In these uncertain times...

 pandemic shutdown

sick and dying countywide

includes my iMac

Dear Friends,

 

So, in the coming weeks or even months,

there may be limited or postponed postings

on my blog.  

 

My computer is ten years old and it seems

has forgotten how to communicate with

itself and others (internet provider).

So far though, I can send and receive email 

on my iPad. Still there's an issue where 

the iMac can't send things to the iPad.

Such as it is. I trust these matters will be

resolved early on in 2021.  May you all

be save and well.

Bill K.

 

Lost and Found 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.

Koan:  A student asked Yunmen, "What does it mean to sit and contemplate reality?"
Yunmen answered, "The coin lost in the river is found in the river."

 
Before I found sobriety, the phrase “Oh you poor lost soul” * frequently made its appearance in my head, and probably others thought this about me, too.

This is my sobriety birthday month where I’m finding myself reflecting upon how I got here. At its core, this excerpt from the Big Book is etched into my story: “It wasn’t how far I had gone, but where I was headed.” P. 354

On this specific December Saturday, 1986, I was leaving with my friend to run the Sacramento Marathon. As I left home, a phrase from my wife’s parting words stuck: “Someone in this family is an alcoholic!”

Her words recirculate in my head all of Saturday, into the evening as I drank a bottle of wine, and well into the night. Sunday race day we were up early – the temperature was near freezing when we started but once the race began and we had found our pace our bodies warmed up – we broke four hours (a record) – the race went well, followed by the usual aches and pains. Then we drove the three-hours home.

Between December 7th race day and December 9th, something happened. Did I run instead of sit and contemplate reality? Clarity had opened me up. What if “I didn’t have to drink anymore?” P. 354. I knew nothing about AA at the time; but for years, in the back of my mind, I knew there were these places called treatment centers. Sometime between Sunday evening and Monday morning I had made a decision – on Tuesday, December 9th I checked myself into St. Rose (long since closed).

“So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.” P. 62 I was the cause of my lostness! When I made that decision to go into treatment, I had taken Step One without knowing there was such a thing.

It was there I began my journey in recovery – a journey of learning how to find myself, to discover my True Nature, something that’s always been with me but hidden by my ignorant and delusional ways. I had been lost in the river of my life.

“The coin lost in the river is found in the river.” I’ve found myself in the 12 Steps and Zen Buddhism, not by looking outward; but by consciously sitting with reality and my HP one day at a time.

Chuck, my longtime running and now hiking buddy sent me this from Robert Ellsberg’s collection “Blessed Among Us”:

“On December 10, 1968, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton died in Bangkok at a conference on monasticism. In setting forth on this journey he had written, “May I not come back without having settled the great affair. And found also the great compassion….I am going home, to the home where I have never been in this body.” On this trip he met with Buddhist and Christian monks and experienced an epiphany in the presence of an enormous statue of the dying Buddha. Exclaiming that this was the purpose of his trip, he wrote, “Everything is emptiness and everything is compassion.” He died later that week from an apparent accidental electrocution.”

For us alcoholics, Step 12, in some ways, is our greatest affair. By practicing the principles if all our affairs, we find the great compassion, too.


* I had not found Zen yet. Today I would say you poor lost soul and hungry ghost. 

 

Sobriety brings me joy and happiness AND I must take my recovery practice seriously. If I don't take it seriously, chances are I would lose it all. The hear the following at the close of each day in retreat, a message from the ancestors.  It's also a good thought to carry as 2020 comes to a close and we enter into the new year, 2021.

Bill K.

Just in, a contribution from Joanie:

“I was on a slippery rock in a rising tide of loss.

I craved change,
but turned away from it,
then drowned in contradictions.

Rock bottom became my solid foundation
on which to build my new life.”

The last 12 & Zen koan for 2020

 Dear Friends:

We are here…December…and the last 12 & Zen koan for 2020.

Enjoy!

Hope you are safe and well.

Bill K.



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.

 

Koan:  A student asked Yunmen, "What does it mean to sit and contemplate reality?"

Yunmen answered, "The coin lost in the river is found in the river."

Step 11 -- Finding Home, Seeking Home

 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: “You’ve already found your home – although you still must seek it.” *

I feel like I'm one of the fortunate ones – early on in my sobriety, even though I’m introverted by nature and always avoided large gatherings, I felt “at home” in the meetings. This was a pleasant surprise.  Whatever was going on in my life I knew I could find refuge in a meeting. All I had to do was sit there…and listen. Little did I know that my entire world would change.

Then I learned about having a home group; the meeting to never miss; and if I did, people would call me to see if I was OK. Friendships have grown over these past decades, in many ways we're like family.

I was also pretty much at home with the Steps with my sponsor, becoming more comfortable with them and no longer wondering if they could really help me. By now I had some experience, proving what they could change things for the better.

By the time my sponsor and I were at the 11th Step together,  I had acknowledged a home group. I think I was their coffee maker, too. The group relied on me to make the coffee and bring some cookies; and in return, I could rely on the group to help keep me sober. This is the AA family in action. A family dynamic means helping the other.

Above all, I was sober! My home life was improving, my health was improving, there was more serenity, too.  I knew that this was a process and I was headed in the right direction. When I was drinking I knew I was headed in the wrong direction; but didn’t know how to “not drink”.

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: Step 3 is like an insurance policy to stop drinking and bring about recovery. As with all insurance policies, one must pay the premiums. Step 3 comes with a price. Step 11 is the premium I must pay.  If I stop paying my premiums (practicing Step 11) this valuable insurance policy (Step 3) will eventually drop to the wayside…and bad things will return.

I’ve found a home in AA and I’ve found my home in the 12 Steps. To maintain these homes I must seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with my Higher Power, my ultimate home of homes.

Prayer and meditation are spiritual exercises to be practiced daily. 

Toggling between acceptance and gratitude provides a wonderful home life indeed.

 

 

From Sutra: PRAISE SONG FOR MEDITATION — Hakuin Ekaku

Truly is anything missing now?
Nirvana is right here, before our eyes;
this very place is paradise,
this very body, the Buddha.

Bill K.

 

*  Gary Brandt gave this koan to us one Monday evening.  He adapted it from “Memories of a Catholic Girlhood” by Mary McCarthy—specifically, from the foreword “To the Reader.” The quote in the edition I have is on pages 22-23 (she just refers to him as “an older priest”): “I do not suggest to you where you will find your spiritual home—but you will find it—of that I am certain—the Spirit will lead you to it. Indeed, for me you have already found it, although you still must seek it.”

 

 

 

 

N-O-V-E-M-B-E-R and Step 11

 Greetings All:

 Are you ready for a little break? 

How about a Step 11 break and koan? 

Here's something good to sit with.

 

 

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: “You’ve already found your home – although you still must seek it.”

 

Bill K. 

Step 10 -- Am I giving life or killing?

 Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Koan: Freely we give life; and freely we kill.

(Possibly a capping phrase to koan, heard from a Monday night talk.)

 
How critical is Step 10 to our wellbeing?  This koan leaves no doubt. 

Step 10 is about choices. In any given situation, what shall I do? If I’ve been keeping up with my spiritual exercises, my decision will be for the greater good.

Choice #1: It’s being suggested that I continue. Continue to take personal inventory. This implies an ongoing practice. Am I aware of my behavior? Am I taking my personal inventory throughout the day?

Choice #2: “…and when we were wrong…” shows that I’m paying attention to my behavior, to my actions, and I probably need to make a decision.

Choice #3: Promptly admitting it, brings life to the situation and the possibility of growth.  When I delay Step 10 actions (or worse ignore), on several levels I’m killing myself, killing a relationship, feeding resentments, and killing any chance for peace.

The sum total of Choices 1, 2, and 3, are of course Step 10.  Step 10 was written because we are human and don’t always behave well.  This  reminds me of Purification, the first sutra we chant at every Monday night Zen gathering:

                                  

We’ve been given free will, still the Big Book states that we pray to our Higher Power for “Thy will not mine be done.” Running the show is not our strong suit.

My decision to follow Step 10 as written is a formula for right action.

                                     

The extent to which I practice Step 10 has a direct relationship with Steps 11 and 12, so the giving life and killing continues. Practicing Step 10 well gives life to Step 11; and practicing Step 11 well gives life to Step 12.

We often hear that Steps 10, 11, and 12 are the Maintenance Steps – the actions needed for living this day forward well, in service to others.

Bill K.

 P.S. I apologize for being a little late with this post. Sixty percent procrastination and forty percent writer's block. Hope you are all safe and well during these interesting times.

- - - - - 

And this comment from Christine S. -- 

The ground on which we stand... a truly important thought.

Once we thought we had to cover up our past. We wished to excise parts of it we didn’t like and only keep the “good” parts.

Now with a bit of spiritual growth we realize the complete folly of a that kind of thinking. What we missed was a simple truth: that an unexamined life is not worth living as Plato wrote, citing the words of his great teacher Socrates. The truth is that we stand on a complex foundation all of which made us who we are now. Our choice is to be who we are right now and to benefit ourselves and others by making the most creative use of that foundation.

 

 

Steps 8 and 9 -- How are you mending?

 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: DONGSHAN’S SEWING

Shenshan was mending clothes with a needle and thread. Dongshan asked, “What are you doing?”

Shenshan said, “Mending.”

Dongshan asked, “How are you mending?”

Shenshan said, “One stitch is like the next.”

Dongshan exclaimed, “We’ve been traveling together for twenty years now, and you can still say such a thing! How can you be so dense?”

Shenshan asked, “OK, then, how do you mend?”

Dongshan said, “As if the whole earth were spewing flames.”

 
I thought about my grandmother, Ruby Childs Moore, 1886-1978. I remember watching her stuffing a darning egg into a sock, mending, meticulously creating lines of thread to form the warp and weft of woven threads, ending with the sock “as good as new,” or at least substantially extending its life.

Shenshan was mending – “to free from faults or defects, to set right, to put into working order again. The socks my grandmother darned were certainly put into working order again, too.

Steps 8 and 9 call for the act of making amends (reparations) – “to put right, to improve, to reform oneself.” We learn that making our amends is not contingent upon how the other person reacts to our gesture. It’s by making our amends that we reform ourselves! My friend James put it another way at a meeting when he said, “We find freedom from bondage of self, separating from what I was to how I am today”

How do we go about our amending? “As if the whole earth were spewing flames!” “We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal. Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past.” BB page 76.

“…we tell him that we will never get over our drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past.” Page 77

Right now, here in Sonoma County, the world is spewing flames with several wildfires raging unchecked. The yellow-orange air is polluted with smoke. People are evacuating. People are fleeing for their lives. This is the real deal.

Steps Eight and Nine are the real deal, too. If not attended to (we unfortunately see this far too often) these people return to drinking and are eventually consumed by the fires of alcohol.

Upon making our amends, we’re sewing our past and present together. This opens the door for us to consciously “... not regret the past nor wish to shut the door in it.” (p. 83)

One stitch is like the next.
We practice Step 8 and 9 principles in all our affairs.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
One day at a time.

Bill K.

 

 

August and September Koan for Steps 8 and 9

Dear Friends,

Again, as we did in June and July, we will be sitting with two steps, two months, with one koan...

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: DONGSHAN’S SEWING



Shenshan was mending clothes with a needle and thread. Dongshan asked, “What are you doing?”

Shenshan said, “Mending.”

Dongshan asked, “How are you mending?”

Shenshan said, “One stitch is like the next.”

Dongshan exclaimed, “We’ve been traveling together for twenty years now, and you can still say such a thing! How can you be so dense?”

Shenshan asked, “OK, then, how do you mend?”

Dongshan said, “As if the whole earth were spewing flames.”

Bill K.

Steps 6 and 7, A Strategy

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

Step 7:  Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.


Koan: A monk made a request of Joshu:  “I have just entered the monastery.  Please teach me.”
Joshu asked, “Have you eaten?”
The monk replied, “Yes, I have eaten.”
“Then,” said Joshu, “wash your bowls.”  At that moment, the monk had an insight.

That place where I’m having a one-on-one conversation with my Higher Power is a holy, sacred place, a monastery of mind.  When I’m engaged with Steps 6 and 7, I’ve entered a 12-Step temple. It’s in the asking in Step 7 where I’m becoming open to my HP’s teachings.

“Have you eaten?” Have I put spiritual nourishment into my body? Am I spiritually fit?

I think for those who haven’t yet worked Steps 1,2,3,4, and 5, it would be very difficult to become “entirely ready” and to sincerely “ask” one’s HP to remove shortcomings.

Wash your bowls. Joshu is telling the monk it’s time to get on with things. Why am I washing my bowls? It’s to be ready for my next meal, and the nourishment of Steps 6 and 7 give me the energy and sustenance to move on. “Wash your bowls.” Move on with the Steps.

Relax. The universe is always supporting me. I can’t force the issue and make my shortcomings disappear.  What usually happens comes out of the blue, when I realize my usual pattern didn’t appear where it used to – my shortcoming had been taken away, and replaced by principles in our program.

What the Big Book calls defects of character, Christine calls character adjustments. I like her view. How many of us come into AA feeling defective? I did.

We are not defective human beings. It's like calling undocumented workers illegal aliens. Humans aren't illegal either.

So another way of looking at Step 7 is that we’re asking our HP to adjust our character for the better. Washing our bowl (adjusting its level of cleanliness) for our next meal.

Early June when I put out the announcement that we’d be sitting with Steps 6 and 7 for two months, I wrote: “With what's going on in my town, county, state, nation and the world -- I'm feeling exhausted these days.” 

Here is Christine’s response:

“Thank you for writing what you wrote. I thought I was the only one feeling exhausted. Living alone I had no yardstick to measure things by until you wrote today. I don’t know whether I am just tired because I am getting older or whether it is the residual effect of having Covid-19 or heartbreak over what is happening in my country. So now I know: it’s all of that but—most importantly—I am not alone.

Becoming entirely ready to have god remove my sense of alone-ness is just noticing something as small as how others are feeling. Letting go of the habitual prison of isolation is leaving the door open just wide enough so that my old wooden bowl can be cleaned. I have all I need. Things constantly come and go. All I need to do is accept the sustenance and rinse my bowl with the messages that I am sent through companionships that always already enfold me.”

The other day on PBS NewsHour, the commentator made this point,  “Hope and rhetoric are not a strategy.” Hoping my shortcomings go away doesn’t work,  nor trying to talk myself out of a situation. Steps 6 and 7 are a strategy. I’m convinced of this! Together they are a careful method that leads to relief.

The strategy is in preparing ourselves, and the willingness to ask. 

Bill K.

P.S. My plan is to do the same in August and September as I did for June and July, one koan with the next two Steps. I'm still finding it a bit exhausting out there. Please take good care of yourself and others.

Two Steps, Two Months, One koan

 
 Dear  12 & Zen Friends:

 With what's going on in my town, county, state, nation and the world -- I'm feeling exhausted these days.  

I'm stretching things out a bit. Yes, we're
still sitting in our respective homes with this June koan, and for July, too.

Two Steps, two months, one koan. 

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

Step 7:  Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.


Koan: A monk made a request of Joshu:  “I have just entered the monastery.  Please teach me.”
Joshu asked, “Have you eaten?”
The monk replied, “Yes, I have eaten.”
“Then,” said Joshu, “wash your bowls.”  At that moment, the monk had an insight.


Please be kind to yourself and in service to others.

Bill K.

Suffering through Step 5

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


Koan: Layman P’ang said: “From out of the clear blue, suffering arises.”

The Sayings of Layman P’ang,  #30 - Sung-shan’s Staff


Uncovering the things I did to others in the past, at minimum brought me shame, regret and sorrow. It didn’t paint the picture of who I thought I was, nor who I wanted to become. This was distressing.

The suffering that arose from writing down my 4th Step often came from out of the blue – an incident, an accompanying thought would spring up with new information to reckon with, usually pointing directly to my actions exclaiming, “what you did was wrong!”

And now, in Step 5, I have to tell someone else about what I’ve done? Another form of suffering appeared. Oh swell, now angst is added to my already uncomfortable distress.

The Buddha taught that life is dukkha. The Pali word dukkha is often translated as suffering in English; but there is no tidy translation since dukkha has a range of meaning and connotation. One of the categories of dukkha includes physical, emotional and mental pain. Suffering. Robert Aitken Roshi (in the lineage I practice) used angst as his definition of this kind of suffering.

Angst brings together the feelings of anxiety, apprehension and insecurity.

It sure did for me – with angst coming from what the Fifth Step would entail (especially the other person part) and distress coming from what I thought of myself while doing Step 4.

“From out of the blue, suffering arises.”

Is this what my life is to be, carrying around the gnawing baggage of my past?

Of course not! Step 5 is part of the process that showed me there is an end to my suffering here (or at least a substantial reduction). With my sponsor I was actually participating in the act of recovering. Relief can come from out of the blue, too.

Without dark there can be no light. Without wet there can be no dry. Without life there can be no death. Without suffering there can be no serenity, peace and freedom.

So it was with my Step 5. With each admission and then my sponsor’s reply and the telling of his experiences, little by little I began feeling less “bad”. I left his apartment feeling lighter – no longer was I carrying the entirety of my heavy load of shame and suffering. My sponsor, in the spirit of AA was carrying a portion, too.

And in the following years when I occasionally found myself in morbid reflection of my past, I would remind myself by saying, “No, no, no, I’m not doing this alone anymore – I have help here. I admitted this to my sponsor years ago – he’s still helping me with this.”

Little did I realize, that coming up next with Steps 6 and 7,  I’d find an ever-present and effective technique for turning my troublesome thoughts and actions over to my higher power -- PRN (nurse talk* for “as needed”).

Bill K.

* My wife was a nurse for 40+ years.

Wendy following the rules.

Here we are, about to enter our seventh week of sheltering in place.
Please take care of yourself and others.

COVID-19 came out of the blue bringing suffering...and by experience we know that relief and good will arise, too.

12 & Zen for May

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

 Koan: Layman P’ang said: “From out of the clear blue, suffering arises.”


From The Sayings of Layman P’ang,  #30 - Sung-shan’s Staff

- - -

In our homes here, or there, or in far-away places,  no better time than to sit with Step 5 and this koan from Layman P'ang.

Stay well,

Bill K.

Sitting with Step 4 amid the VIRUS

Here we are, in the thick of Sheltering-in-Place, practicing 12 & Zen in our homes instead of meeting in the Zendo. Yesterday, around 6:45 PM, I said to Beth, "I should be sitting in the Zendo right now with others."  Instead, we're all sitting with COVID -19 in our hospitals, communities, on the street, for some in our homes. "Hi COVID-19, I'm keeping my distance from you. We have important things to do right now,  like sitting with Step 4."
 


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



Koan: From Bodhisattva’s Vow – Torei Enji

If someone turns against us,
speaking ill of us and treating us bitterly,
it’s best to bow down:
this is the Buddha appearing to us,
finding ways to free us from our own attachments
the very ones that have made us suffer
again and again and again.


Tackling Step 4 requires courage, action, and a willingness to, perhaps for the first time, take an unvarnished look and uncovering of who I am today – and to remember that working the Steps will change me for the better.

• This is about bringing my best self to every moment.

• My practice is about solving division.

• Do I add to this division?

• How can this other person make me a better person? This is the Buddha appearing, showing me...

• What am I learning from others?

• Buddha said, “Victory breeds hatred?”

 

If someone turns against us, speaking ill of us and treating us bitterly: Whatever they did, real or imaginary, we alcoholics can come to resentments in a self-centered heartbeat -- a place we dare not stay for long.

it’s best to bow down: We take it easy,  loosening the reins…we pause… we humbly ask our HP for some  guidance in hopes of finding a little empathy and understanding for this other person.  Relief comes when we eventually put them in our prayers, "Bless them, change me."

this is the Buddha appearing to us,finding ways to free us from our own attachments
the very ones that have made us suffer again and again and again: Look what the Universe is showing us! It’s in recognizing our resentments, that we return to our HP, to show us the things we can do while navigating the process of Step Four.

Resentments are the #1 cause for relapsing, so it’s imperative that I (1) recognize them early on, (2) see my part in a situation, and (3) become willing to take the appropriate action to dissolve my resentment in conjunction with God, Buddha, HP…


They joke about how sausages are made. The process can look pretty repulsing. So can Step 4; but with my sponsor as my guide, he is like the production manager in the sausage plant, I am the worker following his directions.

I had to trust his experience that all my efforts would bring me freedom to complete my inventory and move onto Step Five.

“If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience and understanding.” Dalai Lama

Blessings to you all during these COVID-19 times. No better time than to "practice these principles in all our affairs."

Bill K.

Step 4 and April Koan

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






KOAN: From Bodhisattva’s Vow – Torei Enji 

If someone turns against us,
speaking ill of us and treating us bitterly,
it’s best to bow down:
this is the Buddha appearing to us,
finding ways to free us from our own attachments
the very ones that have made us suffer
again and again and again.

Please take care of yourself and others.  I look forward
to hearing from you.

Bill K.

Step 3 -- Just this cuts through fantasy

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

Koan: Just this.

Step 3 is absolutely crucial for my sobriety, for when I’m unwilling to turn things over to my Higher Power, I’m into self…and it’s self that got me into this mess in the first place! It would be delusional to think otherwise. Josh's point, “Just this” cuts through fantasy.  As the Big Book says, it’s the root cause of my problems. It’s that simple. 

It’s about surrendering, letting go and turning it over. I took this koan, “Just this,” into my morning readings today. At one point there was a word-of-the-day – surrender – Step 3 is surrendering. Dale H.



Thank God our founders came up with the concept of a “God as we understood Him.” You don’t like the word Him? No problem. How about God as we understand? You don’t like the word God? No problem. How about Higher Power or a higher power as we understood? You don’t like the word Higher Power? No problem. How about any power that’s greater than you? It’s all up to you and your imagination to find your own.

It took me a while to find a God of my understanding. Early in my sobriety, of all places, lying in a hammock was a turning point for me, and a beginning of understanding Step 3.  It was about surrendering, letting go, and turning my very body over to the hammock, trusting it would support me. I could enjoy just this moment completely.  John S.

Rami Shapiro writes in his book, Holy Rascals: If God is infinite, God is everything. If you say, “This is God but that it not,” your God is too small, yet not so small as to do no harm.”

Living with just this is living with God

 How do I make this decision? By paying attention to what I’m doing. This evening, Good Orderly Direction came up for me. All I need is just this to move onto what is next.  Elsie

In order for me to come to terms with my Higher Power, I had to answer these questions. This didn’t happen in one sitting -- over time, the answers came.     

•     Where can I find my Higher Power?      
•     Where can I see my Higher Power?
•     Where can I hear my Higher Power?      
•     Where can I smell my Higher Power?
•     Where can I touch my Higher Power?
•     Where can I access my Higher Power?
•     Where do I notice the presence of my Higher Power’s activity?

 - - - - -

The following was posted from Jon Joseph Roshi’s blog:
https://www.sanmateozen.org/single-post/2020/02/29/A-World-At-Play

...Where his friend wrote:

Over the last few days I have been feeling like the world is my playground. Somehow, I was given this life and put in this place and each moment is new and a gift.
Now I get to see a shadow.
Now my head hurts.
Now Calvin is writing poetry.
Now there are colorful cups on the shelf.
Now my mind is solving puzzles.
Now my eggs taste salty.
Then today, it is not so much that way, but different.
Now each moment is different.

No matter what’s happening, Jon’s friend seems to be fully engaged with just this.  He finds there’s nothing to add, and nothing to remove in each moment. He is showing me what it’s like when I turn my will and my life over to the care of just this …just now…just God.

Just this is a statement of what I’m doing and how I’m present in the world. Morgan

Bill K.

Step 3 and our March koan

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


Koan: Just this.

That's it.  Just this little koan.

Enjoy!

Bill K.


https://12stepsandzenkoans.blogspot.com/

Step 2, Came to believe in peach blossoms...

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

Koan: Lingyun was wandering in the mountains and became lost in his walking. He rounded a bend and saw peach blossoms on the other side of the valley. This sight awakened him and he wrote this poem:

For thirty years I searched for a master swordsman.
How many times did the leaves fall
and the branches break into bud?
But from the moment I saw the peach blossoms,
I’ve had no doubts.

Centuries later the Japanese teacher Keizan responded with his own poem:

The village peach blossoms didn’t know
their own crimson
but still they freed Lingyun
from all his doubts.
Like so many things in my life, Step 2 is an example of how fruitless it is to intentionally go after something. I can’t say to myself, “Today I’m going to believe that a Power greater than I will restore me to sanity,” and then go make it happen. This would be like Lingyun saying, “Today on my walk I’m going to become enlightened.”

This is what he was saying in his poem after he had become awakened by seeing the peach blossoms – For thirty years I searched for a master swordsman…Is it over there? Is it behind that tree? Is it at night? How about if I hold my hands thusly? Searching, searching, searching to no avail.

 Lost in his wandering was a form of meditation. Lingyun saw a power greater than himself in the peach blossoms. They relieved him from his fears. It’s all peach blossoms!  But I HAD to first admit in Step 1 that I am powerless. Being powerless opened the door for me to find a power greater than myself.  Miles O.

In his searching, he had an agenda, a goal he yearned for. We could say there’s such a thing as speed searching, which would be the sport of orienteering. There’s no such thing as speed wandering, though. The key may be in giving up the search and not trying to take everything in, dare I say know everything? He became lost in his wandering – perhaps not knowing his whereabouts and not even knowing what he was looking for.


“For me, sanity means clarity, clear seeing.” There was nothing sane about my upbringing at all, an insane childhood, insane parents, insane growing up, and insane adulthood. So how could I be restored to something I had never had? The whole thing about sanity was huge for me. I had to be taught over many years how to be sane – how to find clarity, clarity seeing the truth, clarity seeing the peach blossoms in my life. For the first 10-15 years in my sobriety, everything was a power greater than myself. Dale H.

Unconsciously getting out of his own way and putting down the obstacles in his mind was all it took to be open to the sight of the peach blossoms. Lingyun had no doubts. He came to believe.



Lingyun was completely in the moment when he saw the peach blossoms, awakening to ultimate awareness. In Step 2, we “come to” awareness, an awakening, where all this makes perfect sense. There IS a solution here.   John S.

There’s something else going on here, too. Long dormant on a shelf, I threw an old book into my car for reading before meetings. It’s The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau.

Early in the Editor’s Introduction section, it reads: “Zazen can in fact be effective [attaining awakening] even in a chair or on a bench or while kneeling…” (and Lingyun has shown awakening can happen when wandering.

It goes on to say, “What ensures success in the quest for enlightenment is not a particular position but an intense longing for truth for its own sake.” Lingyun had this longing and so do we in working the Steps in our quest to find sobriety and find our Higher Power.




Sitting here with my eyes closed, I noticed a slit of light coming through my eyelids. It reminded me of fire. I thought of the recent wildfires we’ve had here. Fires are certainly a power greater than me.

• I survived my fire experiences.

• Why do I always wonder if I’m OK?

• Is it OK to feel this way?

• Then I brought in my H.P. and these thoughts vanished.

• I am OK.   Morgan

In Step 1 we set ourselves up, in a good way, by admitting we are powerless over something (people, places and things). By admitting we are powerless we are also admitting there are things in the universe that are more powerful than we are. We believe in a perfectly working universe, yes? The universe, right now, is “universing” the only way it can.

That there is a force (or forces) behind all things is easy to acknowledge; but comprehending this force is beyond my capacity.

Step 2 is taking a beginning step onto a path to believing.
You will come to believe – guaranteed – when the time is right.

Bill K.

February Koan and Step 2

It's February tomorrow, and with it comes sitting with Step 2 and the following koan. It may seem wordy to you but it isn't.  Whatever part(s) of this koan stick to you, it's the whole koan and all of Step 2.

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

Koan: Lingyun was wandering in the mountains and became lost in his walking. He rounded a bend and saw peach blossoms on the other side of the valley. This sight awakened him and he wrote this poem:

For thirty years I searched for a master swordsman.
How many times did the leaves fall
and the branches break into bud?
But from the moment I saw the peach blossoms,
I’ve had no doubts.

Centuries later the Japanese teacher Keizan responded with his own poem:

The village peach blossoms didn’t know
their own crimson
but still they freed Lingyun
from all his doubts.

Bill K.

Step 1, "We have come to our real work."

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

Koan: “It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work”   

From The Impeded Stream by Wendell Berry


From Dale:  "My real work is to learn about myself by doing the inventory steps. The deeper meaning of Step 1 begins with I don’t know, then admitting that I need help.  It’s still this way after all these years of sobriety."

Impede: to interfere with or slow the progress of.

If alcoholism isn’t an impediment in our lives, I don’t know what is. Alcohol absolutely impedes our lives, ultimately in the most severe ways. Eventually it shows up as incomprehensible demoralization, utter despair, hopelessness and a fear of impending doom. If we’re fortunate, the time will come where we find “we no longer know what to do.”

Pam: "I always had a plan, knew what to do, a scam, could do something in that righteous place. In Step 1 it was about sitting with my failure. I can step back and find acceptance and stop trying to figure it all out. I really don’t know what to do."

I was there once. I didn’t know what I could do. My way wasn’t working. I couldn’t stop drinking. I gave up. The tiniest voice hesitantly told me, “You are probably an alcoholic.” There weren’t any arguments anymore.

Elsie: “The Steps help us to get out of our own way.”

I knew very little about AA then. My mother had found AA and would send me little notes like the Serenity Prayer. I ignored her attempts as not applicable to me.  And I knew there were places like treatment centers, too. Early in December 1986 I told my wife that I think I need to go to one of those treatment centers. No argument there, either.

This is where my real work began. I didn’t know it at the time that I had opened the door of recovery and taken Step One, at least in a general way. From that point on, recovery’s momentum grew as my working continued, doing what I was asked to do at the center.

Kirsten: “At 22 months clean, I’m now actually working on my insides now! When I was out there, I never gave a thought about this, it was chasing after all the external things."

What I’ve experienced in sobriety with Step 1 is that is no longer a barrier. Perhaps, though, that’s what many of us have to work through -- the discovery that Step 1 changed from a barrier to an impediment.

Could Step One be an offering from the universe? “Hey, you might want to take a look at this.”

In our sutras we have Bodhisattva’s Vow by Torei Enji where he says:

“…this is the Buddha appearing to us,
finding ways to free us from our own attachments
the very ones that have made us suffer
again and again and again.”

Then Dale gave us a line about knowing from the Tao Te Ching: "He who regards his intellectual knowledge as ignorance has deep insight. He who overrates his intellectual achievement as definite truth is deeply sick.”
-  Translated by Hua-Ching Ni, 1995, Chapter 71

By getting a sponsor and doing the Steps, the working continues; and now it’s not a burden.  AA is my life’s work today; still, impediments happen daily. Something comes up that I resist or don’t like. Something seems to be getting in the way of my wants. GASP! When I recognize this I know I need to get to work on the matter.

John said, “This koan was very apropos to what I’ve been living these past few weeks. I’ve been driving myself to think I can do more than what I can actually do.” It begins by thinking “I can do this. I force myself to do more until I find myself stuck [an impediment] and have to admit I’m powerless. This is the place where I can actually begin to work by realizing I can only do so much."

When a stream meets an obstacle, the water always takes the path of least resistance. May you find the Steps to be the easier way.

Bill K.