The 12-Step Buddhist by Darren Littlejohn

Author:Darren Littlejohn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: Spirituality
ISBN: 9781416595953
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing
Published: 2009-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

It’s easy to integrate Buddhism with Step Three if we can equate the recovery principle of surrender with the Buddhist principle and practice of taking refuge. In a sense, they’re the same thing. The only difference might be the object of refuge. In general, taking refuge means to find and accept shelter from dangerous conditions.

In the 12-Step process, we already take refuge in the steps, the group, our sponsor, and our Higher Power. We do this as we learn to “fully concede to our innermost selves”2 that we are addicts, that we are powerless, that our behavior is insane, and that we need to find some kind of a Higher Power that will help us.

In Buddhism, we have several levels of refuge. As I mentioned in Step Two, many Buddhists take refuge in symbols of the Buddha, like statues and paintings. There are Buddhists who never consider another view and remain at this outer level of devotion to the external Buddha for life.

A deeper level is to see the Buddha as our own intrinsic, fully awakened nature, which needs to become functional in our daily life to be useful. We accept that we are Buddhas but realize that we don’t have the full knowledge of our Buddha nature. For this reason, we turn to the teachings of the Awakened One to become fully aware of it. We learn that the real Buddha is really our own nature, and we use the external idea of a separate, individual Buddha as a guide. Just like with the 12 Steps, understanding deepens with experience.

The analogy used in teachings is that the Buddha is the doctor, the Dharma is the medicine, and the sangha is the nurse that dispenses the right medicine at the right time, just when we need it. The obvious 12-Step correlation is that the doctor could be our sponsor, group, and/or our Higher Power; the medicine is the 12 Steps; and the sangha is our fellowship in recovery.

I’ve found that if I think of the 12-Step community this way after taking refuge as a Buddhist, the fellowship takes on a new purpose. Taking refuge has helped me understand something that a well-seasoned 12-Stepper said to me twenty years ago. I’d been complaining about how difficult it was to get along with addicts. He said, “Well, you better learn. If you can’t get along with the people who understand your disease, you’ll never make it out there.”

In fact, when we practice Tantra, the students with whom we receive initiations are called our Vajra Brothers and Sisters. We will be with them until we are totally enlightened, and we need to treat them with the utmost respect. Transgressions against our tantric sangha are very negative. I think of my recovery group in the same way, but it took a lot of study and practice of Buddhism, and some mistakes and hurt feelings in recovery, to develop this understanding. When we begin to see recovery as 12-Step Buddhists do, it’s hard to become stagnant.

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