115B: (A)theism vs Addiction

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**Theism, okay —**
**But not without its flip side**
**Both is and is not.**

Continuing our discussion of addiction and theism, along with atheism, we will focus more tightly on alcohol, as one addiction amongst many. I contacted an associate we will refer to as Buddy C, who for some years has hosted a Taoist AA recovery group online, focusing on one verse of the Tao te Ching each week. I would join on one afternoon per month to add my two bits on the verse from the perspective of Zen. I interviewed Buddy regarding the twelve-step program for liberation from alcohol, which as I mentioned in the last segment, tends to receive a lot of attention in the press, though marijuana is beginning to challenge it for coverage, as it becomes legal in many states for medical and recreational purposes.

Perhaps the term “doppleganger” used in the last segment is not entirely appropriate to characterize atheism’s relationship to theism, since it means an exact double of a person or entity. Atheism is not a look-alike for theism, but one suspects that a contrarian belief has meaning only in the context of the belief being refuted. At best, it is a codependent relationship. But let us leave that debate to the experts. Let’s also set aside the broader definition of addiction as applying to all aspects of life.

For this segment I will structure my comments around Buddy’s email to me, outlining AA’s 12 steps to recovery from alcoholism. Using Buddy’s initial, in place of his last name, is in keeping with AA’s emphasis on anonymity in its approach, which is very Zen.

Buddy explained that the 12 steps are structured in 3 sections: Surrender; Inventory and Amends; and Maintenance. Beginning with surrender, the steps are expressed in the past tense, as if they are already accomplished. This calls to mind the introductory lines to Tozan Ryokai’s Ch’an poem Hokyo Zammai—Precious Mirror Samadhi:

The dharma of suchness is intimately transmitted from West to East
Now you have it preserve it well

This presumes we already have this dharma, whether we know it or not. Perhaps we already enjoy the benefits of sobriety, whether we know it or not. This posits the made-up self versus the true self, a central dilemma in Buddhist thought, and perhaps in life in general.

Let’s look at what surrender entails in AA. In Zen, the very posture zazen is one of surrender.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Humbling, to have to admit to the fact that a mere physical substance is winning the battle. This is similar to the Repentance verse of Zen:

All my past and harmful karma
Born from beginningless greed, anger and delusion
Through body, mouth and mind
I now fully avow

Like the preceding verse, AA addresses a broader view of ourselves, rather than the specific issue of alcoholism. Zen also takes this broader perspective, asking not “Why me, Lord?” but “Why not me?”

Avowing, confession, and admission, are all the same act – fessing up to what we acknowledge as the reality of our existence, and our limited control over it. A key concept to remember is that our consequential actions, or karma, and the desires that trigger them, come with the territory of being a human being. To that degree, they are not our fault. Where we go off the rails is in how we react, or respond, to them. Buddy tells me that AA has an acronym for the main triggers of relapse when one is starting the recovery process: H-A-L-T — or “halt.” The letters stand for “hungry,” “angry,” “lonely,” and “tired.” The admonition is to stay alert to these emotional and physical states, and take action to cope with them before they have a chance to trigger craving for alcohol as our default reaction. Same for other O-C behaviors.

2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Buddy pointed out that his understanding of what Zen is pointing to seems similar. Every book in our various reading groups suggests something similar, that there is something there that we can rely on, often expressed as buddha-mind, original mind, even buddhas and bodhisattvas — and if we go there, embracing the notion that there may be something beyond our puny powers as a human being, it can be a bridge to something greater. Matsuoka roshi would often speak of this power, if not in religious terms: “If you can put your whole self into this simple act of sitting, you will gain the power to put yourself into everything you do, and become the strongest person in the world.”

Note that Sensei was not referencing a supernatural power outside oneself, but in a very real sense it does not matter what worldview, Christian or otherwise, you bring to Zen. If you persist in sitting still enough for long enough, you will inevitably return to the clarity, and sanity, of the Original Mind of Zen.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Buddy also took pains to make clear that this higher power doesn’t have to mean “God” — Him or Her — which universalizes the 12-step process, taking it out of the exclusive camp of Christianity, or any and all theistic traditions.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Buddy made a point of emphasizing that addictive behavior is primarily based on fears: the fear of being embarrassed, by our family, for example. Or a generalized fear of not being enough, not good enough. Or a fear of being a failure, or not achieving the success we expect, about which the Tao te Ching has a compelling question: “Which is more destructive — success or failure?” Fear of not getting something we want, or losing something we have. These are all examples of living in the future, not in the moment.

The attitude in AA is to resist acting based on these fears. Buddy says the twelve steps reveal how we try to control, and attach to our expectations, arising out of stress, and anxiety that others will come to know our secrets. An example Buddy and others share, is that our son or daughter did not go to college, a wasted opportunity, a fear of shame and a source of anger about that, which affects your relationships. But this anger is misplaced; we are angry owing to our own failure to have helped the situation positively.

Similarly, Matsuoka Roshi would emphasize that the Precept of not indulging in anger does not mean that we never feel anger, which he likened to cutting water with a knife leaving no trace; but that we do not speak out of anger, which leaves a groove like cutting sand; nor act out of anger, which is like cutting stone — the scar takes forever to wear smooth again.

This inventory approach of AA recalls the so-called “mirror of Zen” — the undifferentiated awareness that reflects the good, bad, and the ugly, without discrimination. Buddy notes that the inventory includes how we have been harmed by others, as well as how we have harmed others. Recognizing the harm others visit upon us is the more natural, knee-jerk reaction to social transactions in general, at its worst engendering victim mentality. But here, we are to take a fearless look at our own part, the role we play in the transaction. This is akin to remembering the Buddhist Precepts, as we repeatedly break them. “Turning the light inward,” “peeling the onion back,” getting some relief from those fears in the process.

5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

This confessional approach is found in all religious and psychological systems, it seems. Buddy contends that the recovery process flipped his belief system upside down. He used to rely on his beliefs first, but now belief doesn’t matter so much — action comes first. Acting our way into right thinking, versus thinking our way into right action. Even if that action is only in the form of prayer, it begins opening your heart; you begin to change. I suppose you have to find the right person to open up to, just as you have to have an affinity with any other kind of mentor, including Zen.

6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Being “entirely ready” would necessarily entail having entirely given up on our own futile efforts. In Zen, we have to “trust in Mind,” capital “M,” relinquishing our usual dependence on discriminating mind. If there is a God, one thing is sure — it’s not you. The “higher power,” however you conceive it, has to be other than self. In this regard, Buddy maintains, everyone has their own “god language”: the way they describe what is greater than themselves. This spiritual language comes with various dialects, much like spoken languages. Zen and AA alike encourage an openminded approach to life, including our approach to the idea of God.

7. We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

Buddy mentioned that, for him, “God” is now experienced as “love” — love for others, as well as for oneself, I suppose. This is the message of the Metta Sutta, or “Loving Kindness Sutra,” attributed to Buddha. If you cannot in some way love yourself, you will have a difficult time truly loving someone else. In AA, self-love is realized by loving others; the act of love toward another changes us. Buddy also mentioned overcoming our character flaws. A great jazz singer I once knew said something similar: she said that if you love someone, you have to love their faults as well.

8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

A more specific, and personal inventory. Buddy pointed out that when we are addicted, we stop maturing — in ways other than physical. I said I thought that the hangover the next morning would give you a clue, but he said some alcoholics never have a hangover. Instead, they take a drink, the “hair of the dog,” so they have a bit of a buzz going at all times. This is what is called a “functioning alcoholic,” and it leads to the familiar health issues associated with alcohol poisoning.

9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Again, if you start using alcohol at the age of sixteen, you basically stay at that level of development as your body continues aging. This expression, “using,” is in reference to any drug of choice, so it is worth asking the question, when you are sober — “using to do what?” — to address the moment in which you find yourself, with all its unsatisfactoriness, one definition of Buddhism’s “dukkha” — suffering — or to escape from it. Drugs and alcohol are popular because they work — until they don’t.

One way out of this dilemma is to start helping others immediately, according to AA’s “Big Book.” In particular, to help another alcoholic. In one case, a person volunteered to work in the “wet brain” ward of the local hospital, where long-term alcoholics are disabled, their brains having been poisoned by drinking. There is a tradition in Buddhism of monks & nuns volunteering for hospice & funeral duty for similar reasons, to be near death and dying for their own sake of facing up to their own fears.

In both cases, mental and psychological disorders are seen as a three-part disease — on spiritual, mental & physical levels. The theory is that if you take care of the spiritual — helping others is helping yourself — the other two will take care of themselves.

10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Buddy described this need for constant diligence and vigilance as analogous to the hand being unaware of the body. If we are unaware of what is happening — disconnected from the full context of our being-in-the-environment, we fall back into the fantasyland of addiction. Compassion can only be practiced in this moment. Unrealistic fears always pull us out of the moment into the past with regret, and into the future with worry, both of which are basic forms of fantasy.

11. We 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.

If and when we fall off the wagon, thinking it okay to take just one drink, the trope is that “You have a drink; the drink has a drink, then the drink has you.” The alcohol or drug immediately affects your judgment, rationalizing the second drink, and here we go again.

Zen’s model of the mind includes what is referred to as “nen” in Japanese, incorporating three levels: first-, second-, and third-level nen. As I understand the term, translated as something like “thought-moment,” the three levels in reverse order are higher thinking, middling cogitation, and basic mentation, roughly corresponding to a simple model of the brain: neocortex, midbrain and brain stem.

When we sit still enough for long enough in meditation, our conscious awareness naturally proceeds through a process of adaptation, progressing from more complex thinking, sometimes called “monkey-mind,” to a simpler focus on sensory awareness, and finally to a merging of subject and object. So I suppose it can be considered a kind of regression, back to the Original Mind.

Perhaps drugs and alcohol have a similar effect, where for a time at least, when intoxicated, we are relieved of the burden of confronting the more complex nature of existence. One difference is that meditation cannot be addictive, although you might try to use it as an escape. Good luck with that.

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

In this regard, Buddy mentioned that “A drug is a drug is a drug,” yes — but “recovery is recovery is recovery,” no — Buddy noted that alcohol is mentioned only once — in the first step. Different addictive substances require different strategies for withdrawal. This was confirmed by a half-dozen MDs who once attended the Zen center as part of a rehabilitation program for their variety of addictions, which they explained do not depend on the substance alone, but on its particular interaction with the metabolism and psyche of the individual.

So both programs, Zen and AA, posit a kind of spiritual awakening or insight as an intermediate goal, so to say, but we are not done yet. When Master Dogen returned from his awakening experience in China, he claimed that his life’s work was over, but that he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. The work in the personal sphere was largely complete, but that of the social sphere was just beginning.

Similar to Zen’s expression, “Watch your feet!” Buddy says AA recommends keeping your head down, and being where your feet are, rather than relying on thinking to reason your way out of the problem of everyday life. This mentality is likened to walking with a dim flashlight at night, where you are seeing only the next step, i.e. doing the next right thing, and being vulnerable to what arises.

In Zen, this worldview is sometimes referred to as “living by vow” — an open-ended commitment to “being here now,” as Ram Dass titled his seminal book. In the prior segment I quoted the founder of Soto Zen in China, reminding us that “Whether teachings and approaches are mastered or not, reality constantly flows.” Get with the flow, and get over the addiction. We are not in control, but we don’t have to be out of control.

Not yet sure where the next segment will take us on our exploration of this “Original Frontier” of UnMind, but please join me on the journey.