Is That So? (a meditation on acceptance and surrender)

The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child. This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parents went to the master, pointing fingers and screaming "You have dishonored our daughter!"

"Is that so?" was Hakuin's only response.

After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him. He took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and everything else the little one needed.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth — that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?"
 

Small Bird

a small bird 

extruding 

tendrils of song

James shared this little poem with me last night. Be with it. Visualize it. Delight in it. Because it is the pathway to such incisive clarity of mind and emotion, sobriety is a virtue in and of itself.

Like Balloons

When we do not find our strength within we are like balloons. We look to others to pump us full, to give us shape. In functioning this way, we fool ourselves into believing we are what we only seem to be. And inevitably we begin to leak as soon as we have been pumped full. We require an endless cycle of inflation which can only end when one finds the Strength Within.

Reborn to Awe and Wonder

"Falling mist flies together with the wild ducks;
the waters of autumn are of one color with the sky."

—Zen saying

Sobriety is a virtue unto itself, facilitating the gifts of presence, clarity and a higher level of awareness — a state of being that begets the gifts of awe, wonder and gratitude. With these gifts one can create and maintain a new inner world of true understanding and contentment. IF one is so inclined.

A Profound Cluelessness

Suddenly I realized there are at least FIVE qualities that tend to be shared by people who manifest addictive behaviors. There are the three I listed in The First Principle and at least more which I list below as numbers four and five:



1. a powerful store of resentments,

2. a powerful store of anger and fear,
3. 
and a withering ability to suck all of the habitable atmosphere out of a room into the black hole of our own self-absorption.
4. A profound cluelessness regarding our own true motivations and inner dialog (self-talk); a blind spot with regard to some of our own Core Beliefs.
5. A highly developed ability to rationalize (create a cloud of self-deceptive bullshit) to justify our attitudes and actions.

Happiness Is

"Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object," says Hermann Hesse. 


Indeed, indeed.


And what develops a talent but dedication and consistent, self-disciplined practice?

The process can be, in itself, a source of delight.
 

The First Principle

In my lifetime on earth, I have been blessed with three births:



1. from the womb into the world on December 1, 1952,

2. from the pall of substance abuse into sentience on November 11, 1996,

3. and again from the pall of substance abuse into sentience on October 16, 2010.



My substance of choice was alcohol — wine and beer. I abused to self-medicate; to provide temporary release from the pain I inflicted on myself by fanning flames of anger, fear and resentment, the embers of which I nurtured with constant attention and rumination. I permissively rationalized a scheme of facilitative thoughts that justified my choosing substance abusive behavior as a logical, viable alternative. In running this scam on myself, I violated the First Principle of sentient existence. I like the way Richard Feynman (renowned physicist and joyful bongo drum-banger) expressed it:



"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest to fool."



Among all of the individual particulars on which problem substance abusers may differ, I have noticed three common cognitive factors we all share:



1. a powerful store of resentments,

2. a powerful store of anger and fear,
3. 
and a withering ability to suck all of the habitable atmosphere out of a room into the black hole of our own self-absorption.



Therein lies the foundation of the personal problems we create with our abuse of consciousness-altering substances—or any habit of mind and behavior that manifestly imprisons us in an unproductive or harmful cycle of automated unconsciousness.

We fool ourselves believing "This should never have happened!" We fool ourselves believing "This isn't fair!" We fool ourselves believing "I've got to get even!" We fool ourselves believing "I deserve better!" We fool ourselves believing "my views (or problems) are the most important."

Really? Who says? All of the fore-mentioned presumptions are objectively absurd.

Oh, and there's another cherished core belief most of us are loathe to let go of: "This is so bad I can't stand it!"

The truth is, we can stand it. We just don't want to. And it's better if we just go ahead and stand it—we might learn something valuable. Even if we don't, we're better off ceasing to lie to ourselves in this way. Because the truth of the matter is, we can stand it.