Steps, Prayers, Precepts, Vows, Truths & Paths
The Recovery of Recovery Language
from the forthcoming book Zen Mind, Recovery Heart by Mel Ash
If you don't break rules
You're not human:
You're a jackass.
-Zen master Ikkyu
It's time to get rid of "God", or at least remove "him" from the steps. It's time to get rid of the sexist, patriarchal "he" and "him" and render the language human-friendly.
It's time to make recovery available to people of all religions and even none at all. It's time to remove the hierarchical language encouraging a pyramid of often self-serving leadership in recovery. Not in a PC-ish fussy sort of way, but in a manner reflecting society as it is today and as it will be in the future.
It's time to change the language because words hurt as much as they can heal; because words are viruses that can infect and kill our spirits if wielded incorrectly, nearly spell-like; because recovery should be about recovery and not about ideology or –isms, even good –isms.
It's about you and it's about me, and you and I are two different animals needing very different and customized sets of operating instructions.
Bill W. himself was a visionary who surely would have spoken in today's tongue. His documented experiments with LSD and Hindu meditation point to his wide approach and embrace of the non-Western and alternative. Can we be any less daring in our life and death search?
The tragedy of all this limiting, dated language is that many people have probably died of their addictive diseases because of feeling rejected or unwelcome in meetings. If recovery's goal is saving people, then let's start by giving it more than lip service: change the words. Change the language you use to describe reality and you realize you can change reality itself: this is the secret of both Buddhism and recovery.
My first book, The Zen of Recovery, was written in large part as a response to the language that excluded me as a Buddhist when I entered recovery. I was fortunate to be able to look (or hear or read) the other way sometimes. My desperation to stop drinking enabled me to interpret the steps and literature in personal terms.
Others are not so hip to language and need clear, inclusive and friendly instructions on how to get better. They really don't have the time or health to play word games.
In the Zen tradition, the sacred is good for a laugh and is never held holier than the life it is meant to save and serve. Words, books, even religious statues are all fair game in the Great Work of recovering our true, shining natures.
To substitute beliefs, even 12 Step or Zen beliefs, for substances and compulsive behaviors, like many of us do in our pursuit of sobriety, is really no recovery at all, just a change of labels really. It is the release from addiction to unlimited self that is our ultimate goal on this work. Don't settle for anything less! Zen and the 12 Steps are means to an end, rafts across a river of suffering, nothing more. Reach the other shore in safety; leave the raft for the next seeker. Now you are free of everything, even your recovery!
How to Mock the Gods & Recover at the Same Time
There is a story told about the Zen master I studied with, that when he attained that ever elusive state of "enlightenment", he turned the Buddha statue on the temple altar around, making it face the wall when the other monks filed in for their shocked morning meditation.
Other older Zen stories concerning this phenomenon abound. One newly awakened Buddha was found warming his hands over the burning wooden Buddha statue in the fireplace. The monk claimed that there being no wood available, the statue was performing the highest act of compassion left to it.
Yet another new Zen master was caught wiping his ass with the sutras, or holy Buddhist scriptures. Another is rumored to have torn them up! One of the correct answers to the Zen koan "What is Buddha?" is "Dried shit on a stick."
People from Western traditions of spirituality are often appalled to hear of things like this, especially from the mouths of otherwise devout monks and Zen teachers. They look puzzled as the Buddhists roar in laughter after having put one over on the Buddha who, of course, can't defend himself, being only a statue of plaster and gold paint, only a name in an old book.
It's hard to put something as eternal, formless and sacred as laughter on altars or in books or in 12 steps, so maybe that's the reason for all the statues and stuff. They're supposed to be the butts of our jokes, not the "buts" in our lives.
Maybe to someone who has woken up from this seemingly serious world of suffering, especially terminal addiction to substance or self, everything seems like a big joke that's being played on us, even the gods who've been doing more than their share of laughing at us.
Maybe everything is equally holy to the awakened and equally mundane as well. No big deal.
The statue I have of the Buddha has a faint, almost sarcastic and mocking smile. Does he know something I don't? Does he know that I forgot trash day again? Does he know I could really use that shelf he's sitting on?
I'll get to it next week if I don't forget again.
And that A.A. Big Book shouldn't look so damned smug, either!
Gates, Not Steps
So in the spirit of the awakened and recovered, I offer a tentative step toward language that includes rather than excludes and heals rather than hurts. I humbly offer "The 12 Gates of Zen Recovery", written in language that springs from my head, heart and experience of of Zen and the 12 steps.
I use the words "gates" instead of "steps" in the traditional Zen sense of spiritual practice being a succession of passages through temple gates, or openings, toward the final goal of wellness and clarity.
These gates are not meant to replace the original steps or to be taken as holy writ by the reader. If you find them helpful, wonderful! I'd encourage you to write or revise your own as an exercise in clarifying your practice and recovery model.
The gates should be especially useful to people following a non-Western spiritual path or even the Path of No-Path. Most of the terms used should be interpreted by the reader as "fill-in-the-blanks" rather than as unchanging definitions. You decide and become my co-author as you read and interpret these gates to yourself.
You'll find that you "fill in the blank" differently at different times in your recovery, just as the blank that you are is continually re-filled and re-defined by life itself. Our language should be as flexible and flowing as our lives themselves. . .
The 12 Gates of Zen Recovery
We accepted unconditionally that Control is Illusion and Attachment is Suffering, that we ourselves make and unmake our realities.
Awoke to the possibility that our Original Minds could restore us to Clarity.
Set foot on a Path to re-claim our awareness of the world as it really is, not as we may wish it to be.
Made a mindful and unflinching examination of our karma.
Acknowledged publicly and privately the negative effects of our karma on all beings.
Opened ourselves to Compassion.
Without ego, released our attachment to personal history and changed the direction of our karma.
Remembered all beings affected by our karma and reached out to them in compassion, with no thought of results.
Restored relationships where possible except when to do so would result in the creation of more bad karma.
Continued to practice compassion for ourselves and others on a daily basis.
Sought to stay awake and aware at all times, practicing mindfulness moment-to-moment, a day at a time, reclaiming our true natures.
Having had a recovery or awakening as a result of entering these gates, we vowed to save all beings from addictive suffering.
The Compassion (Serenity) Prayer
Original Mind, Awaken me to
the Mindfulness to embrace the karma I cannot change,
the Compassion to save beings from suffering when I can
and the Insight and Wisdom to remain still.
New Zen Recovery Clichés
Moment to moment (Day at a time)
Just breathe (Easy Does It)
Let go and become your true self (Let Go and Let God)
Meditate, meditate, meditate (Meetings, meetings, meetings)
Don't think and be mindful (Don't drink and go to meetings)
Sit on the floor, take the karma out of your ears and put the dharma in your mouth (Sit in the front row, take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth)
Right now! (Just for today)
Just do it! (Do it Clean and Sober)
It's the first think that gets you thunk (It's the first drink that gets you drunk)
The 4 Noble Truths, 8-Fold Path, 5 Precepts and 4 Great Vows of Zen Recovery
The Recovery of Zen Language
Having transliterated the steps, serenity prayer and other revered recovery literature into Zen-friendly language, it's only fair that we examine a few of Zen Buddhism's most important tenets and scriptures in the same way.
Upon his awakening, Buddha's first teaching was the "Four Noble Truths", in which he traced the cause and cure for suffering.
Similar to recovery theory, his discovery and formulation identified attachment and desire as the source of our diseases and even human births. His next teaching was that of the "Eight Fold Path," a program of recovery similar to the 12 steps. It is on these two primary teachings that all Buddhist practice depends.
Zen was a further development of the original teaching and evolved in response to Buddhism's absorption of Chinese Taoism when Bodhidharma went to China from India as a missionary. The word "Zen" simply means to "sit in meditation" and is descended from the Sanskrit word "dhyana" meaning virtually the same thing.
Zen, as it evolved in China (C'han), Korea (Son), Japan (Zen) and now the West (?) became an agnostic, almost psychological technique for paying attention and transcending limits, depending upon meditation as its primary method. It does not address questions of the hereafter or of morality or divinity. It is, Zen masters say, simply "everyday mind."
The Four Noble Truths of Zen Recovery
To be separated from our original sane and sober natures is suffering.
Suffering is caused by addictive, compulsive thinking.
Addictive, compulsive thinking can be arrested and our original natures recovered.
Our true natures can be recovered by following:
The Eight-Fold Path of Zen Recovery
Clear admission of powerlessness
Clear belief in a higher/deeper power
Clear examination of karma
Clear willingness for change
Clear amends
Clear effort
Clear conscious contact
Clear bodhisattva action
To demonstrate their acceptance of the dharma, or teachings of the Buddha, Zen students take a number of formal precepts or promises, much like people in recovery admit to their addictions and therefore qualify as "members." The precepts are not commandments or laws in the western sense, but broad ethical guidelines for practice and behavior conducive to awakening and recovery. They can be seen as tactics rather than strictures.
Lay people usually take five precepts in order to become a formal Zen Buddhist and they are here translated for those of us in recovery:
The Five Precepts of Zen Recovery
I vow to abstain from harming life, my own and all others, by remaining mindful and recovering.
I vow to abstain from taking things not freely offered, including other people's inventories.
I vow not to harm myself or others with self-destructive behaviors stemming from compulsive, addictive thinking.
I vow to abstain from lying to myself and others about the nature of my compulsive disease since honesty and admission is the gateway to recovery.
I vow to abstain from intoxicants and behaviors that obscure my true nature and cause suffering to myself and others.
Zen Buddhists worldwide reiterate "The Four Great Vows" aloud daily as part of their spiritual practice, thereby reminding themselves of the purpose of their effort. These four really add up to our 12th step and are re-written here with that in mind. They might be a nice way to start a sober and spiritual day or to end a 12 step meeting:
The Four Great Vows of Zen Recovery
Compulsive Beings are Numberless:
I vow to save them all.
Addictions are Endless:
I vow to extinguish them all.
The Clean and Sober Mind is Inconceivable:
I vow to attain it.
May all beings be happy!
Mel Ash/Jeong Mu