Envy

One of the most fascinating parts of being on a spiritual path is the sudden realization that there are aspects of my personality I was totally unaware of, that are quite suddenly revealed to me in stark relief. After I become aware of these characteristics, it's as if they were there all along and I was simply blind to their presence; I have the urge to smack myself on the forehead and say, "What a dunce!" I have come to believe, though, that this is simply the universe's way of giving me what I can handle at any particular time. As long as I keep my mind and heart open to new realizations about myself, I will continue to discover new and interesting things my entire life (and perhaps beyond, who knows?).

My most recent discovery is my propensity for envy. I knew that I sometimes coveted what others had (usually not material so much as spiritual or personal). But until a few short weeks ago, I had not realized how thoroughly envy permeated my life. Now that I am aware of it, I can see that in nearly every circumstance I tend to compare myself to others, and subtly weigh whether what they have or do is better, worse, or about the same as what I have or do. I then pass judgment on them and myself based on this evaluation.

Of course, this has not been a conscious choice; I am not this self-centered by intention. But it is now clear that this kind of thinking has to some degree or another run my life. Whenever a person is chosen for an AA position, for instance, I wonder if I could do that job, if there is a reason I would never be chosen for it, if they are up to the job...and on and on. At work, I have the tendency to compare the amount of work I am doing with how much it seems like others are doing, and evaluate all of us accordingly. When I hear of people talking about going to a party or out to dinner, I wonder why I wasn't invited, or why I can't have the kind of relationships these people seem to have. In the rooms of AA, I have heard this called, "comparing my insides with other people's outsides". It also gives my power away; if I am relying on your reinforcement to feel OK about myself, I will always come up wanting. To the degree that I do this, I am also removing God's influence from my life, because I am making your judgment and my comparison of myself to others my Higher Power.

What this is, though, is a form of bondage, and now that I can see the chains, I don't want them any more; they are too heavy, and hurt both me and others. What the Buddha taught is that the antidote to envy is mudita, or sympathetic joy. The basic premise in all of Buddhism is that we are intertwined and the idea of separation between us is illusory. Therefore, when any one of us is harmed, we are all harmed, and when any one of us is given gifts (safety, happiness, wholeness, happy events), then all of us benefit. On a more individual basis, what I have begun to discover is that the simple act of refusing to give in to that initial impulse to envy is enormously freeing, that I can merely make the choice not to compare, but to listen with a full and open heart to whatever is being said, or see whatever is being done without judgment. I compare it to popping soap bubbles—the envy arises, I poke it with awareness, and it dissipates.

This is the road to joy, which I believe to be the root aspiration of both the Buddhist and the recovery spiritual paths. When I drop the story line of envy, when I can simply be in the moment without judgment or comparison, I feel a spark of freedom. Ultimately, this freedom, this joy, is what I want more of, and is why I am willing to continue to strive, to "trudge this road of happy destiny".

Community

What is this yearning I feel, for a deeper connection to something larger than me? It makes me wonder if the deep-seated need for community is not rooted in our natures, an innate desire. Perhaps it derives from the prehistoric need for protection from predators and other dangers; to me, it feels that primal.

I just finished the book The Secret Life of Bees, and the sadness I felt was profound. The women (and some men) in this book have such a sense of community, of safety in their numbers. Frankly, I was (and am) envious. (Fiction has often done this to me: The Color Purple comes to mind, as does Jayber Crow, or nearly any other work by Wendell Berry; there are many others I have forgotten). Why should this warm envelopment in love be available to some and not to others? What is amiss in my life that such a community has never embraced me? Is this, perhaps, something which only happens in books?

Oh, I know, this sounds like self-pity (and there's a component of that, I confess), but I am more curious than irritated‚ why should this be so? Is community something to be expected, or merely an outgrowth of exceptional circumstances?

In Buddhism, the community is the sangha, a group of like-minded persons following the path of the dharma. It is one of the three jewels of Buddhist practice (the others being the Buddha and the dharma). Yet, my observation is that in Western society it is very difficult to bring together such a group with any consistency or true community to it. Our lives are too disparate, too far-flung, just flat-out too busy. In AA, the community is the home group, but this seems to face the same challenges as the sangha. We come together briefly for our mutual benefit, then flee back to our homes, our televisions, our I-Pods, and our computers.

I know what my sponsor would say: "If you want a community around you, build one. Be available and loving to those who make up your world and share your life." Or something like that. Easier said than done. It seems to me that our society is made up primarily of pseudo-communities; things like MySapce, blogs, chat rooms, church groups, even AA meetings. Though they certainly have value of themselves, they are no substitute for true community.

Of course, as I admitted above, this desire for community is (at least in part) envy, but there are many things I envy (youth, beauty, musical skills, intelligence, math aptitude, facility for languages among them). But I recognize that these are either entirely out of reach or merely choices I can make, to devote my time and energy to their acquisition. But this thing with community is a craving in me, and one I feel I have no tools to bring about.

But when I remember to truly seek God's will for me, I recall the words on acceptance in the stories in the back of the Big Book, "My serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations." I must "do whatever is in front of me to be done, and...leave the results up to Him; however it turns out, that's God's will for me." And the Buddha taught that the very source of suffering is craving; it is not circumstances which cause me to suffer, but my desire to have them be other than as they are, what Sylvia Boorstein calls "an unappeasable need." So, my sponsor, as usual, is right. I don't need to know how to build this thing I want—this intimacy, the camaraderie, this love—I merely need to love others and give of myself. The result will be God's will and will speak for itself.

Grief

My son is moving away from home next weekend. He is the only child we have, and very dear to us. Recently I have been quite "restless, irritable, and discontented", and didn't have any very clear idea why this should be. But this morning I realized I am feeling grief for the passing of the relationship my son and I have had.

Which is not to say it's not time. He is 24 years old, through college and a post-graduate certificate course, has job skills, and is just plain ready. He had good friends where he is moving, and is looking forward to beginning this phase of this life. And I am ready to begin a life with my wife, just the two of us. I am also ready to have the extra room to make into an office, to move our bedroom to the back of the house to avoid the street noise and the morning light. And all that. Of course, this also adds a component of guilt to the whole thing, since while I am sad he is leaving, I am eager for him to be gone. What a bad father I must be.

I recognize too that, as grief goes, this is a fairly minor one. He's only moving 150 miles away, and he's always been pretty good about keeping in touch when he was away. And, for heaven sakes, it's not like he's dead or something. I have noticed, though, that these relative comparisons really aren't very helpful. The pain I am feeling is the only pain I have at the moment, and there's nothing relative about it. That others may be feeling more grief than I am now is entirely irrelevant to the fact that I really don't want to be feeling this, and it hurts more than I want it to. What I need to strive for is acceptance.

The funny thing about acceptance is that, as far as I can tell, I need to know what it is I am accepting, what it is I am asking God to relieve me from before I get any measure of release from the pain. Which means that to the degree I am in denial, I am that much further away from feeling any better. I can ask to have revealed to me what is causing me pain, but until that revelation comes, I am pretty much stuck with what I am feeling. I have come to believe that this is as it should be, that I will be given the insight when it is time for me to have it, and until then, sitting with my undefined pain is precisely what I am supposed to be doing. Of course, this may sound self-serving to those who don't believe in the song of the universe which is always in perfect harmony, which is more or less my idea of God. I may be out of tune, but the universe is always just as it should be. "It is a lawful cosmos," as Buddhist teacher Joseph Goldstein likes to say.

So, this entry is the beginning, I hope, of my healing from this particular pain. Not that this sort of grief goes away entirely (does any grief leave us altogether?). But writing about it, acknowledging it, praying about it, talking to others about it, making it part of my meditation, all of this can help to find accommodation for it in my soul. It does not make me smaller to invite the grief in to share my house, it makes me larger and more able to find the room.

Cynicism

Before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, one thing upon which I most prided myself was my cynicism. I believed I could see through your motives without even trying, and that everyone was, like me, out for their own personal gain. For every example to the contrary I had a quick response: for the mother who sacrificed her own life to save her child, I would say, "Yes, because she didn't want to be thought of as a lousy mother who let her child die", and for those who gave of their time and energy because of their religious beliefs, "A purely selfish desire for salvation. If they didn't believe there was a heaven and a God who could send them there or elsewhere, they wouldn't lift a finger."

Now, the most interesting thing to me about my former cynicism is that I always thought of myself as being intellectually rigorous and entirely honest. It was those who fooled themselves into believing that they actually had some sort of selflessness who were being dishonest and mushy in their thinking. I have come to understand that--at least for me--cynicism may be the most blatant form of intellectual dishonesty there is. To assert that my conclusions on the world are entirely correct while being entirely unwilling to examine all of the available evidence which might refute them is the height of ignorance and is guaranteed to keep me ignorant.

Nor were my motives at all pure; while I may have seemed to myself to be courageous in my upright stand against what I saw as hypocrisy, I was really acting out of fear. I was constantly afraid of the uncertainty in the world, and needed this artificial certainty to feel safe. Indeed, if I had been certain of my opinions, I would have had no need to defend them so vociferously against those who challenged them. Which is not to say that I have been cured of my fear of uncertainty, but that the tools I have been given through AA and my study of the dharma allow me to recognize my fear for what it is and work toward coming to accept it as a part of my life. When our monsters become our familiars, they cease to have the power over us they once had.

A wonderful book to look at concerning this topic of the fear of uncertainty and how it rules our lives is Pema Chodron's Comfortable With Uncertainty.

May you all be well and at peace.

The illusion of control

Another of my defects of character, and one which leads almost inevitably to anger is the illusion of control, the idea that I can find permanent safety if I simply organize things well enough. Of course, you must also be organized by me, because the humans in my life are the most unpredictable (and therefore dangerous) elements. Unfortunately, of all the parts of my life in need of ordering, you humans seem to be the most intransigent to my ideas of how I think you should be molded. Damned ungrateful of you, if you ask me.

Not surprisingly, the Big Book of AA has an appropriate quote regarding this tendency: "Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well?" (pg. 61) [A little side note: it amuses me to observe in myself the fact that I want so badly to manage the grammar of the above quote, which I find awkward.]

This illusion of control is one aspect of what the Buddha meant by suffering. It is worthwhile to recall that, although there are thousands of teachings in the Buddhist canon, the Buddha himself said that he taught only two things: suffering and the end of suffering. The most succinct definition of suffering I have ever read is Sylvia Boorstein's: "Suffering is unappeasable need." We want to cling to that which gives us pleasure while keeping that which gives us pain always at a distance. These needs are unappeasable because they are impossible; pleasure leaves us and pain finds us, always. This is not a nihilistic philosophy, but a realistic one; the Buddha was not teaching a way of living so much as a way of looking at what is. One of the most common misconceptions in those who are unfamiliar with Buddhism is that the Buddha meant that one must suffer in order to be spiritually whole. What he truly taught is that we will suffer, whether we like it or not, and the key is how one relates to suffering.

But it is also important to remember the second half of what the Buddha taught, which is the end of suffering. How can one reach the end of suffering if suffering is inevitable? Isn't this antithetical? The answer is in the full and open acceptance of the reality of existence, an honest examination of what the nature of our suffering is, which leads in turn to the realization that our suffering and its sources are illusory, and the further realization that what we call "I" is also an illusion. If there is no "I", then there is no one who suffers, therefore there is no suffering. This is what the Buddha called nirvana.

I hasten to add that this non-self realization is one which comes at the very end of a long path, a path which most of us have just barely begun. I am nowhere near such a realization, but I have come to understand the possibility of it as something of an intellectual exercise, and as a goal to which I can aspire. For me, this is the Second Step's promise of restoration to sanity. (For a wonderful discussion of this idea of aspiration as a guiding force in leading a Buddhist life, see Sharon Salzberg's book Faith).

This idea of suffering and the end of suffering is, to me, identical to the concept of powerlessness in the First Step. I am powerless over alcohol and everything else in my life, and my life is most certainly unmanageable. This idea that I can "manage" my life is the illusion of control from which I suffer so much.

In the third edition of the Big Book, on page 449 (in the fourth edition on page 417) are some of the most oft-quoted words in AA: "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today." This, and the words that follow are one of the most eloquent descriptions of how this urge to control causes me to suffer, leads me to create suffering in the lives of others, and puts me at risk of the misery which leads to relapse into active addiction.

Anger

That which I call demons and the story metaphorically calls tigers in the previous posts is what we in recovery refer to as character defects. Anger seems to be the defect of character from which I suffer most. It has been my observation that anger is always fear in some form or another, even if at the moment I feel it I cannot identify the fear involved.

One of my major fears, now that I am at a point of my recovery where the most frequent experiences of discomfort in sobriety have passed, is that some action of mine or another person, place, thing, or institution will come along to put me out of balance and that I will then suffer that acute discomfort I felt when I was first getting sober. Being a good Buddhist, though, I recognize (intellectually, anyway) that of course things will come along that will make me uncomfortable. Some of them might even make me feel truly awful, such as the death of a loved one or a serious illness. When my balance is threatened, I feel a surge of anger and find it almost beyond my abilities to keep my tongue or pen in check.

This happened to me just yesterday, at an AA event, no less. One of my fellow recovering alcoholics (I want to describe him as "blowhard" and "pompous," my impulse being to set up the expectation in a reader and myself that he was at fault and I am blameless) expressed an opinion I was sure was incorrect, so I interrupted him to let him know that he was proceeding down an errant path. He didn't appreciate the interruption and made sure to let me know about it later; this made me angry (the method, not his message), and I had to walk away to avoid a confrontation.

One of the problems with anger is that it is so unworkable. It is a hot coal I can't hold for long enough in my calm observation to find where it can be taken apart and examined. For me, this is why the recognition of anger as fear is so helpful. If my anger is fear and the other person's is also, I can feel compassion for us both, and with this compassionately held fear, come to an understanding of what my part is in the confrontation.

Which is not to say that the other person in nearly any confrontation does not also have a large part (perhaps the larger part) in the creation of the situation which induces anger. However, as the book Alcoholics Anonymous says (pg. 66), "to conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got". What I must do is find it in my heart to forgive their part, to pray that their anger and its sources to be eased, and then to identify what in me caused this situation to be a problem for us both. When I find what my part was, then I can make amends to the person I offended and pray that the character defect which caused the flare-up be removed. At that point, I must turn the situation over to God and let it be. To bring something up in my mind over and over again is only to cause myself harm. In fact, the root meaning of the word resentment is "to feel again." No solution is to be found in this action; it must be let go. As the old saying goes, "resentment is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die."

Why this insistence on letting go of the problem once it has been addressed to the best of our ability? Because, to quote once again from Alcoholics Anonymous (pg. 66): "It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while....For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit."

Searching For Tigers

Joseph Goldstein, one of the pre-eminent dharma teachers in the US, once told this story: a group of Buddhist monks in the Thai forest tradition were asked to go for an extended meditation in the forest. One of the primary reasons they were asked to do this was to confront their fears; they had good reason to fear being out in the forest because in those days wild animals roamed the forest, always hungry for whatever was available, not hesitating to eat humans when the opportunity arose. One day the monks were walking meditatively through the forest when, sure enough, a tiger leapt out from behind a tree and began to maul one of them. Seeing there was nothing they could do to help their fellow monk, the other hid behind trees and yelled encouragement to him, telling him to remain mindful so that the present suffering might lead him to enlightenment. The story goes that he was indeed able to remain in the present moment, even as he was being eaten alive, and achieved Nirvana. Joseph ends the story by saying, "Now, of course, we shouldn't go searching for tigers...."

I respectfully disagree. At least for those of us in recovery, searching for tigers is precisely what we should be doing. Why? Because until we come face to face with our demons and recognize them for what they are, we will never recover, we will never move past that which stands between us and the sunlight of the spirit. The 4th, 5th, 8th, and 9th Steps deal specifically with these "tigers", and when we balk at doing so, we have the experience of remaining restless, irritable, and discontented.

I hope to expand more on this theme in the future.

Hello and welcome.

This is a new experience for me, not having been an active member of the "blogosphere" up to this point. However, I recognize the power of blogs to affect the world, and hope to add a bit of my own knowledge to the topic of recovery. I look forward to this experience and hope some others will join me on the journey. Major topics: Buddhism and recovery, Buddhism and alcoholism, Buddhism and AA, the nature of spirituality; is AA a Christian program?