from Booze to Buddha

Once I have exercised a little with meditation to achieve some mindfulness. As well as experienced being able to keep my mind focused without wandering off with every thought and emotion that arises. I can now use meditation, in other words, thinking to contemplate deeper meanings. I can gain deeper understandings for myself that create feelings. I then hold those feelings so I may revisit them again in a meditative state of calm. I exercise like this and then those deeper meaning full experiences will arise more in my life. You could say that they become my habitual reactions.

Meditation means exercise. Exercising the mind into being self-observant, self-aware and present in the here and now; that is being mindful. Meditation also means thinking or contemplation. In today's episode I focus upon using the tool of meditation as a form of exercise to improve myself and my life. Today I give instruction on proper use of meditation and an introduction to this tool as part of my regular exercise.

This week I want to extend what I spoke about last week with Step 3 of AA before moving on to discussing Step 4. With that in mind I will focus upon sharing my thoughts and suggestions about prayer and meditation. Sharing what has been taught to me and my experience with those teachings.

Today we begin with prayer, a powerful too that I use to shape my destiny.

Today I go longer than most episodes although I think I do for good reason. I also get a little emotional toward the end while I share part of my story. Sorry bout that but I hope you find something in the message.

Today, rather than talk directly about step three, I share some of my general experiences and feelings about spirituality and how it's worked for me.

The final part of Step 3 is the prayer. This is the actual ceremony of making the decision to (as I put it) align my thinking (will) and my actions (life) over to (G.O.D.) the good orderly direction as I understand it.

For me it began with stating the prayer in the Big Book of AA like this: I offer myself to It - to build within me, to feed the goodness in me so I become capable of doing God's Will. I ask, the unknowable power of the universe, that you relive me of the bondage of self, that I may better to The Will. Please take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of The Power, The Love and The Way of Life. May I do The Will always! This was my agnostic version of the third step prayer on page 63 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I now use another prayer from the teachings of the Buddha known as Going for Refuge. It reads:

I and all sentient beings, until we achieve enlightenment, Go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

Which I see parallels the program of AA in that - I and all addicts, until we achieve recovery, Go for refuge to God, as we understand It, the teachings in the text book Alcoholics Anonymous and the fellowship.

Step 3 of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous states "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." I can now look back upon the events of my life and choices I made and see that I had made other decisions in my life. I've made bad decisions in my life and the result has been addiction. Now I am making a good decision. I am making a decision to align my thinking and my actions with my understanding of God and it's will for my good.

This episode is about Step 3. The first part of step 3 for me was "...God as we understood Him." It began with the simple idea of acknowledging and talking about what I believe instead of what I don't believe. In fact the beginning of my change was simply that; I was no longer talking about or thinking about what I don't believe. That wouldn't serve me in my life anymore and debate on the ideas I don't believe was just another way to feed the "black wolf" with in me.

Before I learned the 12 step recovery program I used to think that this program was about God, Jesus and the Bible. Today I share my experience in understanding that I was incorrect and how the program is about having a higher power in my life that is of my own conception and understanding. It's also about believing that a source of power is in the fellowship, although that isn't enough, and in the 12 step recovery program. It's this power that has allowed me to recover like those before me from the hopeless state of mind and body.

Ideas and understanding of step 2 continued...