It Works for Me

First of all… no one in AA is demanding that anyone give up proven and tested experience. Darwin’s theory of evolution doesn’t threaten faith at all. In fact, the universe of physics, physical anthropology, even Hegel’s dialectics... they all dance around the question of faith but science admits that its tools of discovery are unable to confirm the existence of any god beyond asserting vaguely the ground of being. I know that I am getting a bit “out there” in this blog but I am writing for people who have pondered these things and wonder if there is anyone out there in the faith community that agree with us on this subject.

Personally, I wouldn’t have become a believer of any kind if I didn’t have an experience so profound that it lifted the obsession to drink from day one. It has been 4,720 days since I had that last drink but there have been several occasions in which I have wanted one… wanted one so badly I could taste it… but my faith was reaffirmed when the obsession passed as if it were merely a scudding cloud. That was not the case before I surrendered... when the obsession hung onto my mind with the grip of a moray eel. It was the Heart of Compassion that removed the obsession to drink and the Heart of Compassion forgives rather than condemns. But whatever others call God, or whether you call God anything at all, is none of my business. I’m not in the conversion business except that this is what works for me.

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A Power Greater Than Ourselves

THE TWELVE STEPS

AND

TWELVE TRADITIONS

STEP TWO

“Come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

The moment they read Step Two, most A.A. newcomers are confronted with a dilemma, sometimes a serious one. How often have we heard them cry out, “Look what you people have done so! You have convinced us that we are alcoholics and that our lives are unmanageable. Having reduced us to a state of absolute helplessness, you now declare that none but a Higher Power can remove our obsession. Some of us won’t believe in God, others can’t, and still others who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever that He will perform this miracle. Yes, you’ve got us over a barrel, all right --- but where do we go from here?”

~

This business about the role of God in AA is so important to the newcomer that it can drive some very good minds away from the potential of finding a spiritual remedy to the problem of alcoholism. Those of us who have had a conversion of sorts easily forget and become insensitive about the sometimes well thought-out convictions of, for instance, those trained in philosophy or the sciences (Not all of us were atheists out of avoidance or apathy). We find many who insist on using the masculine pronoun or centering discussion on faith in open meetings before convincing these poor souls of the nature of the disease. Untreated alcoholism is a terminal disease that there is no escape from and we have to be convinced of that before we can even think of humbling ourselves enough to "come to believe". And by the way, it says in this Step that "We come to believe a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity". It says nothing about God. These true believers would say that those like me are weak on faith and nothing I could say would convince them otherwise: but, I am adamant about this because, even though my personal and powerful spiritual experience is what drove me to AA, I still had to “come to believe” as stated in Step Two.

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A Toke of This or That

I read of the great saints of Tibet… the masters who sat in a cave in solitary retreat… for months into years… years in a cave! Who would commit to that? I once imagined it when I was still drinking. I thought of myself in a cave but I would have had to have a substance of some sort… maybe a shot of Jack in the morning... a toke of this or that so I could sleep at night? In other words, even a week or two would have been too much. That was what I imagined it would take for me to reach that state referred to by those monks as the “exhaustion of phenomenal reality.” I don’t pretend that I have opened up so much that I have experienced this but I do know that I would have never… never have ventured on the spiritual path I am on without hitting such a bottom that I had exhausted the reality I was in. Having exhausted that reality I was driven to either: “go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to except spiritual help. This we did because we honestly wanted to, and were willing to make the effort.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 25-26).

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Thank You

Where Valor Sleeps

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Pulpit Pounders

No matter where I go there will always be “pulpit pounders” of one sort or another. It is tempting to become “one of them” simply because I found the key to my own sobriety. Such neurosis often drives people away rather than my intention of directing them towards a solution suitable for their lives. I recall a time when a German drinking acquaintance of mine suddenly stopped drinking. He still came around to the bar to do a crossword and chat with the bartender. Eager about my own drinking, and an answer to it, I asked him how he did it and how he could sit in the bar around all of us drunks and not drink?

His answer was that he stopped drinking when he realized that all his troubles centered around the bottle. Okay then, I could see that, and I recognized that all my problems might be there too; however, I wanted to know more about how he managed to stay sober…. Did he go to AA or church?  Did he take antabuse? Was he using drugs? I done the church thing way back in my past and knew the churchy ones would never approve of going into a den of iniquity such as a bar.

My acquaintance didn’t attend church and he didn’t go to AA meetings... no antabuse or drugs either. To tell the truth, I never did find out how he did it. Maybe it had something to do with being German… the will and all that. Maybe he had a spiritual experience, hit bottom and found his inner strength… who knows? He did eventually cease coming around the bar and when I met him on the street he was still happily sober. His sobriety still puzzles me but this acquaintance taught me a valuable lesson: There is NO single answer to our problem. Just because AA works for me doesn’t give me the right to demand it ought to work for others… that I ought to mind my own business and the most I can do is relate how I did it and allow others find the way on their own… if they so choose.

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Resonance

Tibetans call enlightenment Rigpa. Sogyal Rinpoche describes it today: Imagine that you were living in a house on the top of a mountain which was itself at the top of the world. Suddenly the entire structure of the house, which limited your view, just falls away and you can see all around you, both outside and inside. But there is not any 'thing' to see; what happens has no ordinary reference whatsoever; it is total, complete, unprecedented, perfect seeing. This is how it feels when Rigpa is directly revealed.

I don't pretend to have achieved perfect Rigpa or any such thing; however, these words resonate deeply within my heart. Poetry, paintings, scripture of all sorts do this and when I write my aim to resonate rather than convert. After all. I have nothing to convert anyone to. It would be a pretense.. a charade. But what I hope to do by writing is to find that sweet spot... inspiration that vibrates and opens up the view in my own heart for a moment and my joy comes from those powerful instances that my heart resonates with yours.

Hopelessness... an Asset?

Hopelessness… despair… the “Dark night of the Soul”… the essential ingredient here… the pill I had to swallow before I could stand on my own two feet. It seems to be the password of the heart that opens the gateway into the spiritual landscape. I believe that it could be an absolute condition that is not exclusive to alcoholics and addicts. In fact, I have observed that most spiritual disciplines… for good or bad… insist that acolytes arrive with the humility only hopelessness induces. Cults find it easier to manipulate members if they can keep them in submission and of having the exclusive remedy for such hopelessness. However, the hopelessness that lifted my obsession was the sort that put me on my knees to no other human being… though humility directed me through the doors of AA, I was encouraged to proceed with certain steps that required I hold on to the humility of that hopelessness now that I was on the other side. I was encouraged to proceed humbly through anonymity towards the spiritual awakening that keeps me sober beyond that original submission. It is my belief… though I admit I don’t really know for sure… that people who aren’t addicts or alcoholics might have to admit to this hopelessness to experience the joy I have found in union with the Heart of Compassion. But perhaps it could be that only those of us who are sick souls are the ones who actually need it. I can admit that it could possibly be that healthy minded souls find sufficient spirituality without some kind of crises that requires the remedy of  said hopelessness. Humility has also taught me that I can only speak of my own experience where spiritual matters are concerned and to resist projecting it onto others… even other alcoholics or addicts.

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A Double-Edged Sword

TWELVE STEPS AND

TWELVE TRADITIONS

Step One

(Continued…p. 22)

When first challenged to admit defeat, most of us revolted. We approached AA expecting to be taught self-confidence. Then we had been told that so far as alcohol is concerned, self-confidence was no good whatever; in fact, it was a total liability…. we were the victims of a mental obsession so powerful that no amount of human power could break it. There was, they said, no such thing as the personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will… The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us: first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on drinking, and then by an allergy of the body that insured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process. Few indeed were those who, so assailed, had ever won through in singlehanded combat. It was a statistical fact that alcoholics almost never recovered on their own resources. And this had been true, apparently, ever since man had first crushed grapes.

۞۞۞۞۞

I had a very good friend who had been struggling with addiction to alcohol, heroine and cocaine. One night I gave her a ride home from jail after she had been arrested for her own protection. The police found her wandering the streets in a drug induced daze the night before. I marveled because this woman had been sober a few months and this arrest… for whatever reason… was a violation of her parole for some serious felonies. As we drove in silence my mind raced for some sort of lecture, even a word or two, a gesture… like a slap on her face or something Zen that would snap her attention. Truthfully, I was afraid for myself as well as her because I knew that it would be so easy for me to do the same. Finally, I couldn’t restrain myself, “Why, with all that is hanging over you… why did you do it?”

            Her response was the best I have ever heard from anyone in this situation… she didn’t answer defiantly with a list of offenses, excuses and faults… of other people or herself… nor did she cry out in the despair I knew she must have felt… she simply and flatly answered; “Because I am an addict.”

            Those four words said it all. The first step in recovery is not to parrot these words but to know what they mean deeply… to admit it thoroughly… She saw her self as she is with humility and acceptance. She got serious about her recovery from that day on. Years later she told me that her answer that night was what got her sober. She realized in those four words that no human power was going to do the trick for her and surrendered her addictions to God. It was the First Step in her recovery.

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The Launching Pad

THE TWELVE STEPS

and

TRADITIONS

(©1952 by the Grapevine, inc.

and Alcoholics Anonymous

World Services)

 STEP ONE

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--- that our lives had become unmanageable.

۞۞۞۞۞

Who cares to admit complete defeat? Practically no one, of course. Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness. It is truly awful to admit that, glass in hand, we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of Providence can remove it from us.

No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one. Alcohol, now became the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its demands. Once this stark fact is accepted, our bankruptcy as going human concerns is complete.

۞۞۞۞۞

After the complete smashing of ego by alcohol it was easier to admit defeat. Some go to hospital beds to find this launching pad into the realm of the spirit while others go through it alone in dark rooms filled with the litter of empty bottles. However it happens, it doesn’t matter as long as it happens. The spirituality we speak of isn’t a relaxed one, which finds us sitting in luxurious comfort wearing a smoking jacket, in an armchair. No, it isn’t likely the spirituality of philosophers, theologians and academicians either. It is a gritty affair of desperation and despair. We come to the altar of self-sacrifice, not because we possess some sort of moral/spiritual superiority or intellectual acumen, but rather, we surrender all we suppose of ourselves in spiritual and material terms, completely defeated. If there was another way to do it I would have done so. If it meant I went to a high mountain to hear the word of God from a burning bush I might have preferred that to the self-imposed exile from humanity that was my route. However, since this was my course, I honor and respect the protection and care of the Heart of Compassion. I find inspiration and direction in the Twelve Steps and Traditions of AA and I am encouraged by the unrestrained compassion of, and for, my fellow alcoholics in and out of the rooms of AA: even those who are still in the grip of drug addiction and alcoholism. These are the three gems my sobriety depends on.

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Breaking Anonymity

THE BEST OF BILL

ANONYMITY

Continued... (p. 77)

... The old files at AA headquarters reveal many scores of such experiences with broken anonymity. Most of them point up the same lessons.

            They tell us that we alcoholics are the biggest rationalizers in the world, that fortified with the excuse we are doing great things for AA we can, through broken anonymity, resume our old and disastrous pursuit of personal power and prestige, public honors, and money --- the same implacable urges that when frustrated once caused us to drink; the same forces that are today ripping the globe apart at its seams. Moreover, they make clear that enough spectacular anonymity breakers could someday carry our whole Society down into the ruinous dead end with them.

*****

This anonymity business is serious and it is for my own protection as well as AA’s. In this chapter Bill writes of his own adventures seeking public acknowledgement and notoriety for the “good of AA”. He gives examples of others setting up hospitals, sober boarding houses, promoting AA in newspapers, radio and so on. In the first twenty years of AA many members also contrived brilliant schemes for personal financial gain while, of course, in league with and for the good of our Fellowship. Now we have blogs, twitter and facebook where we can skirt this principal and bring attention to ourselves. It is a touchy subject and one that is not fully understood in this new age of personal exposure that was once the sole domain of celebrities. I want badly to extend my experience with recovery to all I can. It isn’t enough for me to preach to the choir and I know that my opinions are not always the official line advocated and approved by our General Services Office in New York. However, I know that I am okay as long as I don’t take a penny or give my whole name in the name of AA. I respect this Tradition and understand that it is not only for my own protection and the continuance of AA for future generations, but it is a spiritual foundation for the type of humility that opens the door to my own peace of mind.

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Illegitimate Pride

The term “illegitimate pride” implies there is such a thing as “legitimate pride”. When I was a young man I strove for self-esteem through sheer strength of will and aspired to be among the world's greatest artists. I knew I could accomplish all my dreams in wealth and acclaim: so, I thought, isn’t this spiritual business of self-denial nothing more than a stratagem for losers? I have found I had been wrong about how I thought along these lines. If strength of will was the only tool in my box then I had to ask, why isn't that enough? Why then did I see so many… of the actors, athletes and people of high achievement in all walks of life, who succeeded where I failed… similarly fail miserably where drugs and alcohol stymied self-will causing havoc in their personal lives and careers. Are we exceptions to the rule or is there a law going on here that evaded all of us so-called geniuses before? Did I not only fail at the power, prestige and fame card table, but also fail at something as simple as turning my back on drugs and alcohol?

Legitimate pride tells me that, no matter where I am in life’s lottery, I have to find my core and reach in deep to be true to myself… to be unmoved by what I want others to think of me (for good or bad) and to achieve wisdom and humility as my greatest treasure... that  is what I can count and  rely on where legitimate pride takes me. The wisdom and humility that arises out of faith and surrenders my will to a Power greater than it, trumps the arrogance and pride of self-will run riot; and, whatever talents I have been given..; whatever handicaps I have been hobbled with..; and even, whatever my failings.., they are all surrendered to the best use I can make of them and that is legitimate pride well used.

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I Needed Direction

I needed direction and to do that I found that I had to ask others how they did it. It was a humbling experience to come before other people and admit I had no idea how to get out of the mess I was in. I knew that a good job… a perfect wife and family… a nice car and perhaps a happy dog… that these things wouldn’t do it for me. The only solace I could find was in a bottle of Jack Daniels or can of Budweiser… and that was now denied me. That meant I could no longer rely on the good advice of my family and friends too. None of them seemed to have the same problem I had with alcohol. All the philosophy, a change in my diet, perhaps exercise, sitting in meditation, and churchy preaching… none of these would have done it for me either.  I needed to sit down with people like me… people who had it all and lost it… some who had been on the same sidewalks and alleys… people who found peace and joy in sobriety. How did they do that? That was what I desperately needed to know!

            One day I was humiliated enough to get humble before the Heart of Compassion and go where I could sit in fellowship… sit with others without judgment… without the superiority… the one-upmanship of preachers or psychiatrists… without finger pointing and blame. I needed to empty my heart where others would simply hear me and say, “That has happened to me too.” That was the first, second and third step out of the miasma I had been driven to. When I entered the rooms of AA I was no longer in a thicket without direction. The direction was a suggestion, and not an order, to make an honest appraisal of myself and repair those bridges… but that is another story now isn't it?

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Indifference vs Letting Go

The admonition that I let go of all ambition for money, power and prestige does not mean I drop my hands to the side and do nothing. There is a distinct polarity between indifference and being released from grasping. As I go about my day, compassion opens my eyes to the suffering of others. I can offer a panhandler a sandwich in lieu of coin. Often this effort is rejected but my desire to please doesn’t compel me to reach into my pocket for him. It is better to step over or pass by without comment the man on the street than to provide him with the means to stay there. Giving him that means is not compassion… it is ego-flattery of the worse kind because it accomplishes nothing more for the panhandler than making me feel good about myself. The Heart of Compassion directs my soul to do what is best for the man and not what is best for me. Sometimes that amounts to nothing more than a kind word and simple direction. Other times it is more involving… like providing him with a razor and bar of soap and a can of chili. This is not indifference. The most destructive efforts to “help the poor” can be seen where neighborhoods were torn down and housing projects erected… all for the benefit of the “poor”. Another equally devastating hand is the way welfare is handed out that drives the father out of the house; thus rendering young men without a role model other than that of his peers in a gang. This misdirected concern for others causes more damage than indifference. When we try to help others it is better to do so in a manner that helps him rather than what is convenient for, and flatters, me.

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The Doldrums

Mid-May is the time of the year in Santa Barbara that begins what I would call “the doldrums”… the weather is as predictable as the sun rising or setting and it will be that way until August or September when the temperature hits the 90s and then until November or December when we start getting rain. I would have called the lack of inner turmoil, (emotional storms, fits of anger, longing for love and bouts of grandiosity into depression), spiritual doldrums at one time too. No drama in my life translated into boredom. As much as I told myself that I didn’t want such drama my behavior defied my intentions. What was so troubling about boredom and why couldn’t I be satisfied with quietude? Why did I seem to always have something going on and couldn't take a few minutes out of my day to sit with no ambition at all beyond shutting-up the monkey chatter between my ears?

            Once I began meditating a new adventure presented itself. It is something to do that undoes doing… doing… doing. Have you ever had a friend that chattered about nothing all the time but once in a while, after all you are friends, sat quietly with you for a few minutes enjoying the sunset or the breeze wafting through the forest. Just standing on the beach or taking a walk with your inner-most dear friend… that is what it is like to meditate. Your inner-most mind is a dear friend that knows you and reads you like a book but it is a good thing to sit regularly and quietly with it. These are times to get to know and bond with your dear friend. This takes training but it is so worth it. The dramatic unfolding of consciousness in tune with the universal love of the Heart of Compassion is more fulfilling and exciting than my own petty dramas.

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Meld... Meld... Meld

Expanding my view outwardly as well as inwardly… to observe the evolution of my soul… to see that what I think I am and what I am limited by is to step into the dimension of the spirit. I am… we are… sober now and settle into a new realm of the spirit and grasp what evaded our consciousness until this very moment… always changing… always growing and allowing the Heart of Compassion to move me as the ego traps and failures drop away. This breath… this heartbeat calls me to dance with joy in union with, instead of in opposition to, the world around me. This acceptance is often mistaken for compliance but nothing could be further from the truth. This is a melding, as they say in Aikido… melding rather than direct confrontation. Turning the energy of my character defects into an asset rather than a deficit is melding. Welcoming my imagined enemies into my heart and loving them as I love myself… to aspire to heal rather than to harm… this is the spirit of emotional sobriety. Is this an unobtainable goal? I think perhaps… but isn’t my life a whole lot better when I turn my ambitions toward it?

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I Grow Up

Gandhi and Nehru:
Politically Opposed
but in harmony of purpose.

Whatever joy there is in this world

All comes from desiring others to be happy.

And whatever suffering there is in this world

All comes from desiring myself to be happy.

SHANTADEVA

I don’t mean to have this post to be pontifications extolling others to do as I say but to never admit what I actually do. In saying this it is also important that this blog isn’t filled with superficial mea culpas… or self-deprecating manifestation of false humility, if you please. It is the truth that displaces error… it is doubt that is expelled by faith… it is hope that exiles doubt... and it is the spirit of forgiveness that opens the doors that once seemed shut to me. In other words, I grow up.

Another subject related to this one:

I see people angry at “the system’ and willing to stand in the streets in protest. Ironically, I agree with most of what they see as abuses that need correction.  But, after close examination of history, it can be seen that when the driving force behind these protests is usually (as it was in my own case) an immature outburst of adolescent emotion, they will end in disillusionment and frustration. Or worse yet, if they succeed, these protests can end in double the oppression of a worse tyranny than that which provoked the original protests (I.e., as in Iran of the mullahs or the Egypt evolving into that of the Muslim Brotherhood).

The spiritual base I am compelled to operate from is no longer protest against evil nor can it be blind acceptance of it. It is a proactive attitude that transfers adolescent emotional contempt for authority towards a productive and creative cohesion of purpose. This is the attitude that the Dali Lama promotes against a far more demonic oppression of the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Of course, it appears that his efforts have failed because the spiritual Shangri-La at the top of the world has become a Chinese whorehouse. But evolutionary processes are at work here that sent Tibetan monks to flee to the West, thus transforming the spiritual dialogue in this country in a most powerful and positive manner. Who is so arrogant they can say they know how it will end? Not I, but all of us can feel in our hearts that occupying the streets and merely blocking traffic without a direction or purpose can not be the answer.

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Freedom, Light and Love

At one time, while I wallowed in a spiritual bottom, I secretly hoped someone would rescue me. I say “secretly” because I had convinced myself that I could pull myself up by my own bootstraps. This belief proved itself to be based on some pretty shaky evidence because I wasn’t able to see, or give credit to, those who had been carrying me most of the time. Incredulously, however, I couldn’t help but to dream of a Hollywood ending where some sort of romantic alliance would be the cure-all for my predicament. This confusion bedeviled my efforts, and the demands I made on those closest to me further deepened the futility, driving the nails into the lid of my depression.

How bad can it get? The isolation of thinking of my failures being resolved by my own efforts was coupled by resentment I had for others who failed to meet my demands for help (whether my demands were unmet by institutions or individuals). I am ever so grateful I didn’t find the help I wanted because I eventually got the help I actually needed. Yes, I found in the darkness of my despair, I needed to lean on a power greater than any human being and, had I not isolated myself to the degree I had, I may have never found the Heart of Compassion.

Today I depend on God to stir in me the compassion I need to extend my concerns to others and that is what lifted my spirit out of the doldrums of depression. What help I needed was not at all what I wanted and when I surrendered my aspirations (and contempt for my own failures), it clicked. It simply clicked and there was freedom, light and love where I would have never expected it..

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Unaltered State

Sogyal Rinpoche says in today’s meditation (Glimpse After Glimpse); “If you are in an unaltered state, it is Rigpa.” This tells me that I am led to believe that I am mistaken when I am trying to achieve some sort of altered state when I meditate. We think we need the right guru, the right gong, the right candles, the right incense and the right quiet place to achieve such a state of mind. The reality is that we when we depend on these things we are simply avoiding ourselves as we are. True humility tells me that I must see myself as I am without any of the subterfuges of ego and any meditation that takes me out of this awareness is contrary to any form of enlightenment and thus puts a barrier between me and you. Love is hard enough to understand and spiritual materialism is simply another wall that separates us. Even Bill W.  says; in his essay on Love (first published in the Grapevine’s January 1958 issue and can be found in The Best of Bill, p. 55); “There wasn’t a chance of making the outgoing love of Saint Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away…. I found that I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed, upon any set of circumstances whatsoever…” We can erroneously substitute ashrams, churches or whatever causes me to believe I am separate, superior or inferior from/to others.

This is the Saint Francis Prayer Bill W. is referring to: 

"Lord, make me a channel of thy peace --- that where there is hatred, I may bring love --- that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness --- that where there is discord, I may bring harmony --- that where there is doubt, I may bring faith --- that where there is dispair, I may bring hope --- that where there are shadows, I may bring light --- that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted --- to understand than to be understood --- to love than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen."

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Junior Seau

Rest in Peace

There are far too many suicides in the recovery community because of unnecessary mea culpas… pounding of our chests... for this or that failure to meet standards imposed on us by others… or worse, ourselves… along these lines. Chronic depression requires the kind of help the medical community provides. It is not to be fooled with and I believe I make a grave mistake and further driving it home when I use the hammer of moral judgment. To determine that I am somehow failing to be the best person I can be might work for milder conditions but chronic depression is a beast that thrives on guilt… guilt compelled by our sense of failing this or that standard. 

A wildly wonderful pro-football player (Junior Seau) was buried last week because, some suspect, of the depression he suffered due to a history of head injuries in playing his sport. These tragedies have physiological causes that can be aided by a healthy spiritual practice but the chronic condition can only be prolonged  without some serious medical assistance. Having survived more than one serious concussion (and, in my experience, there is no such thing as a mild concussion) I can attest to the fact that depression is more a physical condition to be treated than it is a spiritual one.

So please, if you are reading this blog and feel as though you are failing... especially if you have had serious concussion or  chemical addictions...  perhaps you have returned from combat in Iraq or Afghanistan and find no friends or loved ones who understand... you have a hard time getting out of bed... you have no compelling reason to live and everything you try seems futile... you see no light at the end of the tunnel... please seek spiritual and professional medical help. A phone call to a suicide help line can be the first step out of the darkness. Just make sure you avoid moral condemnation and the kind of supposed help that tells you that you are doing something wrong. There are others who have suffered as you are suffering now and have come out on the other side. We are here to help you.

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Sometimes It is This Easy

Depression stalks most of us at one time or another. It lurks in wait as my mind takes me around corners into blind alleys of doubt and despair. It is easy to accept it’s stranglehold on my consciousness until I am no longer of much use to anyone (including myself) and actually begin to enjoy it. I can even become irate at the suggestion I get off my ass and do something about it while I wallow in bitterness and contempt for myself and those who truly love me. In my case, I can seemingly be fulfilled in every way… with my bills paid; with a loving partner; living in a beautiful city; having good friends; giving a helping hand to those who need it… I can be quite successful in hiding my feelings and I can “put on a happy face”… but still it is there. What then can I do?

            The answer to my dilemma isn’t simple: there are medications and therapies and the help of sharing these feelings with my spiritual guide. Yet, I have found… along with an honest inventory… I can ask the Heart of Compassion for help and trust that help will come. This morning I felt like avoiding my meditation but it is a habit I have developed that has become automatic. Still, I approached my cushion, as though I was being executed... taken to the chopping block; before I sat, I simply made a quiet and honest request: “Please help me. I don’t want to do this.”

 Regardless, I began my usual preparations, a calm came over me and love for that beautiful creative force arose in my heart once more. It was in this place that my mind was quieted and was lifted from the disease of alcoholism. It was this source that has on countless times called me to move with compassion for myself as well as for others. It is this source that I abide in when all else fails.

Sometimes it is this easy.

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Let Them Ripen

Can I sit for a minute and pause without reflection? Is there a quiet place in a garden; a spot in the workshop; a minute or two in the kitchen nook; a bath tub; sauna or perhaps the patio over a cup of Java or tea where I can simply listen? Listen to the pulse of my heart and watch my breathing; listen to the waves on a beach or the wind through the trees in the forest? Can I turn off the cell phone; close the laptop; take a few breaths; sit in loose clothing or a robe and allow myself to appreciate the touch of water or air around my body? Can I sit quietly in an auditorium, a church or temple and listen to the lecture or sermon without an inner commentary or debate? Can I sit with a friend that is troubled and listen without offering opinion or advice? If I can do any one of these things, I can meditate. Sure, anyone can, and does, do at least one of these things throughout one part of the day, week or month. What I find essential is the regular practice of meditation. To do so daily changes everything about how I perceive the world. It is the starting point of my day and the closing minutes of my evenings. One of the first fruits of meditation is emotional balance… now, to let them ripen.

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geo 4,699

Instrument of Peace

It takes some reflection and inventory to see that most of what I do and the causes I embrace arise from adolescent rebellion. The majority of my experience with life had to do with convincing myself that I believed the bullshit authorities were trying to feed me. After that, when I took on the mantel of a rebel, I had to convince others that I believed in what they believed even though my van sported the bumper-sticker: “Question Authority”. In actuality, I was angry at the world for not giving me what I thought I earned and my tactic was, if I couldn’t play their reindeer games, I would side with my fellow mutant reindeer.

I have not given up a healthy distrust for authority but I have taken another tack on it. It doesn’t take much vision to understand, as expressed in the prayer of Saint Frances: my relationship with others depends on harmony trumping discord; love over hatred; forgiveness over the wrongs others commit against me; truth over error, hope over the shadows cast by doubt; and light where there is sadness. As I try to comfort rather than to be comforted; to understand rather than to be understood; to love than to be loved; discovery of Self through self-forgetting; and forgiving… forgiving…forgiving; and, most of all, to be kind to myself; I grow.

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geo, 4,698

The Rock 'n' Roll of the Spheres

I will never forget the many childhood experiences I had while attending Sunday morning Catholic High Mass. In those days, before Vatican II, they didn’t have those annoying and preachy folk masses in English. You didn’t turn with superficial greetings of your neighbors in the pew or chat in the presence of the Host enshrined in the altar. And the words were in Latin so, as an extra bonus, I barely knew their meaning. But, as I knelt or sat in silence, I was able to hear in the resonance of it a similar experience I later heard it in a Bach Fugue, Beethoven’s Fifth or Chopin Etude. The visuals of the almost perfect mathematics of a cathedral or the random splatterings of paint on a Jackson Pollack canvas, also evoke the feeling the evolutionary forces towards consciousness first described by Darwin, or equations of Einstein (though I am almost entirely ignorant of mathematics), that there is order to the universe I am a minutely humble but vital participant of. This glorious dance of creation, as horrific as it appears to be; the collisions of gravitational forces; the explosion of stars; the black-holes in the center of every one of the billions of galaxies (including our own); that once depressed me is now seen in concert with the compassion of Christ, the Buddha and the saints of all faiths. It is the rhythms… the pulse of the backbeat to the music… the Rock ‘n’ Roll… of the spheres that I can now dance to and with the music… the order of chaos.

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geo, 4,697

A Sense of Humor = Humility

I just heard of a study reported by the Wall Street Journal today about a study by Harvard University neuroscientists:

 Humans get as much pleasure from bragging as they do from food or money, says the Wall Street Journal this morning. A new study has found that we spend 40 percent of our everyday speech telling people about….ourselves, and how we think and feel. Researchers say study participants were even willing to give up the prospect of making more money for the opportunity to talk about themselves some more.

My first reflex was to feel smug and decry the self-centeredness of the subject before I realized the divinely inspired genius and  humor of AA. Just  putting a bunch of alcoholics in a room talking about our selves, sometimes bragging, exaggerating and even lying, in order to approach the honesty and humility it takes to be rid of our self-deception and self-obsession, is a Holy Hoot.

A healthy sense of humor is one of the first fruits of humility and a sign the process of recovery has begun.

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geo, 4,696

Is Humility a Doormat?

Do not choose bad friends.

Do not choose persons of low habits.

Select good friends. Be discriminating.

Choose the best.

Dhammapada 78

My understanding of true humility teaches me that I am worthy of the best in love and compassion. I deserve the best in companionship, the best intimate relationships, the best in everything and that includes the best beyond pretense. That doesn’t translate, however, to treating those I cannot get close to as anything but another manifestation of the divine. In my daily affairs I will run into people who cannot be trusted and cannot be expected to do anything that goes beyond the boundaries of self.

There is a distinct difference between discrimination and judgment and the wise know this well. Discrimination is an aspect of humility that does not judge but sees things as they are. Humility doesn’t make me blind to the horrors of the world around me but it sees behaviors, including my own, as they are. As I meditate I come to the Heart of Compassion with my inner eyes wide open (inner eyes that some refer to as the third eye). When I see humility in this light I come to understand that it doesn’t mean I become anyone’s doormat but rather I become helpful to those who suffer.

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geo, 4,695

The Jitterbug of Creation

To sit quietly and breathe when I first rise is the most important single thing I can do today of my own volition. When I have a conversation with my innermost self… an agreement or disagreement… something miraculous happens if I pause and give some thought as to who is having a conversation with whom. I realize then that I am not merely a consciousness separated from the world by a bag of skin named George. Something far greater than that is happening if I can extend my understanding to see that this consciousness is somehow connected to the cosmos… that there is a cosmic intelligence in this energy operating through my bag of skin from me to you an you to me.

This cosmic intelligence is the Heart of Compassion some call God and it is within this spirit that I can join in the dance of creation. The resistance of my ego wrapped in this bag of skin to remain a wallflower in the Grand Promenade of Creation is fostered by the notion, or fear, that I can’t dance… oh, but I can dance if I allow myself to be moved when the Jitterbug breaks out into to the rhythm of this wild bump and grind of God. I have a choice: I can stand on the sidelines and tap my feet in isolation as a spectator or I can get out on the floor and dance through this day enthusiastically in joyous harmony and unbridled exuberance with your spirit.

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geo, 4,694

Bathing the Baby Buddha

Trying to be right and kind with an eye for the perfection of the Heart of Compassion is no simple task if I expect to achieve it on any ambitious and grand scale. However, I can take the concept of perfection in the little things and, absolving myself of the failures and shortcomings of my daily affairs; it is possible to at least proceed in kindness to others. Thich Nhat Hanh’s description of perfection in the Miracle of Mindfulness asserts: “I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness; compassion, irritation, and teapot are all the same.” This is a simple thing to try but not so easy unless we see it in this way. Any parent who has ever given their child a bath knows how loving, kind and pleasant this chore can be if it is done selflessly and in the moment.

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geo, 4,693

Emotional Gyrations

Emotional gyrations of the sort we are tempest-tossed and confounded by are often those that arise by one form or another of self-importance or self-deception. I get upset by people or events because they either pass me by or have no respect for my person. A wise man once said, “Our enemies tell us more about ourselves than our friends.” How many times have I leaned on a friend only to have all the contrivances and folly of ego verified or justified? Our enemies teach us patience and humility while at best our friends can simply abide with us. A true friend knows his/her heart is prejudiced and all comfort outside of accurate evaluation is of no help. Being unable to get past the salve of codependence bordering on salaciousness we miss an opportunity, to not only grow, but to find resolution in place of conflict. If we are to find peace in our own lives…as distasteful and as frightening the prospects… we lay down our personal defenses without laying down our altruistic principles.

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geo, 4,692

Samsara Sucks

A movie was made of Water for Elephants, the novel by Sara Gruen. I saw it and it wasn’t a bad flick but, what hooked me from the beginning of the book, was the scene in the opening chapter about the old-folks home where old Janowski lives… (It was left out of the movie: aging seems to be too much a downer for Hollywood). He says,”I used to think I preferred getting old to the alternative, but now I’m not sure. Sometimes the monotony of bingo and sing-alongs and ancient dusty people parked in the hallway in wheelchairs makes me long for death. Particularly when I remember that I’m one of the ancient dusty people, filed away like some worthless tchotchke.” If I can’t find any humility in that inevitability I am doomed to go to the end with nothing left of me but regret and suffering.

I know that in my heart I still don’t get that particular point. Hell, I’m sixty-two and am only beginning to grasp the notion that I won’t always be as healthy and brilliant as I am today. And thirty years ago I never expected to live long enough to be as frail and as feeble of mind as I am today. Time alone couldn’t suck the pride out of me but it helps. It is all samsara and, in the words of Chogyam Trungpa, “Renunciation is realizing that nostalgia for samsara is full of shit.” And I might add, “…just like one day my Depends will be.”

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geo, 4,691

My High Horse

The alarming thing about such pride-blindness is the case with which it is justified. But we need not look far to see that this deceptive brand of self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets person against person, nation against nation. By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable. Of course it is not for us to condemn. We need to investigate ourselves.

The Best of Bill,  Humility, p. 40

*****

What we believe of the events around us is important but I have found that, if I am honest with myself, most of what I base my positions on politics is an emotional and knee-jerk response corresponding to whatever paradigm I have accepted as the truth. All I have to do to test this is to have a conversation with someone whose beliefs are different than mine. It is harder than I thought to move off what I believe no matter how open minded I think I am... no matter how well I've thought out my positions... how absolutely right, I am almost willing to go to war... to joust the windmills to the death from my high horse. When I discovered this I saw the source of conflict in the world. But what if the folks I am upset about are taking the rest of us down a perilous path towards destruction? What do I then? Do I take my spiritual axiom to the extreme and withdraw from the dialogue completely when all reason or passive resistance fails? Where would we be if Gandhi or Martin Luther King would have just prayed instead of stepping out of their safety zone to stand against injustice? On the other hand, where would the Western World be if Churchill would have surrendered to Hitler? Of course, these are extreme examples but they are sourced in the battle within. Let me resolve the battle within for direction as I rise from my cushion to follow the Heart of Compassion.

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geo, 4,790

The Best of Bill: May 1st

 

Therefore our practical question is this: “Just what do we mean by ‘humility for today’ and how do we know when we have found it?”

            We scarcely need to be reminded that excessive guilt or rebellion leads to spiritual poverty. But it was a very long time before we knew we could go even more broke on spiritual pride. When we early AAs got our first glimmer of how spiritually prideful we could be, we coined this expression: “Don’t try to get too damned good by Thursday?” That old-time admonition may look like another of those alibis that can excuse us from trying our best. Yet a closer view reveals just the contrary. This is our AA way of warning against pride-blindness, and the imaginary perfections that we do not possess.

The Best of Bill  (pp. 38-39)

*****

I don’t know why the early AAs chose Thursday as the day one ought not try to be “too damned good for” but I suspect any day would be a good one. It could be by Sunday for most Christians, Saturday for a Jew, or Friday for a Muslim. 

Chogyam Trungpa calls "spiritual pride", instead, spiritual materialism. People who love us, and are not alcoholics or addicts, usually tell us we ought to be proud to be sober as long as we have been. This is a fine sentiment and I am grateful for the spirit in which it is expressed. However, it is not healthy for me to take excessive pride for the time I have been sober. The spiritual practice that keeps me sober is a thirst for spiritual progress tempered by humility that allows me to grow with or without acknowledgement, for good or bad, from others. I am so very grateful I have family and friends who are supportive of my sobriety but many others have no such thing. In the end it is my contact with the Heart of Compassion that keeps me sober and not the recognition or accolades of others.

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