Lesson for today...

My teacher at the Clouds in Water Zen Center I attend on Sunday mornings had a wonderful message today about how we get and use power in our lives.

Using as a metaphor the electrical power outage we had last night due to the most violent thunderstorm I have ever seen, she taught that it is not infrequent for people to experience periodic power outages themselves when they get stressed. In the seemingly endless search for ways to reduce suffering in our lives, we expend energy daily trying to cope and make sense of what is ultimately non-sensical. We manipulate people, places, things and situations as best we can to have them turn out as we wish them to be. We sometimes pull the covers over our head when we fail to get what we want: The unpleasantness of failure is something we most often try to avoid by closing out the world. And, we sometimes look for power in all the wrong places to see if we can effect change.

The moral of her lesson was that mindfulness - living in the here-and-now of the present moment - will allow us to let go of our demand that things go the way they "should" go. It will also give us the perspective to rise above the things that concern us and are out of our control. A person can practice mindfulness anywhere and the usually boring or quiet times in our lives are always good times to stretch the mindfulness legs a bit. It doesn't require formal meditation (although that helps): Instead, it just requires gentle reflection on the moment to give it a careful look and realize what we can control and what we can't. Mindfulness can be likened to the Serenity Prayer in this respect.

I was immediately reminded of a little brochure I published when my son Joe was born. I called it "Son Power Lights Up Our Life" and showed a picture of two-day-old Joe whimsically staring at the viewer. In fact, Joe's birth did restore a sense of power to me at the time when I was swimming with problems and deeply entrenched in drinking and drugging in a futile attempt to make sense of my world. I had squandered the love and power that came to me through my daughters Jen and Becca. I had pulled the plug on my own life and felt the darkness all around me like a shroud.

But, while she was speaking I was also reminded of a page in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that addresses the kind of power that comes into our lives when we live by principles brought to us through the 12 Steps. In it the writer says...

"Here [in the Steps] I found the ingredient that had been lacking in any other effort I had made to save myself. Here was - power! Here was power to live to the end of any given day, power to have the courage to face the next day, power to have friends, power to help people, power to be sane, power to stay sober. That was seven years ago - and I haven't had a drink during those seven years. Moreover, I am deeply convinced that so long as I continue to strive, in my bumbling way, toward the principles I first encountered in the earlier chapters of this book, this remarkable power will continue to flow through me. (page 386)

In that simple paragraph lies the answer to the power problem for not only alcoholics in recovery but anyone troubled by life's events and suffering inside. Having admitted that we were powerless over alcohol in Step One, now, through the remaining 11 steps, we find the power to effect change in our lives. It is hard to describe how this happens. It seems to only come to those who work hard on integrating the principles of the 12 Steps into their lives. It seems to manifest daily in those people who have faith and courage to face the day without drinking. And, it seems to come to those whose belief in a Higher Power that can transcend suffering in this world can carry them forward every day.

For those not in a recovery program, the same practice can yield remarkable results...and you don't have to be a Buddhist either. The effort is to be mindful and practice healthy principles in our life. The payoff is greater serenity, feeling peace of mind and the sense of accomplishing what used to baffle us. I'd say that is worth the effort.

All the best,

Roger W.