. Because I never really expected to live past thirty, and certainly not past fifty, at sixty six, I would think that I would be ready already. I can’t help but to think of the unfinished novel… the painting… that piece of alabaster on the porch that I started carving years ago… the ones I never told “I love you” the last time I saw them… the dishes in the sink undone and so on. I owe so many roosters to so many people (as in the death of Socrates).  Ah, I still have time to finish some of this business today.
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The Wisdom of Compassion

You do not question or worry about your wisdom. You just do whatever is required. The situation you are facing is itself profound enough to be regarded as knowledge. You do not need secondary resources of information. You do not need reinforcement or guidelines for action. Reinforcement must be conducted in a tough manner, you must do it because the situation demands your response. You do not impose toughness; you are an instrument of the situation.

Chogyam Trungpa:

The Open Way,

Cutting Through

Spiritual Materialism, p. 107

۞

I have more than a few shelves of books devoted to spiritual knowledge or attainment; however, I always suspected that wisdom never arose from the dusty tomes arranged in those stacks. There are just too many examples in my life of those who have never picked up anything more profound than the morning newspaper but conduct their lives in a life as meaningful as it is wise. Anyone who doubts the wisdom of a farmer; rising every morning under any and all conditions, tending to the land allotted to him for his family and community’s sake, is a fool if he spends his time huddled around the greatest teachers without learning a thing about truly living. To foster respect and understanding for all who labor; taking pride in hard work; going to bed with aching muscles and sore back; sitting all night on the graveyard shift at a cab stand; a soldier standing watch at a lonely post in some far away country; a clerk at a desk at a miserable job but still perform at their best in order to feed a family; mothers and fathers all, giving their lives to nursing and nurturing their  children: they are as wise or wiser than any scholar cramming a head full of knowledge without the wisdom of compassion. If I am to learn anything of value in this life it is to learn how to love and, in doing so, to love well. Any mother who has held a child to her breast knows more about love than I ever will.

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And God Rests

By amending our mistakes, we get wisdom.
By defending our faults, we betray an unsound mind.

The Sutra of Hui Neng

###

At first I was baffled by the almost impossible and, at times, insane obsession with task of correction... for the faults that had sapped my strength when I had youth and dreams: these are wiggly things. Like any absolute tyrant the unsound mind… the neurotic mind… employs every contrivance in the defense of ego. As if it weren’t enough to maintain this power over the faults and traps of past behavior, the whole damned thing seems so difficult that only the greatest fool would attempt it: for here I stand alone with a life I dreamed would be fulfilled past middle age. And now I approach in awe of the wonder the dying colors of the autumn towards its winter, the end of it, too late… too late: a life encircled with a long deep sleep.

   Yes, I admit, I stand alone with only the courage to put one foot in front of the other and aided by no ambition other than the hope I can contribute to healing and to cause no more harm. I have no high spiritual quest for power or control… no more than some kind of settlement with this unsound mind. I read the Tempest by Shakespeare one more time and weep for the passing of a dream… a chimera of an illusion created that is but a stage. On this fragile platform I am merely an actor resigned to playing a bit part. I love, not only the accomplishment of this life so far, but I play my part with very little real remorse. Yes, I defend my faults for I have loved my mistakes… missed cues… pitfalls and stumbling across the boards. From these I was taught that I would learn but I hardly did and rarely do. In the end I conclude that admitting this condition is my most lofty accomplishment for admitting them liberates my soul from the grip of oppression.

What? I say to you, it must be Saturday and God rests.

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Does God Have A Penis?

… this means a belief in a Creator who is all power, justice, and love; a god who intends for me a purpose, a meaning, and a destiny to grow, however… haltingly, toward His own likeness and image.

As Bill Sees It, p. 51

###

  
 At the time Alcoholics Anonymous was published in 1939, the masculine pronoun was used universally in reference to humanity at large besides when referring to the paternalistic concept of God as “Our Father”. The text for our Fellowship was far ahead of its time for an open-minded approach to race,  and creeds…sexual identity and homosexuality has been, for the most part, addressed open-mindedly by the membership also. This is a fact that was even more remarkable because, at that time, most of the culture and the membership of AA were from the Judeo/Christian tradition with only a smattering of other beliefs.
   
   Since 1939 AA has grown and spread throughout the world with a diversity that is astonishing. I have no bone against those who see God in any form, light or gender; however, it is somewhat annoying to me that the language of 1939 is, outside of the original text, still used officially. Considering that the use of language went through a shift in the West away from the universal use of the masculine pronoun since the advent of feminism in the seventies, while other concepts of divinity have filtered into the culture, the use of the pronoun can a stumbling block for whole generations (whose education has rigorously extruded sexism from our language). I suppose it might be true that the majority of AA membership in the USA adhere to whatever their religious beliefs were before coming into the AA, but I believe that we are alienating a huge sector of our Fellowship that cringes and tolerates the insistence on the use of the archaic pronoun in our literature. God as we understand God appeals to a much greater audience than “God as we understand Him” and it smacks of arrogance to insist on archaic concepts departing from our usual broad-mindedness otherwise. Isn’t it more important how we act on our beliefs rather than whether God has a penis, a vagina or any sex at all?

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Faith Evokes Hope

Step two opens a vista of new hope, when based on willingness and faith. What we call this Higher Power is a matter of choice. Call It what we will. Naming It is unimportant. The important thing is that we believe in It, that we use It to restore us to mental health and fitness.

   Faith in a Higher Power is a basic law of recovery. It is always evident in the lives of successful members. What they have done, we can do. By practicing the Twelve Steps we gain conscious contact with this Power to live in contented sobriety.

Little Red Book:

Step Two, p 24

Hazelden Publication

###

   Faith is one of the strongest elements of AA’s recovery program. Just the wording of faith in a Power greater than myself was a relief because it told me that it matters more how I believe than what I believe about God. This tells me that I can color it any way I wish as long as it is a compassionate concept as stated clearly in our Tradition Two that, for our group purpose, It must be a “loving God”. I don’t even have to believe in a God at all (as defined in traditional terms) as long as I yield my will and life to It even if It is nothing more than a concept of compassion. However, once I take this Step I am launched on a spiritual exploration that never ends if I apply it directly to my life in actions that are in harmony with compassion: compassion for myself and compassion for others. What we call our Higher Power by name is how we act in faith and how we act in faith evokes hope. I adopted a belief in what I like to call The Heart of Compassion because in that I can act At One with all these names and it opens me to the possibility that your basic concept of God is also mine.

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Being Peace

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.

Thich Nhat Hanh:

Being Peace

###

First of all, I put my feet on this particular path, not because I was seeking to become righteous, but because I finally understood that I was, in fact, quite insane. We repeat this as an essential part of our recovery in the Second Step of AA when we say; Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

   Finally, once I recognized that my drinking and drug use was insane, I also came to understand that much of what I did besides drinking could be considered insane too. This has proven to be a far more profound admission than the first one. I needed to get a full grasp of the meaning of insanity if I ever was going to cede to a Power great enough to restore sanity to me in all my affairs. Chogyam Trungpa calls much of what I believe in, and act on, to be a neurosis even when I think I have gotten myself on the right spiritual path. This he calls Spiritual Materialism because I am prone to drift into what I think of as profound spirituality in things that are, frankly, none of my business. Based on fear, fear based spirituality is the root of much of the suffering caused by what goes on in the name of righteousness; right practice, right thinking and political correctness.

   The man quoted in my opening meditation was in the forefront of the movement to end the Viet Nam War during the chaos of the late sixties. However, Thich Nhat Hanh didn’t lead by protesting but he walked through peaceful action. Too often protests were nothing more than an attempt by certain leaders to, manipulate and contrive a legitimate anxiety over that War, to acquire power for themselves. To accept my own insanity is to begin by refraining from inflicting it on others. If I am to pretend to end all suffering I must be clear on how I must end my own suffering.

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Pain & Suffering

There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering that leads to more suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely continue to experience the first.

Ajahn Chah;

Still Forest Pool

### 

I am fortunate in that I have had a rich and rewarding life and, as I look back on it, I have been blessed with a perspective that takes all that suffering in the context of gratitude. At the time it didn’t make sense… it seemed like a random set of circumstances that had no meaning because they evoked from me no response other than shaking my fists at the sky in a curse or whimper. It rarely dawned on me that these incidents of great inner suffering might have come about because of something I was doing. I have broken more than a couple bones and have had my heart broken as many times as well but I don’t mean to point this out as a masochistic mea culpa. It is a truth that suffering arises from my own heart and a simple change of heart commends the adage: Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.

     In the moment of great physical pain I can’t see past it… it hurts so much that I’d almost rather die. I need something to take the edge off of it. But when I am over the pain of the injury. Because of that relief, I go beyond it to take the edge off of suffering, tedium, boredom…I am high and I don't care anymore. I don’t want to suffer and then the drugs that originally gave me relief become a trap that only served to escalate into the unrelenting grasp of an unforeseen addiction. Once I put away drugs and alcohol, I became able to face the source of suffering and transcend it hand in hand with others like me.

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Spiritual Tourism

We all have the karma to take one spiritual path or another, and I would encourage you, from the bottom of my heart, to follow with complete sincerity the path that inspires you most.
    If you go on searching all the time, the searching itself becomes an obsession and takes you over. You become a spiritual tourist, bustling about and never getting anywhere. As Patrul Rinpoche says; “You leave your elephant at home and look for its footprints in the forest.” Following one teaching is not a way of confining you or jealously monopolizing you. It is a compassionate and practical way of keeping you centered and always on your path, despite all the obstacles that you, and the world, will inevitably present.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

###

Choosing a path for me has been akin to taking aim at a target on a shooting range. I am focused on the target and am not concerned at all about the things around it. At first I do this to hone my skills and then I go out into the field where I must be aware of, but not distracted by, the movement around it. In meditation practice I have chosen my target and I have chosen a particular practice… but not because I mine is better than yours.
    Another question comes to mind about how to deal with others who insist that their practice, or beliefs, are superior to my own. This attitude is not exclusive to Christians or Muslims and etc. Some Buddhist sects often feel that they too have a superior practice or discipline than others as do some sects of Hindus. I believe it is almost a universal impulse to seek out the best in our beliefs and then suppose that those beliefs exclude inferior ones. My only template is; do my beliefs inspire truth, justice, kindness, and a practical application to everyday living?
   Once I have found one that suites me, I then settle down and practice it as thoroughly as I can in order to get the most of these qualities to live with. I can’t do that flitting about from one practice to another but, just because I have chosen one path doesn’t make mine superior to yours. I don’t argue religion or politics. My attitude once was stated as such; “To stand for nothing is to swallow anything.” But now my faith needs no defender, I simply show by my living what I believe because all my words fall on flatly to the ground if I don’t live by what I say.

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The Web of Illusions

As we follow the teachings and as we practice, we will inevitably discover certain truths about ourselves that stand out prominently. There are places where we always get stuck; there are habitual patterns and strategies that are the legacy of negative karma, which we continually repeat and reinforce; there are particular ways of seeing things --- those tired old explanations of the world around us --- that are quite mistaken yet we hold to be authentic; and so distort our whole view of reality.
    When we persevere on the spiritual path, and examine ourselves honestly, it begins to dawn on us more and more that our perceptions are nothing more than a web of illusions. Simply to acknowledge our confusion, even though we cannot accept it completely, can bring some light of understanding and spark off in us a new process, a process of healing.
Glimpse After Glimpse,
Sogyal Rinpoche

!!!

There is always the temptation, when I read or hear statements such as these made by our prominent teachers, that I wish the guy next to me would hear this wisdom and that, just because I agree with it, it does not apply to me. But the web of illusion describes my thinking, my ideals, my beliefs, my perceptions, my social values  and even my political views. Just as it would be as foolish as it would be fatal for a general to ignore the reality of the field information contrary to his plans, it is foolish for me to see the world through the lens of illusion. My number one illusion is that I have understood and thus transcended the teachings; that I have heard and applied them thoroughly to my life; that I have the answers; that I see things clearly and others just don’t; that they have drunk the Cool-Ade and I sneer , shout, protest and condemn from the sidelines!!! Why then, I might ask myself, why then is there so much suffering in the world if everyone is right in their own mind? The answer is obvious isn’t it? No, it must not be so obvious because almost everyone thinks like I do; that the other guy is foolish in his own eyes but I have gotten things straight. Or, as it says in the old King James Bible: “There is a way that seems right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.”(Proverbs 16:25).
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Expectation & Disappointment

What people expect to happen is always different from what actually happens. From this comes great disappointment; this is the way the world works.

Sutta Nipata 588

~

Dropping expectations doesn’t mean I drop commitment, discipline and responsibility in my actions. I take it to mean that I can do better if I am open-minded about the outcome. Being open-minded about the outcome allows me to see changes in a ways that are more easily adapted to. At one time I was a fan of boxing and I loved watching Cassius Clay (pre-Ali) dance around the ring, playing with dazzling footwork and unexpected combinations in jabs and feints until… BAM!... Liston was on the mat wondering what hit him.  What happened was that boxing had gotten so formulated that, when Cassius Clay entered the ring, boxers had no defense against his seemingly unorthodox style. Boxers like Liston tried to use brute force while other, more sophisticated, boxers stuck to traditional stances and predictable patterns. Those that performed best in Ali’s later boxing years, like Joe Frazier, picked up and adapted to the changes and thus challenged the Champ in the ring to greater affect.
    This example tells me that if I practice commitment, discipline and responsibility without expectations I am bound to be more adaptable to changes and will not be thrown off so much by them.

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Uncover, Discover and Recover

I know very well from my own experience how hard it is to imagine taking on the suffering of others, and especially those of sick and dying people, without first building in yourself a strength and confidence of compassion. It is this strength and this confidence that will give your practice the power to transmute the suffering of others.
    This is why I always recommend that you begin the *Tonglen practice for others by first practicing it on yourself. Before you send out love and compassion to others, you must uncover, deepen, create, and strengthen them in yourself, and heal yourself of any reticence or distress or anger or fear that might create an obstacle to practicing Tonglen wholeheartedly.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

*Tonglen: Tibetan meaning of Tonglen meditation practice is sending and receiving.

 

#

Taking on the suffering of others wasn’t part of the bargain when I first began this practice. I had no desire to heal anyone, nor did I wish to involve myself in their recovery in anything but the most superficial manner. I just wanted to have some relief from my own suffering. It is extremely difficult to think about anyone else but myself when I am in pain. I had to uncover the source of my suffering (distrust, anxiety, anger, fear) and share that with another human being to get any sense of what the spiritual path was about in helping others. From the outside it takes on the appearance of self-absorption but, in practice, an open-minded and thorough self-appraisal is the fulcrum that levers us to a higher level; the level where I found that I was worthy of recovery. It truly was the opposite of self-obsession as soon as I saw the universality of grace in the Heart of Compassion. Uncover, Discover and Recover is another trinity that completes the whole in the circle of my own individual expression of compassion for others.

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LOVE!

Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance --- urges quite appropriate to the age seventeen --- prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven.

The Best of Bill:

Love (The next frontier:

Emotional Sobriety), pp. 52-53

~  

   This day of the year is devoted to romantic love as a Hallmark Holiday in these parts of the world. Valentines Day was once a day of contempt for love’s labor lost because of my failure at holding on to whatever is meant by love. It is also the day, February 14th of 1985, that I packed my ex, our daughter and two dogs into the car to bid them farewell so many years ago. I swore then that I’d never invest so thoroughly in love again.

   It is also a date that gives me pause because I realized, somewhere around the age of thirty, that I had no practical concept of love between two people. Love, to me, was more akin to dependency… first, as a child for its parents and a weird co-dependency, one for another, in any relationship. Until the day our daughter was born I had no real appreciation or knowledge for that bonding that arose naturally from the depths of our being: the mother for our daughter and an enlightened love for both the daughter and her mother on my part. From the day of birth on, my experience of love has been a process of letting go as our child grew from her infancy. Because of our eventual divorce, the necessity of letting go of that irresistible possessiveness of grasping, for my own mental health’s sake, became an imperative.

    Who hasn’t suffered heart break at one time or another in our lives? The wisdom of the Heart of Compassion is vast and incomprehensible. We who have tasted and lost the embrace of love are fortunate in that we have an opportunity to experience what love is actually about. Some of us get it sooner than later. For myself, I had to work on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous before I got a better understanding of mature love. Emotional sobriety is growing out of a spiritual awakening that can only be compared to the helplessness I felt as I stood aside her mother going through labor when our daughter was born and took her first breath.

    Today I am most fortunate that I have invested heart for heart in love once more. It could have never happened.

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Spiritual Practice

“Recently, a Christian theologian asked me how to bring about a global spirituality. The person who interviewed me seemed to distinguish between the spiritual and ethical, but there is always a relationship between the two. Anything can be spiritual. When I pick up my tea in mindfulness, when I look at my tea mindfully, and I begin to drink  my tea in mindfulness, tea drinking becomes very spiritual. When I brush my teeth in mindfulness, aware that it’s wonderful to have time to enjoy brushing my teeth, aware that I am alive, aware that the wonders of life are all around me, and aware that I can brush with love and joy, then tooth brushing becomes spiritual. When you go to the toilet, defecating or urinating, if you are mindful, this can be very spiritual.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

Creating an Enlightened Society, p. 53

Shambalha Sun (Jan 2013 edition)

~

One of the statements I hear so often made by newcomers in AA meetings is; “I don’t get the ‘spiritual aspect’ of this program.” Even though we have worked the Steps and haven’t had a drink in more days than we ever had, it is assumed that, if I don’t believe in a mutually shared concept of God, I am not getting the spiritual aspect of the program. This sense of estrangement from the spiritual ought not to be a problem because, once it is understood, the process of recovery is profoundly spiritual no matter what I believe. Sometimes I wish that the word God would be banned from discussions in meetings even though I have had an awakening that deepened and strengthened my relationship with my understanding of God. I have found that it is more important how I apply my beliefs than whether or not I believe in any concept of God that is foreign to my experience. At the podium of my first Sunday speaker meetings was one of our West Coast founders of the Fellowship from the Pacific Group, Clancy. He said something that cut straight to my heart from there. I don’t even remember what else he might have said but I did hear this: “I’d rather you have a sponsor you can trust and believe in than a God that you don’t trust or believe in.”

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Drive-By Spirituality

God speaks to us in many ways as we find to contact Him. His answers, abstract as they may be, are detected in mind, emotion, and in the new conscience we have developed. We are inspired in accordance with our thoughts and conduct, either with feelings of faith, accomplishment, and serenity, or with confusion, self-pity, and fear.

The Little Red Book:

Step Three,

A Hazelden Publication, p. 38 

~

The mind and the brain have different associations in the East. Westerners think mostly of how the brain works when the mind is spoken of by Zen Buddhists, Yogis or Tibetan monks who consider the mind as the consciousness of the whole body and the “Mind” is the ocean of intelligence beyond the limitations of what Alan Watts calls this “bag of skin”. This distinction is important because we can be heard to say, in the rooms of AA and so on, that the mind of an alcoholic or addict is a dangerous neighborhood to go into alone. When I think of the mind in those terms I think of a gangland occupied by myriad temptations and dangers. Gangs led by ego and desire: followed by confusion, despair, the seven deadly sins hang out there waiting to ambush an unwary interloper.

    What kind of Higher Power do I need to go in and clean up this mess? Many of us have tried to do this by walling off and the isolation of safe neighborhoods, never venturing into the mind, or we entered of our own volition and found ourselves bewildered and powerless. Perhaps we tried to adhere to principles of  a religion or practicing faith in our fellowship or psychiatric therapy,, but find ourselves tempted even more by the attractions there. It is akin to cruising by riding in a squad car and just driving through arresting the drug dealers on the corners and so on with a bunch of rules and "thou shalt nots". Sure, this is a power greater than ourselves but we need something more powerful than that if we expect to make the necessary changes that will make the mind a neighborhood that is a welcoming, safe and inspirational place to venture.

   No human power can make this happen. We need the full resources of God, the Heart of Compassion, or Mind, to make peace there. To calm down and put our natural desires to practical purpose works if we go there with God because the heart of Compassion knows the neighborhood…i.e., God abides in the hearts of our friends and enemies. Opening my mind to a greater Mind that encourages, commends, enthuses and inspires creativity, is the means by which this Spirit changes me; not drive-by sermons and admonitions, no matter how well intentioned.

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Order vs Suggestion

STEP TWO: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Given the choice between an order and a suggestion, the recovering person will go for the latter every time. I know I did. There is even a finer line drawn in the first three words of this step. It does not say that we believe… but rather that we came to believe. The difference between these two approaches is dramatic and, for many of us, downright miraculous. For many of us it was a miracle that we came to!

The Zen of Recovery:

Step Two,

Mel Ash

~

There is a neo-gothic Episcopalian Grace Cathedral on top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. The most precious moments of my youth were spent sitting in the wonder and the beauty of that huge quiet space in which my spirit was transported. At that time, in my young and inquiring mind, I was agnostic at best and atheist the rest of the time. I had yet to suffer the bruising onslaught of bad choices that arose from the consequences of a life exploring and stretching the envelope and limitations of unrestrained ego. I was there… more naïve than innocent, but certainly not of evil character... I was there wholly in a state of awe. I came to believe, not so much in God, but I came to believe years later, in the suggestion that a Power greater than myself was an active and restorative spirit personally invested in my sanity. Once more, I reflected back on those special moments and could deeply understand what this phrase meant once the obsession to drink was lifted. No sermon or command could have done the job. It had to percolate from the depths of my heart. This is where the Heart of Compassion met me half way and filled to overflowing the vast cathedral of my soul with awe and wonder.

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Happiness

All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness. All those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others.

Santideva: Bodhicaryavatara s. 129

~ 

I suppose it could be called an oblique strategy to give up finding my own happiness by doing all I can to evoke happiness in others. Subverting this, of course, is the tendency to do so with a hidden agenda of finding happiness for myself. That is called love with strings. I know from experience that any parent knows what it is to give of oneself completely with no strings attached; especially in the first few years of their child’s growth. A mother doesn’t give milk from her breast with the hope of the child one day giving back the milk. It just doesn’t work that way but the bonding that takes place during the most natural of all blessings is returned ten times ten along with the suffering of love.

    This quality of spiritual attainment is a most attractive one. It beats the hell out of warnings of impending doom and damnation. We have had this thrown on us by prohibitionists who would scare us away from the ravages of alcohol and drugs. Such admonitions fall flat on our ears because our initial experience with these toxins is that of intense pleasure and, once we experience them, we often find ourselves mocking the prudes who would... with all good intentions... earnestly try to steer us away from disaster. 

    The most common complaint most of us have about recovery programs is that they lay out a life for us that mocks the joy we found while we were drinking or using. In other words: sobriety of this sort is boring. Until recovery can be seen as an adventure, our eyes won’t open to the possibility that sobriety isn’t the goal at all. Being able to help another human being without strings is the adventure we sought all along because, in doing so, we are no longer preaching a dull and futile struggle. The beast inside will always win that one and we will eventually burn out. In fact, until we are no longer preaching anything at all, the power of the Heart of Compassion won’t open to us. I simply come to a point where, if I see a hungry man and, if I have an apple… well, what do I do with it?

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Psalm 142

PSALM 142

1.    I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication.
2.    I poured out my complaint before him, I showed before Him my trouble.
3.    When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then I knowest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.
4.    I looked to my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.
5.    I cried unto thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my refuge and the portion in the land of the living.
6.    Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I.
7.    Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.

Psalm 142,

King James Version

~

The psalmist revealed an essential part, the key, to recovery, here: “I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice I did make my supplication. 2. I poured out my complaint before him, I showed him my trouble.”  

   Some might wonder why it is so damned important to name our disease and admit it out loud in front of others. We do it because it works and it works so very well if I pour it out whole-heartedly. This isn’t a minor part in the process of recovery. Indeed, I can see where it is the single most important admission I could have made other than when I ceded to my innermost-self the hopelessness of my condition. Everywhere I turned there was no help to be found via the hand of others… no phone call I could have made… no religious devotion… no contrivance other than surrender to that mystery of God… of the Heart of Compassion… in the midst of the soul wrenching grip of alcoholism. This disease is far stronger than me and my efforts alone so the next step was to enter the land of the living… surround myself in the Fellowship of others who had been likewise freed. Thus encompassed, I am guaranteed a life of bounty, a strong bond of love, which is dealt graciously by the Hand of God.

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Narcissistic Anger

Often the alcoholic combines anger and self-pity and feels victimized by the world; the alcoholic can justify abusive behavior on the ground that others deserved it or “asked” for it. This type of destructive anger is identified in the Big Book as a dangerous emotion for alcoholics: “If we were to live, we had to be free from anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.”

Little Red Book;

Step Four, pp. 63-64:

Hazelden Publication

~

The alcoholic suffers, to a large degree, the character traits of narcissism: self-centered and unable to sustain interpersonal relationships, difficulty with empathy, hypersensitivity to insults, vulnerability to shame rather than guilt, haughty attitude and body language, pretending to be more important than they are, bragging and exaggerating their achievements, claiming to be an expert at many things, inability to view the world from the perspective of other people and denial of remorse. Most of all, there is a sense of entitlement that never ends well.
    We can easily see that these character traits aren’t isolated to alcoholics. These would be characteristic of many with a disconnection from reality that is often encouraged in a culture that glorifies instant fame over a more gradual and rewarding acquisition of wisdom. We tend to blame others for our failures and that can turn into murderous rampages in the more extreme cases and this appears to be what happened to the ex-police officer that went rogue this week. I don’t have an answer for this other than a planned and rigorous honesty brought about by some sort of spiritual renewal process. This is what the Twelve Steps are about in AA but I’m afraid that there is no such program for those who are lost in a sick culture that glorifies destructive behavior.

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The Second Step

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Alcoholics Anonymous

~

   It is uncommon to come upon another who can admit that they are stark raving mad and that their lives are unmanageable. I had to ask myself, Am I mad? Compared to what? Looking around at some of the crazy shit that comes down in the world gives me pause when I consider my own impulses towards insanity where drinking and drugs are concerned. The idea that alcoholism is a mental illness can be a huge stumbling block for most of us because we think of mental illness as a state of mind that drives us to act out; perhaps to see things that aren’t there; criminal acts of insane violence; sexual perversity; or as simple as babbling incoherently. Some balk at the idea of calling alcoholism and drug addiction diseases at all. It isn’t as though these types of disease have a prognosis exactly like cancer or any “real” disease.

   Understanding that alcoholism is a disease would be easier to accept when it is taken into account that the brain of an alcoholic or addict reacts differently to alcohol and drugs. The insanity that drove me to go back to the bottle, no matter what the consequences, is beyond understanding under any other context than to see myself as having a mental illness. It is only in the context of helplessness in the grip of a terminal disease that I can even see the need for a Power greater than myself. Otherwise, I wouldn’t go back again and again to the idea that I can defeat this thing by applying will power. Will power is a valuable tool when it is used correctly; however, very few would attempt to defeat any other disease, such as cancer, by using will power alone. The Second Step doesn’t say I must believe in God or magical voodoo oogah-boogah. It says clearly that our experience is that we “came to believe”.  That I can be restored to sanity where drinking and drugs have ruined my life isn’t an article of faith but rather an expression of experience like coming to believe that this chair will hold me when I sit on it.

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Loving Favor/A Good Name

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver or gold.

Proverbs 22:1

~

     I get the bit about “a good name” but what does the writer of this proverb mean speaking of “loving favor”? Doesn’t that seem like it recommends being granted favor over others by the means of groveling? If this translates as being bequeathed favor via an authority of some kind, even of God, it would appear to be contrary to the spirit of the rest of the Book of Proverbs. Within the spirit of the Heart of Compassion would it have to be some sort of divine disposition? My experience has been that the bondage to self is lifted only after I take certain actions born of humility rather than the currying of favor: i.e., I was relieved of the obsession to drink once I admitted I was impotent over the grip of alcoholism and could not manage any part of my life beyond the realm of its tyranny without some kind of spiritual power greater than the bottle. The rest of the proverb about the value of a “good name” folds into this cessation. It has to do with wholeheartedly taking responsibility for my own name and actions and proceeding as though the ancestry of my name depends on a commitment to the integrity of it.

    An example of honoring and cherishing favor could be explained in this little story:

   My last drunk was filled with a violent rage that ended with breaking out all the windows in my apartment and threatening my neighbors. When called before the dear man who was my landlord, I didn’t grovel or even say I was sorry. I repaired the broken glass and only then approached him, fully expecting to be rightfully evicted. When he asked, “Why should I believe you won’t do this again?” my answer was simple, “All I can give you is my word.” Thus, my word, and my “good name”, was seriously in jeopardy at that point and I felt that what little worth it held would have to be protected by any means in my power to keep it. Don Nelson went to his grave having had that one promise kept as though I was the steward of a treasure revered above gold. The Heart of Compassion doesn’t require us to grovel for favors but to simply acknowledge our own worth by accepting responsibility. I will always love “favor” of this sort.

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Opinion/Experience

Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.

--- Janis Joplin

When we don’t know who we are, it’s easy to compromise ourselves. When we don’t know where we stand on an issue, it is easy to be swayed by a forceful voice. Values may be cloudy in our minds, or we may not be aware of them at all. It’s then that we are vulnerable to the persuasion of another. In this Twelve Step program, we are offered the way to know ourselves. We are supported in our efforts, and we realize we have friends who don’t want us to compromise ourselves --- who value our struggle to know and to be true to ourselves.

One of recovery’s greatest gifts is discovering we can make decisions that represent us, our inner selves, and those decisions please us. We all are familiar with the tiny tug of shame that locates itself in our solar plexus. When we “go along,” when we “give in” on a personally important issue, we pay a consequence. We lose a bit of ourselves. Over the years we’ve lost many bits. We have a choice, however.

============

I will have a chance, soon, to act according to my wishes.

Each Day

A New Beginning,

 (Hazelden Publication)

Karen Casey

~

When I express an opinion on any matter; spiritual, political, or even in matters as mundane as where can I get the best pizza, I am wise to consider first whether I am parroting someone else’s or have I experiences what I am talking about personally. Some things are, of course, articles of faith… tried and true throughout the ages. I can apply them to my life and see whether or not they work and, if they don’t, I can search for the answers as to why they don’t. Are they based on a false premise or have I taken a shortcut. I can always ask someone else who has seemed to make it work for themselves and judge from there where to go with it. I have found a confidence to admit when I am wrong and thus extend to others the right to be wrong. Because I have strong opinions on just about everything I can come off as belligerent… even bullying and certainly I don’t like it when others do that to me. In no way does this position cause me to compromise my beliefs and I become more apt to be able to choose my battles wisely.

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Today is my day for surgery. Though it is only a minor surgery, I am surrendering my will and my life to a surgeon. The surgeon is a man I've only met once and, for this moment, he is a power greater than myself whose hands that I trust completely. I trust him because he has this piece of parchment framed and hanging on the wall of his office that guarantees he is a qualified physician and surgeon within the community of his medical vocation. However, I am trusting that he, and his team of assistants and anesthesiologists, will do for me what I am unable to do for myself. There are those in the spiritual community that would say it is a blasphemy to rely on the hands of man over the hands of God but it would be absurd for me to, and hardly none but the most extreme would, expect God to do for me what my fellow human beings can also perform. If this is true in the physical realm, why then should it not be true for spiritual matters.

Just as it would be ludicrous for me to perform a minor hernia repair on my own, or to rely on a quack, it would be detrimental, and quite insane, to expect myself to heal my spiritual body without the expert help of a spiritual guide. I don’t mean to say that in general we can’t take care of our spiritual body. On my own, I can take care of the physical needs of my body by choosing a healthy diet and exercising wisely (in a gym or at home). I can also choose wisely what I feed my spirit and practice mindfulness in meditation at home alone or in a group. For more intensive care I need the hands of an expert in spiritual health. I do this to live a healthy spiritual life so that I can go out and perform productively with mindfulness the challenges of the day.

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Devotion to a Higher Meditation

Right speech, harmlessness,
Restraint in speaking ill of others,
Moderation in food, at peace in remoteness and solitude,
Devotion to higher meditation.
This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

Dhammapada 185

~

I was asked, during my pre-op interview, for my religious preference. I answered that I am a Catholic Buddhist. I am not at all confused in this expression of faith; for, followers of the middle path refer to the Buddhas as we in the West refer the saints and prophets. They are seen as enlightened or awakened ones. Though the Buddhas, or the Buddha, are not considered deities in the same sense as we think of when we refer to the Christ or God; I believe that the key here is in the words, “Devotion to higher meditation”. I say this because I have found it is as important to me to have faith in the practice as in any of my personal convictions (whether I am an atheist or a “Born Again” Christian). It is equally important to note that the experience of rejuvenation and redemption in being a “Born Again” Christian is of immense value as an asset to “Higher Meditation”. This very personal experience is not to be in any way discounted. I can give the Lord Jesus devotion without discarding the Buddhas because the Buddha never considered himself to be anything but a man and never proposed that he was a god. The Heart of Compassion embraces us all, whether we prostrate before Allah or pray at the Wall in Jerusalem. If I don’t open my heart to the Spirit of Compassion my faith is but divisive vanity that entirely misses the point of the Crucifix (which is the redemptive union of God and humanity).

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Nostalgia For God

The dual substance of Christ --- the yearning, so human, so superhuman, of man to attain God or, more exactly, to return to God, and identify himself with him --- has always been a deep inscrutable mystery to me. This nostalgia for God, at once so mysterious and so real, has opened large wounds and also large flowing streams.

Prologue to;

The Last Temptation\of Christ

by Nikos Kazantzakis

~

I am fortunate in that the idea of seeking to recover a relationship with the divine was always in the background and, sometimes in the foreground, of my life. My excesses would appear, from a moralist’s viewpoint, to be libertarian at best and just plain unconscious as a norm. I can’t argue against either case but, I have found, through the process of recovery that I have always been seeking God in one way or another… even in my excesses. After all, what was I seeking but relief from the agony of this “inscrutable mystery" by hitting the bottle or drugs so heavily?” Some drugs (like LSD, mushrooms, and sometimes pot) gave the illusion of expanding my mind, while others (like alcohol, and opiates), were most affective in giving me temporary relief. In all cases, drugs and alcohol led to the peculiar insanity of alcoholism and only made things worse. Today I know that the mystery of the godhead is approachable with humility and, once approached, the rough tracks of life became paved with the labor of persistence into the "road of happy destiny". Therefore, I must be doing something right and doing a lot better than I sometimes think I am.

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