STEP 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Koan: Step by step in the dark— if your foot’s not wet, it found the stone.
~ Shaku Soyen
Don’t you just love it when you have it all “mapped out” – then finding yourself going in the opposite direction – AND it’s still OK? This is how it went for us last Friday, when I thought this koan would take us in one direction; then two people flipped the subject with opposite views. This was just another affirmation of the many ways koans show up in our lives.
There’s just so much activity in this koan:Step by step brought a smile to my face since working the Steps is paramount to my recovery. I have worked the Steps, we are sitting with Step 6, and step by step indicates that we are going somewhere, headed in a direction, and hopefully making some progress. Entirely ready indicates willingness, a willingness to take steps in some form or another. In the beginning we find ourselves in the dark. Of course, this is where we begin, in our disease, separated from who we really are.
Not only did I find myself in the dark, I was slogging in a wet swamp of darkness. I’ve ended up on dry ground, my feet are dry now (well, most of the time). There’s that point in time, a realization when I became willing or entirely ready. It’s at that point that I realized my foot wasn’t wet. I found the stone; I found my way out of the darkness. This is where trust comes in, trusting the direction I’m headed and realizing that now that I’m on firm ground, recovery is possible. More than possible, it’s actually happening in my life.
Here are some short examples of what others had to say:
- I have to make myself ready by using the Steps and knowing I’m on a good path. The spirit within me guides me as I’m stepping in the dark.
- The rock is a positive; the water a minus; darkness is my powerlessness. You know, before doing something new, they say you have to first get your feet wet? Just beginning to get my feet wet was me doing my Steps.
Water played the main role. Water equals emotion, and water equals the Tao. My defects and up being a huge barrier, like a big rock. Water can wear down a big rock. My Higher Power can wear down my barriers … and this also reminds me of Step Seven. [A couple of people said they didn’t like the word “defects” in the Steps and much preferred the word “barriers”.]
- I’m not slogging in the dark anymore. This Step helped me to climb onto a large rock. My practice is rock solid now.
- Willingness – I don’t want to be that person anymore (old behavior). Step by step walking in the dark…I’m moving from darkness to sunlight, from wet to dry.
- I’m new here. I try to figure everything out. I don’t know about faith so I’m always walking in the dark. But I’m getting a glimpse now … I have to feel it, I can’t figure it all out. I’m trying to be in the moment and feel my emotions.
- I just learned that my grandbaby’s leukemia has returned after 6 months of remission. My mother died last week and I was named her executor …where I live on the West coast and all my siblings on the East coast. It’s about having good intentions no matter what is happening in my life. Step by step in the dark.
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Koan study is a practice. Most of the people who are showing up at our zendo for 12 & Zen have very little practice with koans, so part of what I'm trying to do here is teach a little about sitting with them.
Any part of the koan will work for you. I've said this from time to time. And the koan is about you, right now. In my own practice these phrases have leaked into my 12 Step practice. I sit with the Steps differently now. Any part of the Step I am sitting with will work for me. I am in this Step right now. I think this is what we are doing here.
This is also why I emphasize carrying this koan with you for a while. It has more to give. And over time, just as a Step will appear with a pertinent message for you, the koans will do the same.
Happy summertime,
Bill K.
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