Ramblings of the Mind...Buddhism

How quickly the time passes! I've heard from a number of friends who have seen The Happy Hour and they've passed along some wonderful good wishes for the site. Hopefully they will join in with the fun of sharing in some cyber-fellowship about recovery.

I'd like to add some Ramblings of My Mind from time to time as short ways to communicate some ideas about recovery, review a book, share thoughts and feelings, or just ramble on.

I can start things off by telling you about a book I just finished reading. As most of you know, I'm in a Ph.D. program in Psychology at Capella University, and I'm doing some advance research on my dissertation. I picked up an interesting book 12 Steps on Buddha's Path: Bill, Buddha, and Weand couldn't put it down. Laura S. is the author and her use of this pseudonym immediately attracted me to a book about recovery from addictive disease. It's not often that you find a book written by someone in recovery who uses a pseudonym, so I thought this would be a candid look inside the author's mind and heart about recovery. It was.

The 12 Step program of Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous are often regarded as being similar to Buddhist teachings. Sometimes this puts people off because they feel that this ancient, Eastern spirituality is too far out for their tastes. I have found that this is largely because people don't take the time to investigate about Buddhism and how it might relate to their life. For those in recovery, this book offers an inside look not only into how the 12 Steps relate to Buddhism, but also how they can bring fresh eyes to the 12 Steps of recovery.

Laura starts out by giving the reader a quick overview of each of the 12 Steps. This is a good look at what she went through on the journey of her own recovery that started out in the basement of a church in New York City. There, after a failed suicide attempt, 33-year-old Laura found herself in a strange world of recovery after years of decline due to alcohol. She had been a remarkably successful business woman who thought herself invincible and certainly a person above the rank and file of the recovering people she found in that church basement of her first AA meeting. She complained to a sponsor she had found at that meeting (a person who is a spiritual guide through the program) that she had nothing in common with those people and the sponsor told her she was right...they knew how to stop drinking and she didn't! From that moment on, as difficult as some times became, Laura stayed in the AA rooms and managed to not drink.

Strangers loved her back to life, she says, and those strangers also introduced her to the world of spirituality based on Buddhist principles. As Laura tells it, there are Four Noble Truths in Buddism, and they guide the recovering person through the suffering that active alcoholism causes. The First Noble Truth is that the nature of our existence is how stress, dissatisfaction, discomfort and impatience is a part of everyday life and can cause suffering. The Second Noble Truth is that the cause of this suffering is the desire we often have that things be different than they are. The Third Noble Truth is that the end of suffering is letting go of the craving to have things different. And, the Fourth Noble Truth is that the way to end suffering is to follow The Eight Fold Path...wise understanding, wise thought, wise speech, wide livelihood, wise effort, wise mindfulness and wise concentration.

This small space doesn't permit a full explanation of the Truths or how they relate to the 12 Steps, yet there is a real connection that is so clear that some claim Bill W. and Dr. Bob took some of the principles from Buddist teachings. I can't verify that, but certainly, drinking and drugging cause suffering, and that suffering is generally caused by the craving to either possess extreme pleasure or remove some kind of pain.

This book describes the basic idea of recovery based on living by principles, not personalities, and that recovery is available to anyone who makes an attempt to change the focus of their life. Buddhism certainly would represent a major change in focus for most people who seek to make change in their life. Laura S. claims - and I think she's right on here - that the promises from Alcoholics Annonymous list in the Big Book are not only compatible with Buddist teachings, but they are the logical consequence of a life lived to its fullest according to healthy principles.

12 Steps on Buddha's Path is a good, easy and short read. I recommend it to anyone who wants to expand their spiritual horizon.

Roger W.