Just thought I'd share from a book of uncommon quotes FROM "Don't Forget to sing in the Lifeboats."
For those new comers starting out and for those who are coming back to the Program:
Try, Try Again
NEVER QUIT. IT IS THE EASIEST COP-OUT IN THE WORLD. SET A GOAL AND DON'T QUIT UNTIL QUIT UNTIL YOU ATTAIN IT. WHEN YOU DO ATTAIN IT, SET ANOTHER GOAL, AND DON'T QUIT UNTIL YOU REACH IT. NEVER QUIT. Author unknown.
I read quotes from this book that helps build some self esteem.
Tina, Thank you. I remind myself continuously that this is a program of continuing action. Always trying to reach the top of the mountain but never quite getting there. We never want to be perfect; right?
The key is the mountain is often slippery and we have tools today to overcome those slippery spots so we don't slid backwards. Always plunging forward.
I actually view this a bit differently as I strive to become a human "being" rather then a human "doing", to learn to be in the now, to "chop wood, carry water" and do the next right thing
The Buddhists explain it better then I do about "the grasping mind" that is never satisfied and is always struggling to attain something
More facts on Buddhism = Suffering
2) The stress on suffering Buddhism stresses on the unsatisfactory nature of our lives and uses that to motivate us to walk the path to the end of suffering. This state of mind - free from suffering - is that of Nirvana or enlightenment.
Also known as "Sobriety"
According to the Buddhist doctrine birth is suffering, sickness, old age and death are all suffering. who can argue with that?
Suffering also arises out of frustrated desire and our habit of grasping. If we dont get what we want we naturally suffer. If we lose something we have then also we suffer.
Did that sound familiar? It should we hear it in meetings all the timeas one of the basic tenets of AA
Desire even when satisfied may lead to suffering as we may lose the object that satisfies that desire. All is transient including our possessions.
And it is the nature of mind to never be satisfied and to keep seeking new possessions or achievements. We are just never satisfied. This makes up one of the 5 facts Buddhism.
This basic Buddhist belief teaches us to not take our ordinary life or the world we live in too seriously as nothing we can do in this would will ever result in our gaining lasting or abiding happiness. This again is one of the facts on Buddhism.
-Sounds suspiciously like Rule 62-
So this is another point in 5 facts Buddhism.
3) This suffering is caused by wrong views: The Buddhist beliefs state that our suffering is caused by wrong view about ourselves and about the world
This is what step 3 says isn't it?
We believe that we are a self or a person separate from the rest of existence. This ego has been analyzed away by Buddhist metaphysics. Buddhism holds that there is no unchanging self to be bound anywhere within our ego.
The best AA defintion of Ego I ever heard was "feeling of conscious seperation from", the illusion that I am somehow seperate from you and the world, and not a "part of", the feeling I sought for by communing with "spirits", also known as alcohol
All I ever sought in drinking was to feel "present", that was it, that was the sole purpose of drinking, that is why sex feels so good, why everything we love brings us such pleasure, it makes us "present"
This is why Yoda and many other wise men say "there is no try, there is only do" because there is only the moment, there is only the present, it's not metaphysical, it's mathematical, do, or do not, there is no try
these of course are only my own views and not meant to conflict with anyone else's views, at the moment I am "doing" an internet chat board, when I should be mowing my lawn, which is once again in a state of impermanence that bastard
__________________
Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
A friend of mine whom I met during my time with my previous support group (back when I was trying to moderate) got sober a couple of months before I did. He'd been in AA for years when he was VERY young, but then went out for close to 20 years, with predictably disastrous results. During that time, though, he'd become a Buddhist and an atheist (Buddhism being an a-theistic religion), and was very resistant to AA because of the "Higher Power" stuff.
What helped him get sober, and get back into AA, was a book called "One Breath at a Time," which is an examination of the twelve steps through a Buddhist perspective. It was like a lightbulb went on for him. Suddenly he was able to see how he could work the steps and stay true to his convictions (his religious convictions, that is--he has rearranged many of his other convictions since returning to AA and sobriety). The resistance was broken, and his spiritual life has deepened greatly. His concept of a Higher Power is his own, and it works for him, as surely as anyone's concept of God does.
Being somewhat of the agnostic, myself, I find that book, and others that tie in Buddhist thought with traditional 12-step recovery, give new and powerful meaning to the steps for me.
And I hear ya about the lawn mowing. For me, the most dissatisfying aspect of housecleaning is that nothing ever STAYS clean.
Incidentally, the other side of the grasping, craving part of suffering is AVERSION. We drink away pain, stress, fear, all those unpleasant emotions. When we learn to accept the pleasure and the pain in equal measure, without grasping for the one and hiding from the other, we are walking the Middle Way.
