Last month, I celebrated another sobriety milestone: 1,095 days, or three years. The milestone was marked with a trip to Jikoji Zen Center for the Center’s annual Nehan-e sesshin; another tattoo session for the large image emerging on my torso; and quiet comforts with my partner and our two cats. These and much, much more became possible when I simultaneously admitted powerlessness and felt empowered to change my actions, speech, and thoughts. I remain grateful and humbled for that seemingly contradictory and transformative moment. You might say it made, to borrow a favored poet’s words, “all the difference.”
But it didn’t, actually. It made a difference; no “double-L” required. More significant was the diligent effort made each and every twenty-four hours since that day. Aristotle observes that the appearance of one swallow does not make a summer, nor one warm, sunny day. Similarly, he continues, neither does one day nor a short time result in a blessed and flourishing life. In the same vein, I say that transformative moments matter not at all by themselves. What does is what we do following flashes of insight, how we integrate that instant of illumination into our life.
Or as Jim P., my first sponsor, would often tell me: “Recovery belongs to the steady plodder, Michael.”
Also last month—maybe it was two months ago—I was assigned some reading by the Zen teacher now guiding my practice, study, and training. What The Buddha Taught by Ven. Dr. Walpola Sri Rahula found its way into my hands. It’s a slim volume; its contents arranged in an academic way, and delivered with a similar tone. I recommend it, whether your beginning an exploration of the Dharma or somewhere else along the path.
In the book’s extended discussion of the Four Noble Truths, I noted the following passages:
An Arahant, though he acts, does not accumulate karma, because he is free from the false idea of self, free from the “thirst” for continuity and becoming, free from all other defilements and impurities (kilesā, sāsavā dhammā). For him there is no rebirth.
[…] he neither mentally creates nor wills continuity and becoming (bhava) or annihilation (vibhava). As he does not construct or does not will continuity and becoming or annihilation, he does not cling to anything in the world; as he does not cling, he is not anxious; as he is not anxious, he is completely calmed within (fully blown out within paccattam yeva parinibbāyati).
Never before had I see the thirst (craving, tanhā) essential to the arising of suffering as a thirst for continuity and becoming. (Surprised, I reviewed the definition of continuity in a dictionary. Perhaps I had either forgotten or never understood its meaning.) Furthermore, while I had seen Nibbāna as “Blowing Out” (or “Extinction”), never before had I considered what is blown out (or extinguished) as a thirst for continuity and becoming.
Of what is there desired continuity? Of what is there desired becoming? This pair of questions gripped me.
From the earliest days of sobriety, I maintained that alcohol was not the problem. It was a problem, certainly. Similar to thirst in the Twelve-Linked Chain of Dependent Origination (traditionally, thirst is the seventh link) alcohol was the palpable and immediate cause, the principal thing to be arrested—and it was.
Since then, I have spent considerable time investigating what the “thing behind the thing” is (another one of Jim P.’s sayings). I often talk about it as an unrelenting ball of energy. It drives me to keep pushing without concern for what is beneficial, skillful, or wholesome. That ball contributed to burnout; that ball encouraged draining whiskey bottle after beer can after whiskey bottle after beer can in a futile pursuit of relief and continued activity. In time, I would fall apart.
There’s an old story about a boy traveling very fast on a horse. So fast, in fact, that someone working in a field yells, as the boy approaches, “Hey! Where are you going?!” The boy yells back, “I don’t know! Ask the horse!” It feels like that—something run away, something within and with an agency apart from mine, an agency that I am sometimes unable slow down or stop, or even understand. What is happening within the horse? From what or whence arises this unrelenting ball of energy, and what sustains it? And, recalling the above, what would it be like were that ball “fully blown out,” and how could that happen?
There is a line somewhere in Rumi’s extant writings:
Be patient while you sit in the dark. The dawn is coming.
Dawn appeared on the horizon recently, by which I mean somewhere between sound sleep and wakefulness. While in that liminal space, I saw, for a moment, “inside” that ball, to its center and the (supposed) source of its unceasing motion. There was a thirst for fame, a craving for praise, and a clear and present desire for respect. I want to be seen how I want to be seen, and I want to be acknowledged for (and only for) how I want to be seen—and a lot, please, and thank you.
I sighed. Then, humbled, I smiled. “Of course it’s those things,” I thought, “and one more thing, too.” And I was reminded of a recovery old timer who often said, “Fear and Pride. Fear and Pride. For me, it’s always those two things: Fear and Pride.”
A paragraph in the Twelve and Twelve reads:
Practically every boy in the United States dreams of becoming our President. He wants to be his country’s number one man. As he gets older and sees the impossibility of this, he can smile good-naturedly at his childhood dream. In later life he finds that real happiness is not to be found in just trying to be a number one man, or even a first-rater in the heartbreaking struggle for money, romance, or self-importance. He learns that he can be content as long as he plays well whatever cards life deals him. He’s still ambitious, but not absurdly so, because he can now see and accept actual reality. He’s willing to stay right sized.
You can dispute the surface of this paragraph if you wish, and I did when I read it in Twelve Step meetings. (Loudly, by the way.) Now, however, I sigh when I meet it; I sigh because I had thought that what’s beneath the surface wasn’t (and couldn’t be) the case for me, too. Yet it had been, and from before I entered the rooms of recovery. But it’s a sigh of relief, not regret or remorse, and that’s why following the sigh there is a smile.
Somewhere, in a life now long gone—childhood or adolescence, perhaps, and likely the latter—the above Triple Desire was planted, watered, and began to sprout. The soil was fertilized (maybe) by my position as the oldest of four; the sunlight and water (probably) equal parts pressures to perform and revulsion at perceived hypocrisy. Determined to protect a nascent sense of self and fearful of falling into patterns I saw (and condemned) others for their entanglement in, I worked and I worked and I worked.
This is the barest outline of a story, and its truth or falsity is not important. What is—this is the “one more thing”—is that somewhere there came to be a sense of self that was fearful and needed protection. That sense found support and reinforcement (read: continuity and becoming) in an unceasing pursuit of power in several forms. To see this suffices to disrupt the cycle, to dislodge the ball from its powerful position (though I’ll stop short of asserting that I’m “fully blown out within.”) And sight suffices in this case because seeing the sense of self, its supports, and its reinforcement, is, at the same time, to see great and unnecessary suffering.
Suffering born of thirst, thirst born of ignorance.
In the Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, we read that one day Dōgen instructed:
The essential point here is to be free from greed [thirst, craving]. If we wish to put an end to greed, we must first depart from our ego-centered self. To depart from the ego-centered self, seeing impermanence is the primary concern.
And in Gakudō yōjin shū, we find:
Truly, when you see impermanence, egocentric mind does not arise, neither does desire for fame and profit.
May all beings see impermanence. May all beings be free from suffering.
If you benefitted from this offering, consider the following:
Congratulations on your 3 years of sobriety and this outstanding insight. I’m approaching my 26 year anniversary (04/02/99) one day at a time. I love your reference to right sized.
Michael,
Congrats on your milestone. It sounds like we're following a similar path of sobriety and dhamma practice. I've read Walpola's book twice in the last year and feel it must be one of the best books out there. Of you know of others, please feel free to recommend.
Erik