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12 steps program and Buddhism
Passaddhi
UK - London New
Hi, I am new here.
Is anyone familiar with the 12 steps (originally created for people suffering from Alcoholism - the famous AA, then extended to many addictions from gambling to overeating) ?
I feel it could help me but I struggle with the "God/Higher Power" aspect of it. They say you don't have to believe in God to join, but I don't see how to reconcile their program with Buddhism.
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I know a fair bit about it although I don’t know it from the inside, I’ve never attended. But I should think that for some Buddhists — Tibetans with their deities, or Pure Land Chinese or Japanese with Amitabha Buddha — it wouldn’t present a problem.
I think if you just call upon Buddha to light your path with the wise insight that self-destructive behaviour is not beneficial to your progress as a Buddhist, that would do?
We have a guy who knows extensively about that I think. @Tosh I haven't seen him for awhile here though but maybe he will get an e-mail if I post @Tosh ?
I have never thought of speaking to Buddha directly. I guess you mean the Buddha Within, not the man who lived 2500 years ago ? Sorry if this sound a stupid question, I am new to Buddhism.
What exactly happens when you reach Nirvana is not defined in the Sutra’s, so it’s possible that the presence of Buddha in the universe’s field of consciousness still exists. It’s speculation but not unreasonable I think. That means within as well as without.
So calling upon the Buddha is possible.
Buddhists and lineages vary on how much devotional stuff they believe or talk about. Here's a portion of the Avatamsaka sutra that shows an idea of how the ordinary could actually be quite spiritual and seeing buddha everywhere.
http://www.cttbusa.org/avatamsaka/avatamsaka40new.html
One thing that should be understood: I don’t think you can address Buddha in the same way as you address God. You shouldn’t bother asking him to take your toothache away, he is more someone who will teach proper dental care.
@Passaddhi welcome and I wish you well....
These links may be of help
Secular 12 Step Programme
The Atheist and the 12 Step
How Do Eastern Religions Deal with Substance Abuse and Treatment?
Remember @Passaddhi the Jewel is already in the Lotus-What we all seek...we already are...
Om Mani Padme Hum
Metta
Yes there are some good articles out there for this topic. I’d recommend:
https://alcoholrehab.com/alcohol-recovery/buddhist-12-steps/
Hey @Passaddhi - welcome!
I have heard good things about these guys.
https://www.refugerecovery.org/
Best of luck!
Have you read about the Two Truths? I like to see them as objective and subjective sides to reality. The "higher" could be the Interbeing nature of all things as opposed to individuality.
We have a Buddha within? Who would have thought it …
Buddha just means 'woke'. They (buddhas) point to the alarm clock ticking away and shout wakey-wakey. That is when we realise we were only dozing. Half awake, half asleep and half drunk on samsara …
https://insighttimer.com/peacebeyondsuffering/guided-meditations/kamma-in-samsara-kamma-leading-beyond-samsara
Meanwhile …
Many of us are addicted to drugs, drags, dildos, douche bags, dopes and other delta variants. Buddha is a higher ideal rather like someone sober, ultra sane and sanitised …
Hello; welcome to New Buddhist. I sincerely hope you enjoy your experience here.
I celebrated twenty-nine years clean this last May and have been around Twelve-Step programs in some capacity, since being court-ordered to meetings back in the seventies. I've experienced the traditional programs as well as the newer off-shoots. I have two entirely different answers to that. I'm way outside my comfort zone of blunt but, here it is: Yeah, truth is it can be a problem; it was to me. For years, I tried to make it work - refusing to give up Buddhism. Nothing I tried worked; nothing, but I kept on trying. And, I never got clean. So, I stopped trying - and made it work. I made it work in spite of how inhospitably those steps had welcomed me. Turned out, that was the price of admission to be free of addiction, for me. Your mileage may vary. The only thing I know for sure, is that I don't know your answer - but I hope you do.
Ask a member of Alcoholics Anonymous who attends meetings regularly if s/he has been to any good meetings lately. Once you get them past their "My homegroup is the most perfectly imperfect..." perfunctory praise, most will admit it's been hard 'these days' to find a meeting with a lot of 'real' recovery. In fact, I got that very call this morning. From a fellow in Brooklyn, who went on to say he has a network of a few members who report back on the new meetings they tried out. Brooklyn is actually just a piece of a city, and it's got over two hundred meetings a week to chose from... And they can't find a good meeting? What chance have we got, right?
Reasonable people might quibble over how much responsibility Brooklyn bore for his experience of finding little 'real' recovery - but it would be hard to argue that it wouldn't be easier to find it with over two hundred meetings a week to choose from than you are in twenty. That's the problem with the smaller organizations. The start out all gung-ho, like teenagers ready to become emancipated, move out and take on the world. Then there's a funky middle period where they have growth spurts and get tested on how solid their principles are. A few make it, but most end like gung-ho teenagers ready to become emancipated, move out and and take on the world - who saw a squirrel.
In a nutshell: It's hard enough without them distracting us by wielding their Christian privilege so cluelessly. But it is what it is - and what's more Buddhist that complete and utter surrender to what is?
I’d hope that 12 Step program facilitators were a little more understanding than most ordinary Christians for people wanting to use alternate texts as long as they were showing results.
Some do; some don't. Since "...leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern" everyone is simply a volunteer. Actually, that's from Tradition Two; the whole tradition reads as follows:
"For our group purpose there is one ultimate authority - a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern."
Some volunteers are 40 years away from their last drink & some found their way out of the trap house for the first time 90 days ago. Actually, AA's "Big Book", which is the official guide off of which every 12-step program has been fashioned after says, in the chapter 'We Agnostics', "Well that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself, which will solve your problems. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God." [emphasis mine]
Not too many years ago, after responding to a question put to me by a member with over thirty years sober, I explained that I was Buddhist. I was hit repeatedly by his spittle as he screamed in my face how he believes 'in the one true God and none of this new-age bullshit..." I would have walked away but I was in front of my home that I was renting from him. I was attending meetings with my wife at the time, and during the time we lived in that area, we never attended a meeting that didn't have the Bible read out of at least once.
Typically when I do attend meetings these days, and I need to use the phrase 'Higher Power' in a sentence, I'll say, "...my Higher Power, who I choose to call none-of-your-damn-business..." to kind of offset and offer and alternative to the ever-popular, "...my Higher Power, who I choose to call Jesus Christ..." It is almost always greeted by good-natured chuckles, which is why I choose that route - no hard feelings, yet point made - we are supposed to be inclusive. In fact, read before every Narcotics Anonymous meeting is the line, "We are not interested in what or how much you used...but only in what you want to do about your problem and how we can help." If the drugs you used aren't important because "we want to concentrate on our similarities, not our differences" then what 'Higher Power' you choose isn't important either, and so my utterance is intended to drive that home. Those who have ears let them hear et al.
Thank you @Shoshin1. These links are very helpful.
I tried a Atheist/Agnostic meeting, and I felt more comfortable. The "Higher Power" can be the support of the group, but it can also be the Dhamma.
The Jewel is already in the Lotus : Does it mean the solution is in the problem ?
@yagr Thank you for sharing your experience. How did you make it work ? Did you give up on Buddhism temporarily and pretended you believed in a God ?
How...? Mostly by making every mistake I could. I asked a lot of questions - and as anyone around here can tell you, I am not a star at understanding the answers. Odd that I keep asking questions... Anyway, going on a tangent - it should be fun...
Early on I was told that I could make the group my Higher Power. That didn't make a lot of sense to me so, I decided it would make more sense by asking questions because I hadn't yet learned that this doesn't help me. Then they told me to 'turn everything over to my Higher Power'. Since I was unemployed, unemployable, and truly concerned about how I was going to pay my bills that month, I dropped my bills in the basket as it went around. "What the hell, yagr?" they asked. "I had some fears about how I was going to pay my bills so I turned it over to my Higher Power - the group." It was explained that this isn't how it works...I still don't see the inconsistency. But, let's get back on track...
As any Buddhist will tell you, in one way or another, the only thing we can offer you is a 'finger pointing to the moon'. Truth cannot be taught - only experienced. That which is the true Tao cannot be spoken. Insert your own favorite line because ultimately, the idea that the truth can only be pointed to or approximated is expressed in a myriad of ways but they all imply the same thing. So, this 12-step program was created by a bunch of folks who got a hand me down spirituality bequeathed to them through a hundred generations that began with a bunch of superstitious illiterate goat herders. I am not judging them for being superstitious illiterate goat herders - just suggesting that the guard rails for 'pointing to the moon' were narrower back then. So Jesus, in my opinion, pointed to the moon in a way that these folks could ...well, maybe not understand - but have a prayer of understanding.
So, they took his teaching - then played a 2000 year game of telephone by passing on ideas that they really didn't understand - and, just like me (and probably you) when people don't really understand what is, they write a narrative about it and that narrative isn't Truth - it's a facsimile or shadow of Truth. We tell ourselves a story about our experience because in this way, we are able to build a monument to our experience, examine it, fret over it...have the illusion of control over our experience. Anyway...
Ultimately, what I hung my hat on in order to mix with any predominantly Christian group that strives for spirituality is this: Jesus said, "I am the Truth, the way..." I believe that he was enlightened and so, I can buy the fact that he was 'Truth'. His followers are grasping at Truth but not really understanding it (imo). I get that - I do that, too. So I just decided that they misunderstood Truth differently than I misunderstood Truth and we had that in common...and that would be enough. I called truth - Dharma, they called it Jesus...and we're both wrong. That makes us brothers...which is Truth.
I'm sure that's clear as mud...but there was a lot of surrender in there. Surrender is acceptance of what is - and what is, is only here/now. i.e., when I say, "Hi, I'm yagr and I'm an addict" for instance, this isn't true acceptance, this is a narrative I tell me about myself and then I go and do something really silly like believe it. Trying to capture a Higher Power and stuff it into a box so I can have my narrative about the experience and feel like I have a measure of control over the experience of life - is a recipe for a lot of suffering. How could it not be? Try to stick a size 15 foot into a size 12 shoe and there will be pain. Try to stuff the infinite into a finite box causes suffering too - and while you might get your foot in that show with a lot of pain and effort - you'll never manage the latter so it is pain and suffering for no purpose.
I know I can be wordy - I hope there are some in there that are helpful.
You're welcome @Passaddhi
There are a number of ways to interpret this mantra......
However, I like to keep things simple ...
What you are seeking is already within you....
The strength you seek is within you....
We already possess the tools to build (our) happiness, we just need to learn how to use them...
Be well
There are other steps …
For example prostrations, which are used as a way of stepping towards 'Buddha Power' as well as a slow pilgrim mode of travel.
This is a very intense form of improving and changing the physical being/craving. 108 is the usual minimum.
About three weeks ago now, I awoke to about 150 flea bites - I am horribly allergic and before the day was out I was one big hive. Worse, on 3 August, for the first time in my life, I stopped biting my fingernails. So while I may have struggled to not scratch when I was awake - I had no idea that I was ripping myself to shreds in my sleep until I woke up with blood everywhere. Did I mention that histamine blockers have no effect on me? Prostrations, which I had never done before, kept me sane. I slept through the night for the first time (since this happened) last Wednesday, and I'm almost completely healed up but...grateful for those prostrations.
P.S. No pets here, but the neighbor has a mangy little dog - not to insult him but he has clumps of hair falling out everywhere, etc. Anyway, turns out she bombed her apartment for fleas three weeks and one day ago. I wonder where they came from?