Buddhism And The 12 Steps: Defining Our Suffering (Episode 5)

Today, we will begin exploring the Buddhist and 12 Step causes of suffering. Together, we will consider defining suffering and developing insight on how best to end our suffering. Be sure to consider how the Buddhist and 12 Step resources may be used to end your suffering.

Transcript

Hi and welcome to Spiritual Sobriety.

I'm your host Chris McDuffie.

Today's discussion is going to introduce you to the first of Buddha's four noble truths,

The cause of suffering.

We will also study today how Buddhism and the 12-step programs are pathways out of suffering and into spiritual love,

Joy,

And happiness.

I want to begin today by thanking all of you for making our first week of Spiritual Sobriety on Insight Timer a huge success.

We have had thousands of readers and followers from around the world.

Please be sure to click follow on your Insight Timer app to get our podcasts sent to you automatically.

I also want to highlight,

Thank,

And honor the excellent work of authors and teachers Kevin Griffin,

Whose book One Breath at a Time,

And Therese Jacobs Stewart's work Mindfulness and the Twelve Steps.

Their works are incredibly important reads to explaining how Buddhism and the 12-step programs are both pathways for spiritual sobriety.

Their books and lectures have helped me learn much of what I hope to present to you on spiritual sobriety.

I also want to honor the spiritual leaders whose work continues to help enhance my sober life.

These include the works of Ram Dass,

Jack Kornfield,

Sharon Salzberg,

Krishna Dass,

Raghu Marcus,

Lama Surya Dass,

And Dale Borgnam.

I highly suggest that you download their app HeartMind to access the wonderful Buddhist scholars and practitioners.

Alan Watts's work also continues to shape how I understand and practice Buddhist spirituality,

And you may find him on YouTube.

And I treasure all that I continue to learn from the 12-step publications,

Readings,

Books,

And my AA fellowship,

And my sponsor Jerry,

And my spiritual guru Pat.

I hope to honor all of these teachers throughout my talks on spiritual sobriety.

I will be sure to highlight and give credit when I use any of these teachers' resources.

Today's discussion is based upon the exceptional scholarly work of Buddhist scholar Joseph Goldstein.

You will want to find his podcasts on the Insight Hour and on the HeartMind app.

Let's begin today's discussion.

Buddha's first teachings,

Weeks after becoming enlightened under the Bodhi Tree,

Was his first attempt to teach his first five students what he had just learned.

Alan Watts calls the Buddha the first psychologist,

Since Buddha's chief aim was to teach us the causes of suffering and the cessation of suffering.

I like to see my role as an AA sponsor,

Chemical dependency counselor,

And a graduate student in clinical social work as just that,

A teacher to help identify the end to suffering and the cultivation of loving awareness.

Buddha's teachings and lessons are called sutras in Pali,

And today's discussion is on Buddha's attempt to set a framework of understanding for the causes of suffering.

I see steps one through nine as a similar framework to understand why we were suffering and how to end that suffering.

AA calls this work building an archway to walk through.

You may remember in the schema that I taught in my recent podcast,

Buddhism and the Twelve Steps,

The Causes of Suffering,

That according to the Buddha,

The two chief causes of suffering are attachments and aversions.

Buddha uses the Pali term dukkha for what we in the West generally call suffering.

According to Joseph Goldstein,

Buddha's discourse on dukkha defines the entire spiritual pathway of Buddhism,

That all mental condition responses are dukkha,

And the essential nature of our understanding of this suffering is impossible without our awakening to the causes of suffering.

Again,

Dukkha is typically defined in the West as suffering,

While sukkha,

The Pali term and opposite,

Defines the feeling of ease and well-being that we experience when we are not in suffering.

So you might consider steps one through nine our history of dukkha,

And steps 10,

11,

And 12 as the potential to live in sukkha.

The term dukkha comes from two root Pali words,

Du,

Meaning bad or difficult,

And ka,

Meaning empty.

Buddha used the image of the wagon wheel with its eight spokes as a symbol for these early teachings.

He identified the empty axle hole in the center of the ox cart wagon wheel as the ka,

And if the axle fits badly or oddly,

That's the du.

In essence,

Your ride will feel bad,

It will be a difficult journey,

And this troublesome journey will certainly be a very,

Very bumpy ride.

For me,

That sums up my lessons from my step one through nine with my sponsor Jerry.

The ka,

Or the empty in the image of the wagon wheel center,

Also refers to the absence of,

Or the lack of,

An all-controlling self that thinks it can control or command the experience that one finds unsatisfying,

Unreliable,

Or stressful.

Buddha's lesson here is,

It is the ego's craving to control the event that is inherently unsatisfying that gives rise to the suffering.

The image of no ego and no controlling is the ka in dukkha.

This one statement is what the ego immediately rejects when first seeing step one,

I am powerless over alcohol and my life wasn't manageable.

To be clear,

Suffering is not inherent in the world,

Or in nature,

Or in God,

Or in the Tao when life is at work.

The lesson here is our suffering is only created by how the unawoken mind chooses to experience each situation,

Or event,

Or feeling.

We want to use our spiritual programs to help us awaken and see that our attachments and cravings and rejecting of what is,

Is creating our suffering.

You might consider mindful awareness as awoken,

And denial or being drunk or high as unaware or unawoken.

For us in recovery,

And on a spiritual pathway of relapse prevention,

Buddha's suggestions are poignant.

We cause ourselves and others great suffering when we are addicted to indulgences of sense pleasures,

And when we are addicted to self-mortification,

I.

E.

Holding onto our guilt,

Our shame,

And our remorse.

Our axle is stuck and the ride is very,

Very terrifying.

The way out of our suffering is by practicing skillful,

Mindful awareness and then releasing from these addictions.

In Buddhist terms,

This leads us to feeling calm and achieving nirvana daily.

In 12 steps,

We use step 11 as this spiritual daily practice.

To help illustrate his first teachings,

The Buddha uses the image of a dog tied to a post running in circles on a leash.

This is dukkha.

This is suffering.

Dukkha is created when we stop running in circles and unleash ourselves from our attachments and expectations and free ourselves from our own suffering.

In AA,

We discuss the bondage of self.

So,

Do we make time to practice skillful awareness of the suffering that we create for ourselves and others?

Is there more that we can do to cultivate the awareness of our suffering and replace it with joy and happiness for ourselves and others?

I hope that you found today's discussion on suffering and the causes of suffering helpful for cultivating your spiritual sobriety.

We will continue this topic and how to end our suffering over the next several podcasts.

Please be sure to follow Spiritual Sobriety to get our podcasts sent to you automatically.

I look forward to reading your thoughts and comments on today's discussion.

Reviews

I will listen to this again!
Thanks 😊

I am really enjoying to your Buddhism/12 step parallels. I am delving more deeply into step 11 after being clean (&sober) over 25 years in recovery, and am more amazed by simplicity of life than I have ever been.

Short but loaded! #5

Thanks Chris, is Good for me to remain a student, I appreciate you sir! ODAT

I’m happy to have found your podcast. I am in recovery for drug addiction and find this correlation btwn Buddhism and 12steps very very interesting. What rang especially true was the idea of me trying to control my reality (using drugs to mask my true emotional states...my ego grasping at this idea) and ultimately that causing me suffering. The idea of Suka is new to me but I find this all very intriguing. Thank you!