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.