Step 12: Finding "your self" in Step Twelve

Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and practice these principles in all our affairs.

‘What is your self?’

     ~ Yunmen, fragment from Case 87, Blue Cliff Record

     “This fragment comes from a famous koan, one of my favorite: ‘Medicine and sickness heal each other; ‘The whole world is medicine; What are you?’ Indeed, what and who are we? There probably is no more important question in our lives.”

-- Jon Joseph Roshi

I began by sitting with Step 12 and this koan fragment, just as Jon Joseph did.  Little did I know that the others in the room were drawn to the entire koan of “The whole world is medicine; what are you?” 

Do you remember the board game CLUE? “It was Col. Mustard in the library with a knife…”

This is where I found my self.  As in solving a mystery, I had to ask questions… Who? What? When? Where? How? And Why? With each question, a little more of my self was revealed. How would you answer these?

·      Who is working Step 12? 

·      What am I doing here?

·      When am I ready to do Step 12?

·      Where does this take me?

·      How thoroughly am I doing this Step?

·      Why (reason for) am I doing this?

December 8  [Grapevine Quote of the Day]

"The reason we try to carry the message is so that we stay sober. If the person we are helping stays sober, that's an extra bonus."

Austin, TX, May 2003 

    "What I Learned From My Sponsor"  

                                                                                          I Am Responsible: The Hand of AA 

Dale’s usual approach to 12 and Zen is to move from the Step to the koan.  This week it was turned around -- he started with the koan. This wasn’t planned.  It was simply how it happened.

So, medicine and sickness heal each other.  The whole world is medicine. What is your self?  As I sat with the koan it seemed it was channeling me toward identifying my self as sickness.  Identifying my self as "sickness" was really uncomfortable for me.  It was being in a state of dis-ease.  But I stayed with this and gradually I moved to focusing on healing.  And I realized that medicine and sickness represent two aspects of the healing process.  So my focus shifted to "healing."  Then I saw my "self" as being that which heals.  Both the object of healing and the subject that takes healing out into the world. At that point I was able to move to Step 12: We become sober through the 12 steps.  In other words we heal.  We then try to share that healing with others.  As it says in A Vision for You, ask in your morning meditation "what you can do each day for the man who is still sick."

Elsie, found herself taking a different approach, and a different Step, too.  When she thought about “the self”, she went to Step 4.  “That’s where I really discovered who I had become,” she said, "In order to get sober I had to begin with the self I had discovered in Step Four. 

What a journey we’re on!.  In our own way we find ourselves climbing onto the caboose of a 12-Step train (Step 1); and eventually, with the help of a sponsor, make our way to the engine (Step 12). How we’ve changed by working the Steps, and awakened to what it means to be who we are …who we have become.

Bill K.

Step 11: Sought through prayer and listening...

Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Koan: Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no wind stirs.

This koan comes from the story of Ryonen, a remarkable woman Zen teacher, living in 17th Century Japan.  Commemorating when Master Hakuo accepted her as a disciple, she wrote this poem on the back of a mirror:



In the service of my Empress I burned incense to
perfume my exquisite clothes,
Now as a homeless mendicant I burn my face to
enter a Zen temple.

When Ryonen was about to pass from this world, she wrote this poem:

Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld the changing
scene of autumn.
I have said enough about moonlight,
Ask no more.
Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no
wind stirs.

The other day I read a piece about Christian meditation techniques, where it said the word meditate or meditation is mentioned only twenty times in the Bible.  It explained meditation as a cognitive process, “…focusing on biblical thoughts and reflecting on their meaning.”  This is my understanding what the writers of the Big Book meant, too – meditation was to reflect upon. Today, just as we choose our own Higher Power,  we also choose our own kind of meditation, something that suits us.  Meditating with Zen koans in a non-traditional way, as we do here, is one of countless varieties of meditation practiced by our twelve step members. The choice is yours, the 11th Step suggests doing it.

I often say at meetings, “I can't listen when I’m talking,” and the same is true in Step Eleven.  I absolutely have to say my prayers, and equally important, I must listen. This got me wondering -- what if Step 11 began with, "Sought through prayer and listening?"

What are my distractions?  Mostly everything in my head ... my thoughts and the stories I tell myself.  These are the winds in my life. “Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no wind stirs.”  Sought through prayer and listening…


Have you ever ridden in a hot air balloon?  This koan reminds me of when I took a balloon ride.  I had do idea what to expect.  First, there’s the deafening noise of the burning propane, blasting hot air to fill up the balloon.  When all was right with the balloon pilot, we had reached suitable altitude, he turned the propane off.  Instantly it was quiet...pure quiet.   It was even more amazing to experience the balloon (and us) moving above the landscape and not feeling any breeze against my face.  No resistance. Then I realized it was because we were traveling exactly the same speed of the wind.  How could we do otherwise? We were literally riding the wind.  We were experiencing what the wind experiences. No resistance, we were in harmony with the present conditions. We were balloon.

The wind is always a part of my life whether I feel it or not.  The wind of chatter in my head, the stories I tell myself, the distraction from whatever is happening at the moment. And when riding aloft it was just balloon – when no wind stirs, just the voice of pines and cedars.  When no wind stirs, just my Higher Power and listen to... Whatever needs to be heard will be heard.

- - -

These koans have their way, no matter how we sit with them.  A friend has been pretty stressed out from work for a while.  When he heard the koan we were using, not much happened.  Then it began appearing at unexpected times.  Just waking up, his mind already lining up all sorts of errands and places to go in the day collapsed into "...the voice of pines and cedars when no wind stirs." He laughed, took a breath, and noticed the pine tree in his backyard.

In the book The Hidden Lamp, Wendy Egyoku Nakao writes about Ryonen (who burned her face with a hot iron in order to be admitted into a Zen temple) and asks us, "What would you be willing to sacrifice in order to awaken and find freedom?"

And so, as usual, we practice this in all our affairs...

Bill K.

Step 10: It's only for your benefit

Step 10:  Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
 
Koan: One day when Dongshan and a monk were washing their bowls, they saw two crows fighting over a frog. The monk asked, “Why does it always have to be like that?”
Dongshan replied, “It’s only for your benefit, honored one.”
 

Crows, tearing apart the frog – it’s a picture we don’t want to look at.  But we have to.  We’ve all experienced that “tearing-my-guts-out” feeling.  When I realize what I said or did to someone else, knowing I was wrong in doing it, that now I need to make amends ASAP, it is only then where the pain begins to subside.  So actually, we do want to look at this picture in all its gore, the picture we have drawn.  My feelings of remorse in situations like this tear me up; I am the frog.

Eventually, one or both of these crows end up eating the frog.  The frog is nourishment, a natural process for survival.  Step 10 is also a natural process leading to our own well-being, a necessity for our very survival lest resentments develop and we return to drinking and our old behavior.

Knowing that a situation has developed where I need to do a Step 10, but not doing it, this is a form of self-inflicted violence. Hopefully more sooner than later, I choose to apologize to the person I’ve hurt – make amends – attempt to set things right.  For the most part, having done a Step 10, the feelings that were tearing me up usually subside and eventually die. Dale H. refers to Step 10 as a spiritual axiom, where “I always have to look at my role, my own defects no matter what has happened. Looking at self is absolutely to my benefit."

Page 84 in the Big Book: No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.  It doesn’t say just good experiences, or successful experiences, or extraordinary experiences – just experiences – all of them. Who among us has not learned from the person who returns to drinking?

Dale emailed me today saying he wanted to share a few lines from his Pema Chodron reading for this morning:

"Instead of asking ourselves, 'How can I find security and happiness?' we could ask ourselves, 'Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away?  Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace --- disappointment in all its many forms --- and let it open me?' This is the trick.

This is the benefit as I understand it.  Can I allow the violence and suffering of life as I perceive it to "open" me?"

Step 10 and all it touches is absolutely for my benefit ... and for others, too.

And then at the end, Dongshan ends his sentence, addressing the monk as "honored one".   What's this about?  Oh yeah...what a privilege it is to be sober (alive), to be able to experience the benefits we receive from the universe.





Bill K.

Steps 8 and 9 -- "Then wash your bowls."

Have you eaten?

Step 8:  Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Step 9:  Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Koan: A monk made a request of Joshu:  “I have just entered the monastery.  Please teach me.”
Joshu asked, “Have you eaten?” 

Then wash your bowls.

The monk replied, “Yes, I have eaten.”
“Then,” said Joshu, “wash your bowls.”  At that moment, the monk had an insight.
(Case #7, Gateless Barrier)

Joshu asked, “Have you eaten?” He’s already begun to teach the monk how to be a good host.

The group came together quickly with this koan, with similar insights.  Step 8 is like filling our sink full of dirty dishes.  The longer they sit, the worse off it will be, the harder to clean off dried food, and taken to the extreme, a yuck factor develops. The longer we avoid going to Step 9, the worse off it becomes, especially if we long for relief from our condition.

After cooking and eating a meal, the most natural thing to do is to clean things up. “Then wash your bowls,” said Joshu.  This is exactly the same dynamic Steps 8 and Step 9.  Instead of bowls, I’m cleaning up after myself; I’m attempting to clean up my past deeds.  This is the next best action.

Most of our Step 8 list comes from our Step 4 and 5 experiences.  And more often than not, when compiling the Step 8 list, we remember new items to add.  All of this is like a sink full of dirty dishes.  Relief only comes from washing one dish at a time. 

This is being a good host, too; treating myself well, and doing the things I need to stay sober.  In time, I'm rewarded with a cupboard full of clean, usable dishes; ready for serving others.



Bill K.

Where are you going?

This month, instead of sitting with one particular Step, we sat with all twelve Steps and this koan.  I wonder what Step(s) will resonate for you?

Koan: Where are you going?

The first five minutes, we sat with this.  Then I read the full koan story:

Zen teachers train their young pupils to express themselves. Two Zen temples each had a child protege. One child, going to obtain vegetables each morning, would meet the other on the way.

"Where are you going?" asked the one.

"I am going wherever my feet go," the other responded.

This reply puzzled the first child who went to his teacher for help. "Tomorrow morning," the teacher told him, "when you meet that little fellow, ask him the same question. He will give you the same answer, and then you ask him: 'Suppose you have no feet, then where are you going?' That will fix him."

The children met again the following morning.

"Where are you going?" asked the first child.

"I am going wherever the wind blows," answered the other.This again nonplussed the youngster, who took his defeat to the teacher.

Ask him where he is going if there is no wind," suggested the teacher.

The next day the children met a third time.

"Where are you going?" asked the first child.

"I am going to the market to buy vegetables," the other replied.

Roger:  I think the cumulative effect of the Steps provide three things; to diminish ego, to connect to Spirit, and to live in the present moment.  Tonight, no single Step came to me.

I’m a “on-the-go” kind of person, going places and doing things all day long.  This koan posed a different question for me.  What if I’m not going anywhere?  Just being…being in the moment.

Elsie: Part of my daily ritual is to ask myself, Who am I, What am I, and Where am I going? So this koan is comfortable for me.  I’m also a busy person and miss the peace in the moment.  I rush too much.  A teacher once said to me, “The small things I tell myself are the big things that are barely there.”  Step 8 came to me this evening, as I attempt to tell myself that I’m going to become willing to be at peace, to stop rushing matters.

Dale:  I start my day recognizing that I’m on a path.  Breathing in and out, taking a moment to consider where I’ll be going.  Not a shopping list, but more like I’ll be going to a meeting, I may drop by that store, my sponsee will be coming by, etc.  Steps 3 and 11 came to me this evening.  I’ll be going where my Higher Power wants me to go is the Step 3 part.  In Step 11 it begins with “Upon awakening…,”  we think of our day, we think of where we may be going.

The longer version of this koan seemed to set the tone of where I went this evening.  The one boy replied, “I’m going wherever my feet go.”  A perplexing answer, it morphed into, I’m going to consider all the Steps tonight.  This became a circular room with 12 doors, each door numbered with a Step.

“I’m going wherever the wind blows,” was another answer.  Perhaps I’ll be blown into one or more of the rooms.  Sitting, sitting, some doors seemed ajar while others remained closed. Then the Step 12 door flung open.  I was blown inside.  That’s where I went.

“Having had a spiritual awakening …” this is my starting point. Before one goes to somewhere, one has to come from somewhere.  What a great place to start, spiritually awakened! And where am I going?  I’m going “to carry this message to alcoholics...” That’s not all – I’m going “to practice these principles in all [my] affairs.”

The second boy’s final response, “I’m going to the market to buy vegetables.”  I’ve worked Step 12 and now it’s working me, providing me with a sack-full of benefits.

Bill K.

Step 7: What is the Way?

A reminder of the Way 

Step 7:  Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Koan:  “What is the Way?  A clearly enlightened person falls in a well.”

What is the Way?

What way comes to you?  Is it he supreme Way?  We’re told that the way to stay sober is to integrate all the Steps into all aspects of our life.  And here we’re asking, what is the way to do Step 7?

Is there a special, top-secret way to do Step 7?  Not really … experience shows us that we can be working this Step and not realize it. In the beginning, when we are new, we’re given a tip to what works, what helps in efficiency and effectiveness and gets better results to working this Step.  To be humble in this matter as we relate to our Higher Power and, I think, being sincere is also helpful.

After all, in Step 3 it tells us that selfishness and self-centeredness is at the root of our problem.  Now that we’ve gone through Steps 4-6, we would hope that some of the “self” has been whittled away.

A clearly enlightened person – a clearly God-conscious person -- who is this?

It’s you and I of course.   Buddha means the enlightened one.  Whatever this enlightenment is, we already have it. We are already enlightened, we are already Buddhas.  From another perspective, we already have God-consciousness.  It’s just that most of the time we don’t realize this.

But I don’t feel enlightened.  I don’t feel close to God.  I’m not perfect; I make mistakes; I’ll always have shortcomings AND I fall in a well at times.  This is what clearly enlightened people do.  Just when I feel a shortcoming has been removed, some person will push my buttons and BAM, the shortcoming returns in all its glory.  I’ve fallen into the well again.

We're human beings.  We fall down.  We're always falling down.

What do I do when I find myself at the bottom of the well…again?  Climb out, of course!  Just realizing where I am is a good thing.  It’s during the climbing out when my whispered 7th Step prayer has more sincerity.

It’s establishing a contact with my Higher Power who will help me get out of the well. Once out, I can go about my life with a new perspective at what just took place, as well as more engaging practice of Step 7. Then, the next time it happens, and it will, when I find myself at the bottom of the well, my practice of the Way pays off.

Bill K.

Step 6: Not the Wind, Not the Flag That Moves

Step 6:  Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Koan:  The wind was flapping a temple flag, and two monks were having an argument about it.  One said, “The flag is moving.” The other said, “The wind is moving.”  They argued back and forth but could not reach the truth.  The sixth ancestor said, “It is not the wind that moves.  It is not the flag that moves.  It is your mind that moves.” The two monks were struck with awe.

The Gateless Gate # 29

The flag is moving …no, the wind is moving – Take all my defects … You don't really mean ALL of them.  Really?  I can keep "that" one a little longer?  My mind is moving...

“Were entirely ready…”

I’m not ready until I’m ready.  This is very much like “admitted I was powerless …came to believe and made a decision…” Conditions have to be met, just as conditions have to be met before winds appear; but for me, the condition comes from somewhere outside myself, and certainly not my self will. 

Here it’s my mind that’s moving.  Moving from today to tomorrow, from subject to object, from this story to that story.  My mind seems to be always moving –but there are times when it’s still.  Meditation helps still my mind.  In reality, my mind is moving AND still; but the moving part drowns out the still part. Perhaps it’s in the stillness where we become ready, in the stillness of  prayer.

“…to have God remove all these defects of character.”

This is my prayer in the 7th Step.  In Step 6 I’m just getting ready.  How do I get ready?  I think this goes back to our 3rd Step, where at least a thin layer of trust is growing. This gives me the wherewithal to be entirely ready.

But even when my prayers are sincere, there’s my self will to reckon with, and sooner or later I find that I’ve taken something back, even before giving it to the universe – much like the two monks, “The flag is moving … the wind is moving...”

It is my mind that is moving.  It all comes back to my mind – this wonderful, habitual, delusional mind of mine.  In our discussion yesterday evening, we seemed to be in agreement with this.  “When I’m ready,” one person replied, “I’m ready to open up to things, yes, open to change!”

The wind is blowing ...no, Nicky's hair is blowing...

Bill K

Step 5: Light Comes To a Dark Place

We were at Step 4 last month.  That can be a dark place, going over our past deeds – drenched in guilt, shame and remorse.

Step 5:  Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Koan:  Step by step in the dark—
if your foot’s not wet, it found the stone.

~ Shaku Soyen

I see movement here in both the koan and Step 5.

·      In the koan it’s dark, we’re not sure where we are going…but we are moving -- only to realize that our foot is not wet anymore!

·      In going from Step 4 and now working Step 5, we are also moving.  Those who never finish Step 4 remain in the dark – those who complete Step 5 move beyond the dark, toward freedom.

·      Eventually completing our Steps (I know, I’m jumping way ahead), we come to realize, now we own our history instead of that history owning us.

Remember the last time, crossing a creek, when you accidentally slipped off the rock?  Plunge! Instantly from dry to frigid wet! For the moment, there’s no going back to dry.  The universe is wet foot.

The opposite may be happening when our sponsor says it’s time to go onto Step 6.  The dark and drenched feeling of Step 4 has been lifted by working Step five -- as if reaching high ground, high, dry, solid ground.

I asked D.H. to write down some thoughts from yesterday’s 12 & Zen meeting:

“For the week before the meeting, I found myself trying to "sit" with the step and the koan.  It was a disjointed experience, as if I couldn't piece together the parts of a puzzle, despite knowing that, in truth, the parts did fit together.  So I wasn't at all sure where the meditation on Friday night would take me ... if anywhere.

At the start of the meditation Bill referenced Step 4 -- the inventory we make of the "darkness" of our drinking and using lives.  As I began my meditation, the reference to step 4 seemed to become a springboard.  As my meditation deepened I experienced a recognition that for years into my sobriety I was "doing" steps 4 and 5 around the darkness of my history -- dealing with the Post Traumatic Stress resulting from childhood sexual and physical abuse, with my discovery of drugs and alcohol, and with 26 years of acting out and becoming, in effect, the abuser of myself.

As I moved through the meditation, it seemed as if the koan became a moment-by-moment, breath-by-breath guide.  I was able to acknowledge being with the darkness (perhaps observing it is a better explanation) without dipping my foot into it (my foot did not get wet).  And so in each moment and with each breath I found the stone on which to safely plant my foot.”

- - -

This same koan on a little different perspective brought a smile to my face.

Step by step in the dark = Do the Steps!
-- if your foot’s not wet, = If you’ve stopped drinking and using,
it found the stone. = Life will get better.

The more I sit with this koan, the more it seems to fit any Step.  If you have Type O blood, you are considered a universal blood donor.  Give this koan a try with all the Steps.  Keep it handy.  More will be revealed.


Bill K.

Step 4: Look! There's a Fire!

Step 4:  Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Koan: Put out that fire across the river.

Who or what started this fire?  What is it consuming?  Who is it consuming?
These are the questions to ask while sitting today.

-----

This seems serious with a command sounding, “Put out that fire across the river!”  There’s a burning fire; and it’s a threat to something or someone.  Uncontrolled fires are serious.  Fighting fires takes courage, stamina, and special skills.  Do you remember the fire triangle?

But the fire is across the river and no threat to me, right?  The river is a barrier between the fire and me. Why do I need to fight it if it’s over there?  Remember, this koan and Step 4 is all about you.  Can you recall any barriers (or rivers) when you were doing Step Four:

• The river of fear?
• The river of denial?
• The river of procrastination?
• The river of delusion?
• The river of dishonesty?

Step Four is about digging into our past actions and finding how we have wronged and hurt others and ourselves.  That’s the fire that’s burning within us all.  In Zen Buddhism, we have what are called The Three Poisons:

•  Greed
•  Hatred
•  Ignoranc3

These three easily translate into selfishness, resentments and close-mindedness.  This is the triangle we use to discover how to put out our Step 4 fire(s)…fires that have been burning for way to long.  We examine our past to see where we’ve been greedy or selfish; to see where our hatred and resentments affected or decisions; and to realize our close-mindedness has kept us in the dark.

Our Step 4 (and 5) inventory is HUGE to recovery.  Completing them, we’re now building upon our 12-Step foundation, not only for ourselves, but also supporting what holds the fellowship together, bring us the triangle of Unity, Service, and  Recovery.


We never know where koans will take us.  For one person at Friday 12 & Zen, this koan took him to all the work projects he has on  his plate...projects that have been keeping him away from meditation.  "I need to get back to my daily meditation," he said, "Thinking about work all the time was my fire this evening.





And another fellow emailed me the next day:  "In my morning meditation today, the thought came that all of my "fires" at first always appear to be across the river.  Someone or something else to blame for starting them.  Someone else's responsibility to put out.  But upon doing inventory work (i.e. 4th step work), I get to see my part in setting the fire and to recognize my responsibility (to my Self) to cross the river and put out the fire.


Bill K.

Step 3: Only the vine sustains you, only Step Three sustains you.

Step 3:  Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Koan: You are being chased by a tiger.  Coming to a cliff, you grab the root of a wild vine and swing yourself over the edge. The tiger you were fleeing from is sniffing at you from above; at the bottom of the cliff is another tiger waiting to eat you.  Only the vine sustains you.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little start to gnaw away the vine.  Nearby you see a luscious-looking strawberry.  Holding tightly to the vine with one hand, you pluck the strawberry with your other hand and pop it in your mouth.  How sweet it tastes.

My sponsor once said to me, “I’m not in charge of what you say; but I am in charge of what I hear.”  So went our evening on Friday with people hearing this story in different ways.  I love it how koans do this.

Beginning with our experiences with Step One, we found ourselves being chased by a tiger of a different form:  By our disease.  Our conscience. Or by something we made up…the stories we tell ourselves, or being stalked by "a hundred kinds of" fear.

Having to make a decision has, in the past, brought on fear in me.  If I make this decision this will happen.  If I make that decision that will happen.  This is where the koan took me, a tiger of fear of making a decision was in the chase.  With sobriety comes the ability to make Step Three decisions more promptly – it can almost become a default mode: grab the nearest vine and jump; grab Step Three and jump.  It’s in the jumping where we are totally at the whim of the Universe.  “Only the vine sustains you.”  Only Step Three sustains you. It’s in Step Three where we learn to trust our Higher Power; that when our decision is aligned with what is right living (God’s will), we can be at ease.

And the tiger down below, “waiting to eat me?”  Can we be sure about that?  If the chasing tiger can take on many forms, so can the tiger below.  Maybe it’s Tony the Tiger.  We really don’t know since that part of the story has not unfolded yet.  As another person said, the chasing tiger is our past, the tiger down below is the future.

The two mice – black or white, good or bad, the way we usually see things (duality)…and then, of course, carry these thoughts into the future, usually to bad outcomes.  But it says one white mouse and one black mouse.  Either one or both could play a part in my future; but right now, they’re just gnawing. Lots of things in our life are being gnawed on, aren’t they?  Another person solved her anxiety of gnawing mice and decided her “vine” was really thick and no need to be concerned right now.

Strawberry… only this is what’s noticed.  No tigers, no mice, no cliff, no past, no future…just a luscious, ruby-red strawberry…in this moment the strawberry is what the Universe has given to us to partake in.  Taking Step Three has a way of changing our mind’s default mode for the better…no matter what the “strawberry” in life looks like today. Actually, the whole world is strawberry. "How sweet it tastes."

Bill K.

Step 2: Home Departures, Came to Believe

Step 2:  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.


The fourth patriarch was Upagupta.  He was the attendant for Shanavasa for three years before becoming a monk.

Koan:

Shanavasa: “Did you make your home departure physically or in spirit?”
Upagupta:  “Truly, I made my home departure physically.”
Shanavasa: “How can the Wondrous Dharma of the Buddhas have anything to do with body or mind?”
On hearing this, Upagupta was greatly awakened.

By “home departure”, Upagupta is referring to becoming a monk.  And there are many ways we can depart from home.  What home(s) are you departing from when we “came to believe”?

What are the Wondrous Dharma of the Buddhas in your life?

- - - -

“Came to believe” is like acceptance, it doesn’t happen until it happens.  When it comes, it comes suddenly.  Acceptance comes when I put down my discriminating mind, my ego… a space opens up in preparation for Step 2.  This is one example of home departure, departing in spirit.  One person said "the home" was her false self.   This was the home she left.  The leaving was unintentional.  "I just gave up."

"Departing was changing my way of thinking," another said.

Dale asked, "Where am I departing from?"  I'm always coming home.  Taking refuge... in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha.  In his daily meditations, he changes his refuge ceremony to the First Step, the Second Step, the Third Step.  I can see how this would  work for us, thus I've swiped his idea today.

“A Power greater than ourselves…”  Back in my drinking days, a bottle (or several) of red wine was a power greater than myself.  Today, certainly I can find a power greater than a bottle of wine to help me.

Restoring my sanity?  Believing I can do everything myself is insanity.  I need other sources of Power.  My home departure choice of mine, physically, mentally, or in spirit gives me the wherewithal to pay attention to my life.  I am being shown the Way of right living (sanity) in each moment.

"I found a new definition of sanity.  It was bigger than any definition I had heard concerning Step Two, but it was also bigger and better than my wildest imaginings.  This sanity offered serenity, a feeling of wellness or well-being, possession of a center of balance from which to operate, and a feeling that my place in this world was just right."

Bowie, Md., February 1999 Grapevine
"Beyond Sanity,"
Step By Step

Surely this is the Wondrous Dharma of the Buddhas,  here right now.

Bill K.

Step One -- A wagon with no wheels

Step 1:  We admitted we were powerless over something -- that our lives had become unmanageable.

Master Gettan said to a monk, “Keichu made a cart whose wheels had a hundred spokes.  Take both front and rear parts [wheels] away and remove the axle: then what will it be?”  Gateless Barrier #8

“…whose wheels had a hundred spokes.”

 ·      Back in the day…100 spokes…the best of the best.  Some might have said, “This is the perfect cart.”  Like driving the most popular car and being the center of attraction.
·      I am this cart.  Wheels or not, it’s perfect the way it is.  Aren’t we all perfect human beings?  Born that way.  In Zen we say we ALL have buddhanature.

We also have our dis-ease.  In Step-1, to various degrees, don’t we arrive here only to realize that our wheels have fallen off—or one has fallen off and the others are about to wobble off—and still others it may only be loose lug nuts?  We come here broken, or soon-to-be broken.

·      “Take both front and rear wheels away…” Who or what is responsible for the taking?

No wheels, just the axels, power gone, lack of control, “that our lives had become unmanageable.”  We make our own cart.  My cart is my life.  There’s the cart that brought me to A.A.; there’s the cart I move around in today.  What are you driving today?

What others said:

·      Humbleness came to mind.  I don’t need 100 spokes.  It was only after they have been taken away that I can realize this.  Maybe four spokes are enough.
·      My life right now …everything seems to be crumbling around me and still I have been able to stay sober.
·      Our 15-year old grandson died in November.  It was cancer.   Part of me feels like this dismembered wagon.  All that is left is the wagon’s “box”.  But there are times where the wagon’s box is full of good things, like the good times I remember with my grandson.  All of this is happening at the same time and slowly the wagon is being put back together; but it will never look the same.

In addition, Zen teacher Barry Dogo Graham sent me this:  "What becomes vividly apparent is that he did not make a hundred carts, or even one cart. He found the carts in wood, metal and space. You do not make yourself - you only find yourself. This question - What becomes vividly apparent when wheels and hub are removed? - is a personal question, directed specifically at you. It asks you who you are."  See Barry's link to the right.

Bill K.

BTW, on Friday we held 12 & Zen at our new home, at Rocks and Clouds Zendo in Sebastopol, CA. Daniel Terragno Roshi was there to greet us... all nine of us! We always seem to leave with more than we came with.  What a great start for 2015.