Laughter Touches the Power Within

"Jesus was a sailor..."
Thank you Lenny

Today I sit in peace with myself and am amazed at how I got here. There are times the ego creeps in and expressions of fear and isolation evoke emotions like of anger, doubt and depression. The Spirit of Divine Wisdom tells me that these emotions separate me from my fellows along with the Spirit of Compassion. Thankfully, these times are brief and pass as the foolishness of my situation bubbles up and a heartfelt laugh arises from my gut. My first sponsor stopped me once when I got upset over someone else's behavior saying, “There goes God again.” As we laughed the intensity of the disturbance dissipated and the Spirit of Compassion replaced those ugly feelings with the wisdom of joy and hope that touched Power within us all. I don't have to go very far to find such humor because I have a mirror that can be used to get a glance at my favorite clown.

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Postponing Preperation

Passing

At first it seems to be a morbid reflection to do anything but  postpone any thought about how I meet my ultimate demise. Preparing for death at first glance can look like deference to living. However, I have never seen any world leader as full of laughter and grace as the Dalai Lama and he is quoted in my daily reflections today, *“We cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear. So if we wish for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life.”

*Glimpse After Glimpse: Sogyal Rinpoche

Taking a few minutes to sit with my emotions each morning and sort them out has been has been how I have started my day for the past thirteen years. I can attest to the fact that I did not become as at peace with myself as I am today when I first began meditation practice. Truly, the first few months were almost traumatic at times as I filtered through what percolated up into my consciousness. But, no matter how disturbing, my sessions always close on a positive note. These provocations have become minor speed bumps for the most part as I have learned to manage and expel my past behavior and replace them for new ones. A speed bump is there to simply slow me down… pause, reflect and amend.

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The Cosmic Dance We Call God

If asked, I would have said that I was an agnostic leaning towards atheism. It just didn’t make sense to me that any deity powerful enough to have created the whole universe (check it out; it is vast beyond comprehension), you name it; any deity at all, would have any interest in any of my affairs. My favorite atheist was Christopher Hitchens. He wrote a book titled god is not Great, (caps were his) and in that book he devoted a chapter titled: the Tawdriness of the Miraculous and the Decline of Hell. The miracles I called out to the heavens that never got answered were prayers of grasping: grasping to get out of trouble, grasping for my health and grasping to win the Lottery… and so on. Those prayers were selfish and it is understandable that they went unanswered, but my seemingly unselfish prayers, no matter how fervent, were met with a cosmic silence. It was only when I surrendered my will to this mysterious power greater than my own, when I gave up grasping, was I able to slip into the rhythms and harmony of that cosmic reality… that heart of compassion. The miracle is that this was what I needed to relieve me of the bondage of my own grasping. I try to stay there to join in the cosmic dance we call God.

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Our Group Conscience Prevails

Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show and is forever trying to arrange the lights, the scenery, and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 60-61

*****

There are times when I am upset by characters who come into a group and immediately try to change the format, rearrange the furniture and even attempt to change how the group shares. These folks seem to seem to fit this description perfectly, but, when I am disturbed by people like this, I have learned to pause and to take my own inventory to see where my attempts to correct or resist the suggested changes arise from identical character defects.

These inward reflections don’t keep me from persisting in advocating the order of things as I see them, but restrains my ego enough to transcend its defenses and arguments; looking out for the good of the group, yielding where it is prudent and standing where I must. We, alcoholics and addicts, aren’t used to restraining ourselves along these lines and, more often than not, we are so much alike that the Heart of Compassion employed in our group conscience usually prevails.

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Humility Allows Me to Accept

An A.A. business meeting can be disconcerting to those who are used to, and expect, order. I am one of those who were adamant about Robert’s Rules of Order. I don’t recommend business meeting for newcomers who are like me concerning procedure. I don’t really know the Rules of Order but I relied on those who did, when I was involved in politics, way back at another time in my life.  Though there is a certain amount of structure to A.A. meetings, and even our business meetings, there can erupt some disturbing and inappropriate interruptions because of who we are. Today, I find humor in such meetings and relax a little due to the love and tolerance, through osmosis, that infiltrated my heart. There are rarely the kinds of people among us who know or care about rules of any kind, let alone the Rules of Order. Humility allows me to accept, with tremendous love that we are here at all, trying to make this fellowship work.

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Just sayin'.....

As far as my life is concerned, forgiveness is the essential motivation that drives my practice. Not only was I, (in the face of my own distractions, disruptions, destruction, deceptions, delusions and drunken depravities) am most in need of forgiveness, but, I found that I have an even greater need to forgive others. There are those whose lives are so wound up in their beliefs… beliefs rarely adhered to by conviction or thoroughly thought through, but, accepted by indoctrination, inheritance or ambition… that unspeakable atrocities are committed in the name of these beliefs.

The process of finding forgiveness ought not discourage me in the prosecution of my own convictions but would better be employed as a gauge to preclude me from unjustly doing so. Very few things embarrass me more that the actions I have taken, or words I have used, to execute my beliefs in the past that diminished the heart-felt convictions of others. Understanding that forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean I condone or accept others as much as it means to simply delve deep into my own heart for my own misperceptions and to see them not as adversaries but as children of God.

Polarities: black vs white; right vs left; gay vs straight; liberal and conservative; there is far too much demonization of the opposition going on in politics today. It is one thing to be in opposition but entirely another thing to see the other side as pure evil. Ignorance is the only evil and I have to make sure that I do not become the personification of that evil to my fellows.

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My Best Thinking

We often hear it said in the community of addicts and alcoholics, “My best thinking got me here.” This usually evokes a few laughs among us but I sometimes cringe when that thought is expanded upon and supplemented by the implication that we ought not think at all. Three million years of human evolution developed a fantastic organ between my ears that, like any sophisticated tool, can be used to great affect if used properly. That is what the dharma path, or the Twelve Steps, does for me. Becoming spiritually awakened did not exclude becoming mentally equipped to deal with the realities I face in my daily affairs. Frightfully, it is egocentric ignorance that is the most devilish among my keepers of this cage I constructed restricting everything that separates my spirit from that of the Sublime. This effort… this discipline… takes mental acuity as well as spiritual awareness.

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