Hi everyone,
It's Chris McDuffie from Spiritual Sobriety.
Today we're going to try something a little different.
Today we're going to do a workshop.
You're going to need some supplies,
So I'll read the instructions and feel free to pause at any time to help restart so that you can follow along.
The first thing you're going to need is a piece of paper held sideways and a pen.
Today's discussion is Buddhists approach to managing suffering and how it correlates to the 12 steps.
We're going to draw a half of a top of a circle in the middle part of your page,
Allowing about four inches from the bottom of the ends of the half circle so that the half circle sits in the middle of the page.
At the end of each half circle line would you draw an arrow and on the left side would you please write below the arrow attachments,
Grabbing,
And on the bottom of the right arrow would you write the words aversion and anger.
According to Buddhism,
Attachments and aversions are the two key sources of suffering.
Before we get into the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path in greater detail,
I'd like to start with this visual aid and hopefully we can do this together with paper and pencil.
Now you have this half-shaped circle with the words attachments and aversions.
I'd like you to give some personal examples for yourself of attachments and aversions.
For example,
If I grab onto an electric wire,
I'm going to get shocked.
Or if I grab onto a hot stove with my hand,
I'm going to get injured and get burned at the same time.
Or if I grab onto a hot stove with my hand,
I'm going to get injured.
I'd like you to think about examples of unhealthy aversions and anger.
And this example might be,
If the house is on fire,
I would be suffering if I chose to angrily avoid calling 911 for help.
Pause right here for a moment and give yourself a chance to write freely and pause to give yourself some time to reflect.
We'll be back in a few minutes.
Okay,
Let me give you a little more help.
Now we know that the 12 steps,
People,
Places,
And things are the key general areas where we suffer.
So in recovery,
We might be suffering from our attachments to our ex-spouse or lover.
We might be attached to places where we were harmed and felt resentful towards.
And we might be attached to things,
In our case,
Like chemical substances or process addictions,
Along with resentments.
You can imagine that this whole list are things that humans for thousands of years have been grabbing onto which creates their own suffering.
I'd like to give you a moment now again to refocus your energies on private reflection,
On examples of people,
Places,
And things,
Perhaps chemical addictions or process addictions or resentments that you noticed in the past you attached to or grabbed onto or currently are grabbing onto.
And it is that grabbing that creates your suffering.
At the same time,
I'd like you to think about people,
Places,
And things that you have been avoiding or angry with that is to your own detriment.
That the pushing away of these resources are creating more suffering for you.
Okay,
Let's get back to those arrows.
Before we have the act of grabbing or before the behavior of pushing away,
We want to begin to notice through practices the original wanting and not wanting right before that action.
There's going to be a thought and a feeling of wanting and a thought and a feeling of not wanting.
I'd like you to consider how mindfulness and meditation and step 11's contemplative prayer could be used to practice identifying in real time whether you have the impetus,
Whether you have that automatic thought,
Whether you've been triggered with a thought that you want something or not want something.
And can you begin to practice seeing this in real time?
So here we have the introduction to mindfulness meditation and practices that develop your awareness of our automatic responses to wanting and not wanting.
The trick in cognitive behavioral therapy,
Acceptance commitment therapy,
And dialectical behavioral therapies,
And in Buddhism,
Is to see that I'm about to mindlessly grab something and then choose not to grab onto that thing.
And to begin to see that I was about to push away something that I could have been better served by walking towards.
In Buddhism,
We actually bow towards those things.
The example I like to use is if I'm drowning and a lifeguard is saying,
Let me help you,
Let me help you.
And I start yelling at him or her and say,
Leave me alone.
Can't you see that I'm drowning?
Why are you bothering me?
We want to begin to see how the attachments and the aversions generate our own sufferings in order to not attach and not avoid.
From a chemical dependency situation,
One can imagine that every time somebody grabs onto that drink or drug,
Or that act of a process addiction,
They are creating more suffering for themselves and others.
Now imagine the same individual active in their addiction,
Pushing away 12 steps,
Pushing away therapists,
Pushing away sober livings and treatment centers.
And you can see that they're now suffering at the middle of both sides of the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Now for our next task,
I'd like you to draw a number line from the bottom of your left arrow going forwards,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
Stopping about three quarters of the way up the line at the same time.
I'd like you to draw 1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
Stopping equally at about three quarters up the number line on the right side.
When I teach this model to clients,
I show them now that if we overlay the 12 steps onto the same arrow spectrum that Buddhism works with,
We begin to see that if we can reflect on step 1 through 9,
We see with our sponsees how they and how we ourselves were suffering from those attachments,
And equally suffering through step 1 through 9 with those aversions.
Again,
The point of step 1 through 9 is to uncover,
Discover,
And identify what needs to be discarded and embraced,
I.
E.
That one is God,
May you find him now.
In this case,
The attachments and the aversions.
I've developed this model as a visual aid to show literally how we can overlay the 12 steps,
Principles,
And practices on top of Buddhist principles.
You should still have space at the top of your circle,
And here's where I would like you to write the following.
Steps 10,
11,
And 12.
I'd like you to also write above or below the words of the Eightfold Path.
Now we have a visual aid of the sweet spot of balance and equanimity,
And in Buddhism,
Buddha called the sweet spot the balance,
Or the middle way,
Or the middle path.
This is the Eightfold Path teaching.
I draw the spectrum for you then to show you how as a seesaw or a fulcrum or the middle path could be used as a state of homeostasis or balance.
In that spot,
We could overlay the Eightfold Path and the 12-step principles,
Which we'll do later.
And when we're viewing Steps 10,
11,
And 12,
As we work with sponsees and clients using the 12-step model,
We suggest that we want to live in that balanced place of Steps 10,
11,
And 12 throughout each day.
We also want to remind ourselves when we practice these principles before personalities.
We also want to practice progress,
Not perfection.
The goal here is not to stay in the center of the fulcrum.
That's impossible.
The goal here is to develop mindfulness and practices of contemplative prayer in order to begin to notice when we are tilting towards the wanting or tilting towards not wanting,
Towards things that might be attachments or aversions,
And begin to develop the cessation of the grabbing and the cessation of the pushing away.
That,
In a nutshell,
Is Buddhist's attempt to suggest how to literally end our own suffering by stopping the grabbing and stopping the pushing away.
We're going to get into details of the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths in the next two upcoming podcasts.
I wanted to begin with this schema to orientate you to two things again,
The Buddhist approach to the cause of suffering and the 12-step approach to explain the causes of suffering as a visual aid.
I hope that that helped you,
And I look forward to hearing your responses and thoughts on your examples of attachments and aversions.
Thank you,
And have a wonderful day.
Take care.
