Recap

Step 12: Kevin
Our 12 Weeks group came to a close (at least for the season, anyway) with a talk by the kind and delightful Kevin G., someone whose book One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the 12 Steps helped me come to at least one of the several moments of clarity I needed to finally get sober. Kevin has been very generous with me, just saying yes whenever I’ve asked him to do anything: chair a meeting, come speak for our group, email me back. He’s the nicest guy you’re going to meet, and yes, he came through again with a thoughtful and powerful talk about Step 12.

He started out by saying he thought that Step 12 is composed of three elements:

• a spiritual awakening
• carrying the message
• practicing the principles

He said that when he first started the Steps, the claim that we were to have a spiritual awakening as the result of doing these Steps seemed grandiose to him, although he pointed out that he came to recovery with a few grandiose ideas of his own. He said that we can associate an awakening with each Step, not just Step 12, and went on to name the types of awakenings, or insights, that are typical with each one. Just the idea of mindfulness itself is an awakening, he said. Every time we come to the breath, it’s an awakening.

He said he tries to define a spiritual awakening in his new book, A Burning Desire: Dharma God and the Path of Recovery. A spiritual awakening to him is the happiness that is not achieved through the material world. It’s an awakening to an inner life, to an inner experience, and moving away from blaming external circumstances, living life with a balanced and open heart.

He then talked a bit about the carrying the message part of the Step. He said that the Buddha upon enlightenment basically said, “This is awesome and nobody’s going to get it.” Through a series of events, the Buddha chose not to hang out and just enjoy himself after his awakening, but to share, to carry the message.

Kevin reminded us that the 12-Step literature says that we can’t keep it unless we give it away. He said the joy of insight is in sharing it. He tends to lapse into negative mind states when he’s not teaching very much, he said. Sharing his insights keeps it alive and fresh for him.

Practicing these principles in all our affairs is somehow in the small print, he said, because it doesn’t say what the principles are. Kevin thinks it’s the idea of practicing the principles that’s made his spiritual life so vital. By compartmentalizing our lives, as many of us did before working the 12 Steps, by thinking there is some part that we can leave out, we deaden ourselves. He said that in the Buddha’s Eightfold Path, there isn’t a lot a room to leave anything out. We practice the principles of Buddhism in all our affairs if we are following the precepts and are being compassionate.

Just another example of how well these Steps and this wonderful Buddhism dovetail perfectly, and another great series, capped off by one of my favorite speakers.

Step 11: Daigan

Daigan was referred to me by Jennifer B., who spoke about Step 1 for us this series. I had never met Daigan, but I trust Jennifer, so I took a chance on someone I didn’t know, and as it turns out, my trust was generously rewarded.

The prayer and meditation Step is an interesting one to talk about, he began, as he now lives in a monastery. He said that prayer and meditation are ongoing practices, and that Buddhists don’t have any kind  lock on them. Conscious contact is the part that sticks with him today, he said. So what is that, and how does he improve it?

He suggested that we start with God. He doesn’t think that Buddhism has a God, he told us. So how does he work with that concept? Well, he starts with what God is not, he told us. He said that God was not an omnipresent thing. It’s not a creator God, and it doesn’t work for him. The most important thing, he said, was that he is not God.

The place he’s at now is that God is this moment. If this moment is all that really matters, then maybe this moment is God. Pleasant thought, that, at least for me. He quoted Suzuki Roshi: “When you are you, Zen is Zen.” That’s when God is present.

Daigan talked about hearing a sermon as a child, and the minister talked about “meditations of my mouth,” which I gathered to mean that meditation is in every moment, being present right here, right now. What if everything can be a meditation? he asked us. “The way I treat the homeless person on the street is a meditation,” he said. That’s the meditation–of this moment.

He also talked about prayer: What is prayer when you’re in a religion that doesn’t have a God? Daigan said that his experience is that prayer works, whatever is said. Saying something out loud, whatever it is, he said, has power in it. He said that he doesn’t know what he’s praying to, or why. But he does believe that it works.

Another evening that broke my heart apart with love, one of many this series has brought about.

Daigan shared with us the prayer he’s been praying lately, his version of the 11th Step prayer. He suggested that we try it, to say it every morning:

Prayer of Shantideva
Translated by H.H. The Dalai Lama

May all beings everywhere,

Plagued by sufferings of body and mind,

Obtain an ocean of happiness and joy

By virtue of my merits.

May no living creature suffer, Commit evil or ever fall ill.

May no one be afraid or belittled, With a mind weighed down by depression.

May the blind see forms,

And the deaf hear sounds,

May those whose bodies are worn with toil Be restored on finding repose.

May the naked find clothing, The hungry find food.

May the thirsty find water And delicious drinks.

May the poor find wealth, Those weak with sorrow find joy.

May the forlorn find hope, Constant happiness and prosperity.

May there be timely rains And bountiful harvests.

May all medicines be effective And wholesome prayers bear fruit.

May all who are sick and ill Quickly be freed from their ailments. Whatever diseases there are in

the world, May they never occur again.

May the frightened cease to be afraid And those bound be freed.

May the powerless find power

And may people think of benefiting each other.

Step 10: Laura

I had only heard Laura B. speak once, at the Meditation and Recovery group that meets on Monday nights at the Zen Center, long before Vince and I decided to do this group. I remember Laura as being quiet, gentle, not a bombastic speaker, and a lovely presence. When I had heard that Jeffrey S. had started a Sangha in Recovery program last year, and that his partner in that endeavor was Laura, the pieces clicked into place and I approached her to speak for 12 Weeks.

Laura’s topic was Step 10. She qualified just a little bit, saying that she had practiced Buddhism for ten years before she got sober. She told us that by the time she got to the rooms of recovery, her intellectual pride was so well smashed that she wasn’t squeamish about the word God. Getting sober had helped her stop living that double life that many of us led. It’s a story I’ve heard elsewhere, echoing my own experience that at least for me, Buddhism is a wonderful addition to sobriety, but it’s not the whole deal. Laura reminded us that many wonderful Buddhist teachers died of alcoholism.

She said that when we finally get sober, we’re faced with addressing our emotional hangover, and the ultimate goal is then to gain emotional sobriety or maturity. In Steps 4 through 9, we take care of the things we’ve done in the past that can remain stumbling blocks to our sobriety. Step 10 is about what we do after. Step 10 helps us get present. In working this Step we get to take care of our spiritual condition on a daily basis, hopefully getting us a little bit closer to that emotional sobriety that we seek.

She went over Step 10 in the Twelve and Twelve: how Bill suggests we do it. The first way is to do a spot check in the course of our day.  The second was is to do the day’s-end review. The third way is to look back annually or semi-annually, and the fourth way is to do an occasional retreat from the outside world. She reminded us that there are some wonderful retreat centers we can take advantage of to do this work. Her caveat is that we do the work gently and lovingly; we don’t have to beat ourselves up over any of it. She said that Step 10 is about making this process become second nature.

The gift of this Step is freedom of restraint. Freedom to not act out when we feel negative emotions arising. She referred to the book, Slaying the Dragon, a history of addiction treatment in America, saying that that book says there are four ways to get sober: 1) centering rituals; 2) mirroring rituals; 3) acts of personal responsibility; and 4) service. She said that Step 10 is a centering ritual that allows us the freedom of restraint. Through this Step we can have a new freedom to achieve emotional maturity.

She offered suggestions of what to do when those negative emotions arise. 1) recognition of the emotion as it arises; 2) naming the emotion; 3) accepting the emotion; and 4) investigation of the emotion. These seem to be centering techniques as well, ones that dovetail beautifully into Buddhist practice.

She said that both Buddhism and the 12 Steps offer us ways to clear away the wreckage of the past so we can be who we were meant to be and who we really are. She suggested that in doing this work, we pick a golden thread, in other words, pick one thing to work on and do it for a month. For example, take a precept and just do that. Try not lying for a month. It’s another way to work this Step.

Laura ended with the Metta Sutta and asked us to ask ourselves, “How do I want to be in this world?” That’s the work of Step 10.

Loving Kindness Meditation

This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise,
Who seeks the good and has obtained peace.

Let one be strenuous, upright, and sincere,
Without pride, easily contented and joyous,
Let one not be submerged by the things of the world.
Let one not take upon oneself the burden of riches.
Let one’s senses be controlled.
Let one be wise but not puffed up and
Let one not desire great possessions even for one’s family.
Let one do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove.

May all being be happy.
May they be joyous and live in safety.
All living beings, whether weak or strong,
In high or middle or low realms of existence.
Small or great, visible or invisible,
Near or far, born or to be born,
May all beings be happy.

Let no one deceive another nor despise any being in any state.
Let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another.
Even as a mother at the risk of her life
Watches over and protects her only child,
So with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things.
Suffusing love ver the entire world,
Above, below, and all around, without limit,
So let one cultivate an infinite good will toward the whole world.

Standing or walking, sitting or lying down,
During all one’s waking hours
Let one practice the way with gratitude.

Not holding to fixed views,
Endowed with insight,
Freed from sense appetites,
One who achieves the way
Will be freed from the duality of birth and death.

Step 9: Nancy

Well, I wasn’t planning on talking about Step 9; I really wasn’t. We had Stephanie P. all lined up and ready to rumble when she called me on Sunday morning and told me that a relative of hers was ill and that she needed to go be with her.

Unfortunate news. But I realized that this was the situation I’d been preparing for. When Vince and I started this group, I was always terrified that someone wouldn’t show or would cancel, because I wouldn’t have the Buddhist chops to carry off a decent talk. I figured if I ever needed to step in, I’d want to be prepared, and so lo and behold, my recent yearlong Buddhist facilitator training did end up paying off.

We sat for our half an hour like we usually do, and then after the break I started my talk. I began by talking about “the three poisons” of Buddhism, greed, anger, and delusion, and how these are considered the negative mind states that drive a lot of our unskillful behaviors. I could think of a lot examples of unskillful behaviors in my own life driven by greed, anger, and delusion: greed for food, sex, money; anger, jeez, I’m embarrassed to even talk about anger considering how much resentment I’m STILL capable of carrying; and delusion, thinking that I wasn’t hurting anyone but myself during my drinking days. The three poisons are there even when I’m not in my active addiction.

In my recent training, I’ve learned about the antidotes to the poisons, the bhrahmaviharas: lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These are actual meditation practices that we can do that neutralize the ill effects of greed, anger and delusion. May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be at ease. If I repeat these phrases and then aim them at different people in my life, it breaks up the solidity of my resentments. It creates a kind of internal space that makes letting go of grudges just a little bit easier.

Which brings us to forgiveness. Everyone I know says that Step 9 is all about forgiveness. I personally don’t think that’s entirely true. I think Step 8 is all about forgiveness, and Step 9 is all about righting the wrongs. But no matter, forgiveness is in there; maybe it’s the glue that binds 8 and 9 together. Wherever it lands, forgiveness is necessary to do amends well. I can’t make a proper amends if I haven’t forgiven myself and I haven’t forgiven the other person, because I KNOW if I’m making an amends to somebody, in all likelihood that person has also hurt me. It’s a state, forgiveness, one that I can get closer to by doing a little bit of work.

Forgiveness is kind of like a sister brahmavihara, the one that’s not really a brahmavihara but gets honorary mention in all the talks I’ve heard and the books I’ve read. And there’s a set of phrases we can repeat that help us forgive others, help us forgive ourselves. Here are the phrases I left off with as I finished my talk with an abbreviated version of forgiveness practice:

If I have hurt or harmed anyone, knowingly or unknowingly, I ask their forgiveness. I ask for your forgiveness.

If anyone has hurt or harmed me, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive them. I forgive you.

For all the ways I have hurt or harmed myself, knowingly or unknowingly, I offer forgiveness. I forgive you.

Step 8: Tim

The wonderful Tim W. came to speak for us again. I never get tired of his perspective on things; he’s such a kind person, and funny. During last year’s summer series he spoke about Step 12. This time he spoke about Step 8, or “Step Hate,” as he called it, according to him, the beginning of the socialization process that takes us out of the isolation that plagues most of us addicts.

He said that in Steps 4 and 5, we get a definition of intimacy, sometimes for the first time in our lives: being honest with another person without risk of judgment. In Step 8, we begin to do this with people besides our sponsor by creating the list and becoming willing to make amends to all of the people on the list. Tim said that a lot of people are willing to lie rather than do this step, because the thought of moving on to the dreaded 9^th is so scary for some. “It’s just a list!” he reminds his sponsees. He recounted the response that Suzuki Roshi gave upon hearing the old adage, “killing two birds with one stone.” Apparently Suzuki Roshi said that killing one bird with one stone was enough. Tim reminded us that we’re never asked to do more than one Step at a time.

Willingness is the center of Step 8, he said. What really is willingness? He quoted the late Si P. as having said that Step 3 is the most important Step because it introduces us to the concept of willingness. Willingness is the key to a successful recovery, he said. He said that we as addicts have a problem with failing. We seem to get stuck on failure, going back to it over and over instead of moving on like a lot of people do. Moving on to the next moment is willingness. Letting go is willingness.

We get to renew our intention when we let go and move on, Tim said, and when we renew our intention, it gets stronger. To him, it means not having any resistance. He said that his development of an emotional willingness finally outweighed his “great intellect.” He got a laugh on that one, I imagine because most of us in the room could probably identify.

Tim said he gets to scan his emotions, feeling anger, resentment, disappointment, and identify them while they’re happening. He said that not being in touch with these emotions feels like a closing of his heart. He said that for years he did a practice that Stephen Levine teaches, soft belly practice, and that when Tim worked with that, he found that his belly was hard most of the time. It was resentment, he said. I surmised that a hardness of the belly equals a hardness of the heart. He talked about having a great opening of the heart one day during High Noon, when he got hit by a wave of forgiveness, serenity, and gratitude. He said that those are the antidotes to the hardening of the heart.

So what do those states feel like? he asked. Well, he said, the next time you see a puppy, that’s it. That’s what it feels like. Practice it, he said. It’s a great way to practice the second part of the 8^th Step.

Step 7: Nancy

The evening finally came; I got to speak for this wonderful group. The crowd was as small as it’s ever been, but sweet as always, and full of friends. Originally I was going to speak about Step 6, my favorite one as it’s pivotal, but as the fates would have it, the schedule got screwy and I ended up with Step 7. Not that I ended up disappointed. This is another point where the rubber meets the road.

I believe that Step 7 is where we stop doing damage. In the first three Steps, it’s dawning on us that we’re not the center of the universe. In Step 4 we see that we have a part in what happens to us in life. In Step 5 we become accountable to at least one other human being about our gnarled behavior. In Step 6 we get ready to let go of the character traits that caused us to behave unskillfully. And in Step 7, we let them go. Which means, in theory anyway, that we stop acting out.

In my talk, I broke Step 7 down into three parts: 1) Humbly 2) asked Him 3) to remove our shortcomings.

I started out with the middle part, the God part first. Many times I have heard people ask the question, “How do you reconcile Buddhism with God?” After all, Buddhism is a non-theistic “religion” if you even want to call it that. I’m still not sure why this question seems to be so charged for people, but charged it definitely does seem to be. But to me, the two concepts are completely, utterly compatible. I just don’t think that the Buddha wanted to talk about God. In Buddhism: A Concise Introduction, Smith and Novak tell of the Buddha getting asked by followers speculative questions like whether the world is eternal or not eternal, whether it is finite or not, and, as I imagine, whether there is a God or not. Despite incessant needling, the Buddha maintained his “noble silence.” It appears that the Buddha had his views, but he didn’t talk about them. The Buddha was interested only in teaching his program: 1) That there is suffering; 2) That there is a cause of suffering; 3) That there can be an end to suffering; and 4) The way out of suffering. Why? Because, and of course I’m paraphrasing here, pretty much everything else is a waste of time.

Having put the God question aside, I then talked about humility.  It’s a key ingredient in doing Step 7, having this attitude, because we can’t get rid of grandiosity if we’re still grandiose. Having a humble attitude is a prerequisite of letting go of the character defects; it’s a foundation. In much the same way, it turns out that meditation training has its foundational elements as well.  According to Buddhist teachings, a crucial ingredient had to exist before people are even ready to meditate, and that is generosity. The Buddha had people giving food to the monks and taking care of their neighbors before he had them sit down on a cushion. In the 12-Step world, this could translate into being of service. Whenever I go to a meeting to GET something, I’m in a state of grandiosity. If I go to GIVE something, I’m in a state of humility. What is service if not generosity?

The last part of the Step I talked about was the removal of shortcomings. I see this as directly relating to the second thing the Buddha taught after generosity, which was ethics. Ethics in Buddhist terms often boil down to the precepts: 1) Don’t kill or harm; 2) Don’t steal or take what is not given; 3) Don’t misuse your sexuality; 4) Don’t lie, gossip, or speak harshly; 5) Don’t use intoxicants.The Buddha didn’t lay out these rules as moral prohibitions. As ever, he was very practical. He lay them out as ways to avoid suffering. If we follow these precepts, almost instantly we stop acting out our character defects. When we stop acting out our character defects, we stop creating suffering for others and ourselves.

Like generosity, ethical behavior is a prerequisite for mindfulness practice. Jack Kornfield, in his wonderful book, A Path with Heart, asks us if we can imagine sitting on our cushions after a day of lying and stealing. I can imagine it, because I’ve done it (or rather, after a day of drinking, or after a day of gossiping, or after a day of obsessing) and I’m here to tell you that concentrating on my breath was almost impossible under those circumstances. The only way I’ve ever been to be able to meditate is when I was fairly confident that my side of the street was relatively clean, and that I knew how to use the the broom to keep it that way.

I feel very grateful to have spoken for the group. More and more does the dharma feel like it’s my path. Thanks for being patient while I take my first teaching baby steps.

Step 6: Darren

Several months ago, I’d heard from a friend that there was a guy up in Portland named Darren Littlejohn who’d written a book about Buddhism and the 12 Steps. Starving for books like this, and having worn out my copy of One Breath at a Time by Kevin Griffin, I got very excited, and I promptly preordered my copy of The 12-Step Buddhist on Amazon. Then I thought he would be a great speaker for 12 Weels, so I screwed up my moxie and emailed him to speak for our group. Graciously, Darren agreed to schedule a 12 Weeks talk in with his San Francisco book tour, and so last Sunday, here he was, at our group to talk about Step 6: “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”

It was an interesting evening for me. Vince wasn’t there on Sunday, so I was flying solo for the first time, plus I’d never met Darren or had heard him speak. I figured the whole evening would test my recovery mettle and work out my ability to go with the flow. Thrown to the fates, I dove into the evening, holding my breath and hoping for the best.

Darren’s Buddhist tradition is Tibetan, and he led the group in a Tibetan breathing exercise (I hope I got that right; I was in the other room manning the door at that point), and from what I could hear of it, it was calming and grounding. Then he began his talk, and it became clear to me that it would be no ordinary 12 Weeks talk; it would be one of our more experiential gatherings, in keeping with the experiential nature of the Step itself.

He did talk about Step 6, but what really stood out was the interactive exercise he had us do. He had us close our eyes, and asked to speak to our inner Controller, the one who gatekeeps for other aspects of our inner selves. He asked us what our jobs were as Controller. We called out answers: “Keep me safe,” I heard myself say. Other answers rang out. “Take care of business!” “Get things done!” “Keep to the schedule!” Darren stayed with us while we tapped into this self, and then asked the Controller to allow us access to the Addict.

When our Addicts came to the surface, he asked what are jobs were. “To eat!” “More!” “Devour!” “Consume!” I heard. We went on with that, getting in touch with our addictive qualities, and BECOME the defects. For me, that was not hard to do at all, and judging the responses in the room, it seemed pretty easy for others to do as well. When we were finished with the Addict, Darren asked the Controller permission to speak to the Sufferer, and he had us call out our jobs as that.

I think the idea was to embody what it means BE our defects of character, so that we can become willing to let go of them on a cellular level. I met the various components of myself, as familiar to me as the womb, and I felt a surprisingly love for these hairy little monsters. My addict, my sufferer; they just needed some attention! Could it be that becoming willing to let go of these defects of character is as simple as giving them some air time? And after they get some acknowledgment they can walk away on their own and stop their kicking and screaming and holding on for dear life?

Wouldn’t that be nice.

We didn’t have a lot of time for the exercise (Darren said he usually takes a couple hours to go through more aspects of self with people), but we did get a nice taste of it. It’s an evening I’m still thinking about.

Step 5: Jeffrey

We were thrilled to have Jeffrey S. come back to speak for us, not only because he’s the founder of the Zen Center’s wonderful Monday night meeting for people in recovery, but also because the man knows his STUFF. I love Jeffrey’s speaking style, because he’s got deep knowledge about both Buddhism and the Steps, and he knows how to communicate that clearly. Every time I hear him speak, I learn more about both, and I was not disappointed this time. Last Sunday we got to hear him talk about Step 5: “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

Jeffrey started out by highlighting the role of confession in Buddhism. He said that in the old days, monks would make public confessions of what they had done within the sangha that went against house rules, in the hopes that their admissions would purge them of bad karma. He told the story of Angulimala, the killer who once chopped off the fingers of his victims and wore them around his neck as a necklace. As the story goes, Angulimala met the Buddha along the way, became impressed by the Buddha’s serenity, and so redeemed himself by converting to Buddhism. Even when Angulimala stopped killing people, villagers kept throwing stones at him when he went into town, and he asked the Buddha why that was. The Buddha said something like, What do you expect? You killed a bunch of people. That’s your karma.

We think we should be able to get away with things, Jeffrey continued. But we can’t. We all have our own karma to work out, just like Angulimala. And by admitting to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs, we have a fighting chance to work out some of it out.

In most religions, having a relationship with a sponsor, a guide, or a good spiritual friend is important, Jeffrey said. These are the people who will tell you the truth, gently and lovingly. “Only a Buddha together with a Buddha can fathom the nature of reality,” he quoted the Lotus Sutra. We have to have the willingness to speak, and we have to have the willingness to listen, he told us. He continued by saying that when we tell our stories to a sponsor, sometimes we’re experiencing true intimacy for the first time. By sharing our misdeeds, by sharing what we drank and used and shopped and fucked to not have to face how we really feel, we give our sponsors a tremendous gift. We share a gift that’s intangible but valuable: something freely given and freely received.

He said that by sharing our inventories with our sponsors, we are engaging in right speech, sometimes for the first time. Right speech, he said, is to speak the truth first and foremost. In the fourth Step we face the truth, and in the fifth Step we speak it. He stressed the fact that it has to be spoken. We as recovering people are deeply affected by shame. The fifth step is about examining that shame and letting go of it.

Our sponsors ask us to examine what we think our defects are, he continued. Often our defects turn out to be just ignorance and fear. He told us that craving translates to “thirst,” something most of us in the room could identify with, is what I’m guessing. Behind craving is ignorance; another way to put that is delusion. That’s the basis of our troubles, said Jeffrey. It’s the state of mind that our wrongs come out of.

Buddhism does not talk about sin, he told us. It talks about activity that leads to suffering. Similarly, the function of the Steps is not to castigate ourselves, it’s to amend. Because we are self-loathing and grandiose, we need another self-loathing and grandiose person to help us to do that.

And who better than our grandiose, self-loathing sponsors!

Step 4: Paul

It’s been more than a week since Paul spoke at 12 Weels, and I’ve been putting off writing the recap, I think because I’ve been nervous that I wouldn’t have been able to do it justice. No matter how many times I hear him speak, I can never quite grasp what he says enough to really explain it. It feels to me like Paul channels his talks rather than plans them. He doesn’t have notes. He’s got pretty much one message, as far as I can tell, no matter the step, no matter the night. And that message is summed up on page 64 of the AA Big Book, which says, “Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations.”

Which is Step 4, of course. Paul talked about ego being a thought system called self, and that self has a central character, the narrative of which is making up a you. I think he’s getting at the concept of duality here. That self is a thing that we become attached to, it’s like a parasite that takes over the host. Paul points to the wording of that line in the big book, a line I’ve heard many times pointed out before, that ITS common manifestations, that is SELF’S common manifestations, are what have defeated us.

Paul said that when he does an inventory, he does the inventory on self’s expressions in his life. He said that in that exercise, he knows that he’s been taken over by that self, an object. He went on to explain that consciousness becomes identified with a body and a brain, which are objects, and that consciousness cannot be identified as an object. Because of this tendency to identify with the body and the brain, the mind is unreliable. You lose consciousness when you are identified as the self, as this parasite.

What causes the heaviness in life, he said, is when we identify. It’s the bonding that causes the problem. When we think of money, it’s in terms of MY money; when we think of sex, it’s in terms of MY sex. He said there’s a huge momentum, our whole conditioning, that brings what we think we are back to self. To try and fight that momentum is like trying to swim against the flow of a river. When we stop identifying with the self, everything just shifts. The exact same energy that a moment ago we were fighting we now join.

“Why do you think we were ravenous for drugs and alcohol?” he continued. “When there’s surrender, we find the relief we’re looking for. It’s the surrender to the process of getting that will feed you every day.”

When we know “I am not that,” then we’ll discover what we are, he said. He compared the fruits of this practice as to fruit from a tree. You might not be able to tell what the tree is just by looking at it, but “you will know the tree by its fruit.” When you stop identifying with self, “You will start seeing the fruit in your life. You’ll be placed in a position of neutrality,” he said.

“Your life will bloom.”

Step 3: Ren
We were lucky enough to get spellbinder Renshin B. to speak  on Sunday. I have always enjoyed hearing Ren, whose mixture of elegant presentation and experience, strength, and hope always leaves me sure of why I helped organize this group in the first place.

I will describe her talk, but before I do, let me describe the nature of 12 Weeks these days.

During the summer, we had overflow crowds almost every week. It was exciting, and completely unexpected. I loved the energy, partly because I’m a Leo, and partly because I was half responsible for making it happen. I would by lying if I told you my ego didn’t get stroked when we had crowds that big. Ego, people. Deliver us from it.

Since we started the monthly group, the crowds have been smaller. We’ve been getting twenty-five to thirty-five people each time, which is respectable. At first I was kind of disappointed that we weren’t pulling in the big crowds, but now I like this size very much. The group these days is not a scene; it’s cozy. Really warm. Full of love and attention, just the way it should be. On Sunday, when I snuck a peek at the faces in the group when I was supposed to be meditating, my heart just broke with gratitude. For those of you who were there, thank you for being a part of this sangha. It means a lot that I’ve got so many friends on this journey.

So on to the talk. The subject was Step 3: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

She started out by asking, “How does a Buddhist talk about God? Because it’s about God, let’s face it.”

Ren talked about how Charlotte Joko Beck, who wrote Everyday Zen: Love and Work, the book from which we posted an excerpt on our 12 Weeks site, occasionally uses the word God. She said that Suzuki Roshi also uses the word God. It seems that the concept of God and Buddhism aren’t necessarily at odds. From what I’m reading these days, I gather that the Buddha pretty much stayed away from the issue. Nobody’s saying he didn’t believe in a higher power.

Ren broke the step down into its three parts:
1) Making a decision
2) Turning our will and our lives over
3) To the care of God as we understood Him.

She commented on the male nature of the language. She laughed about it,
actually, which I appreciated. She talked about how the the book Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers described how it was to go to an AA meeting back in the day.
Apparently, before people were allowed in a meeting, they had to get down on their knees and pray. Those were the roots of the program. We’re lucky we don’t have to do that today, Ren reminded us.

She pointed out that this concept of God is the concept of other. Ren said that in her mind, God was separate, God was right, and she was usually wrong. “Every time I upset someone, that was self-will. Every time something good happened, that was God.” She continued, “I needed that good orderly direction.”

Ren said she went to the Christians to understand God, because they were the God specialists. She said she knew that they offered forgiveness for sins, and she felt like a sinner. She wanted to know about forgiveness, she said. I do too. I probably won’t go to the Christians for it, but I most definitely want to know about forgiveness.

In her work as a chaplain, Ren is asked about God a lot. She wants to respect what others believe and stay true to herself. “What can I say about God?” she mused. “I’ve developed a code word. It’s love. I can always talk about love and about being kind.”

What about anger? Something I struggle with, something Ren says she still struggles with sometimes. She said her Zen teacher tells her to include it. “I thought that if I learned to meditate, I wouldn’t lose my temper anymore.” Include it, include it, she says. God is big enough to include it all.

She quoted Ram Dass, in the movie Fierce Grace. “Healing is not after all the same as curing. Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to god.”

Ren brought us out with a dedication of merit asking us to remember those of us who haven’t made it to the rooms yet.

“Let it be so,” she said. “May we all remember that.”

Step 2: Jason
Last week we were fortunate enough to have Jason M. come back to speak for us, this time for Step 2. For those of you who don’t know, Jason’s the leader of Dharma Punx Santa Cruz, and despite his badass D-Punxy persona, he is as sweet as sweet can be. After the talk, he gave me a heartfelt smooch on the cheek right when I needed one, which just goes to show you: you never know when a small act of kindness will make somebody’s day.

Just sayin’.

Anyway, back to the topic. Jason started us out with a–there is no other word to describe it–sweet meditation. He had us think “calm” on the in-breath and “relax” on the out-breath. Calming of the mind, relaxing of the body. His instructions were quiet and peaceful. At the end of the meditation, for the last three breaths, he had us imagine they were our last three breaths. How would we feel? All of a sudden, I teared up, and I realized how grateful I am for this life, for my history, for my family, for my friends. I thought how sad I was to leave, how precious those last breaths were, and then I realized that I didn’t have to leave quite yet. There was more time. I remembered to make the most of it.

He mixed up the order a bit, and asked for questions up front. Then he got to his topic: Step 2. “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

First off, he said, was the concept of sanity. We were insane. Thinking, holding, planning, using. We were addicted to thoughts, he said. We believed them. Often we still do.

Secondly, the word “ourselves.” From a Buddhist perspective, there IS no self. We create a whole thing about how important we are. He brought up the concepts of dukkha: suffering; anicca: this will pass; and anatta: no self. The teaching of anatta can become our higher power, Jason said. It gets us out of I ME MINE.

He then turned the talk to the Buddha. Buddhism isn’t necessarily about statues and bowls and ritualism, he said. It’s about the Siddhartha Gautama, the man who rebelled against his caste, his conditioned problems, his own mind. Greed, hatred, and delusion are, and were back then, Jason suggested, the world’s default. He reminded us that practicing lovingkindness and generosity is the essence of Buddhism. For the Buddha to ignore class conventions and proclaim that all were welcome and able to awaken, not just the rich people, was an act of the deepest rebellion.

He reminded us of the story that had the Buddha basically saying, “Don’t believe it just because I said it…go out and try it out for yourselves.” To try to wake up takes effort, it doesn’t just happen. And to believe that something I do is going to make a difference after years of believing that nothing I did made a difference, well, that takes faith. I have faith in the refuges, the buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. These three refuges can be all the higher power I need, a power greater than myself.

There was so much to cover, we ran out of time. Before he finished up by leading us in a dedication of merit, Jason mentioned that his higher power is Good Orderly Direction. He said another word for that is karma.

Step 1: Jennifer
Our new series started last week, which is the second one Vince and I put together. This series is once a month for twelve months instead of once a week for twelve weeks, mostly because I was having trouble finding a place to have the group on a weekly basis, but also because once a month seemed more manageable as an ongoing commitment for us and everybody else.

Our first speaker up was Jennifer B. Jennifer was a regular at our summer series, and works at the Zen Hospice here in San Francisco. A Buddhist chaplain and educater, I’d seen her lead a group once before, at my own little Thursday night sangha group while our regular teacher is away on retreat. That evening, Jennifer steered the ship with skill, navigating the personalities in the room deftly, kindly, and sensibly. I watched her set expectations verbally, which set a good example for me, someone who works with (and sometimes fails at) right speech. Watching her lead Gene’s group so beautifully, I looked forward to her kicking off the next series.

She started out by telling her story, by qualifying to being there. She explained that she’s from New Jersey, Sopranos country. She identified as being opinionated, and that sometimes people think she’s arguing with them when she’s actually having a discussion. She led us in a sit, and then began her talk.

She said that Step 1 was difficult for her when she first got to program. It was the admitting part at which she winced the most. She said an admission of this kind felt like a humiliation. She continued by saying that Buddhism is the path of truth. This is what the Buddha was seeking. She said truth is not LIKE liberation, it IS liberation.

The Four Noble Truths was set up as a path to liberation and the end of suffering. If you cling you will suffer. If you don’t cling you will NOT suffer. Cling less, suffer less. Simple, yes? But not easy.

Liberation is based on our direct experience. “‘See for yourself,’ said the Buddha,” she said. It’s the same as in the rooms of 12-Step recovery. Only I can decide whether or not I’m an alcoholic, a codependent, a love addict, a junkie. Others can see it, but they’re not going to convince us of anything. It’s only when we’ve had enough direct experience of suffering that we can admit the truth to ourselves, which paradoxically gets us ready to take others’ word for things.

“I was in so much pain,” she said, “that when people told me what to do, I did it.”

She talked about how mindfulness practice is telling the truth. During meditation, we say to ourselves “It’s like this. I am restless, distracted. It’s like this.” She said there’s a lot in the dharma about telling the truth. In telling the truth, we become truer people. In becoming truer people, we become more centered.

Jennifer then broke us into twos and led us in an exercise. She asked us to tell each other what we had for lunch. Then she asked us to tell each other the truth of our addictions. The discussion was all about the differing levels of truth, and how we felt in telling them.

A fantastic evening, with a smaller group than I’ve seen before, but as sweet as it’s ever been.