Step Two: Part Three
Step Two: Part Three
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
Over the last two weeks, I have shared some reflections on the second of the Twelve Steps. I started with the words, “Came to believe.” Then I turned to the phrase, “a Power greater than ourselves”—commonly called a “Higher Power.” You can read those posts here and here, respectively. Today I want to offer one more reflection on Step Two, which concerns its final words.
Once more, Step Two reads:
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Restore us to sanity. It is challenging to find someone in recovery who would not describe their behavior during either short or long periods of substance abuse as “insane.” My own behavior certainly was—and I shall spare you the details. While my own “drinking career” was uneventful in public—there we no bar fights, no destruction of property, no encounters with law enforcement—in private I still behaved in ways that, when brought to mind, cause feelings of shame and disgust. It is as if something rotten is now present. Yuck.
These days life is no longer that revolting. And though I still behave at times in ways that contribute to feelings of regret, it is nothing now compared to what it was then. For that, I am grateful. You could say that sanity has been restored. But what does that mean?
Let us begin with the word “sanity.” I wrote in an earlier post that
If a restoration to sanity is the desired outcome—an awakened, harmonious, and peaceful way of living with and moving through the world—there is comfort found in the confidence that everything is supporting you in this effort.
An awakened, harmonious, and peaceful way of living with and moving through the world. While not a definition, it is nevertheless an attractive description of how we can live—can be—if we so choose. We can say more about this way of being in and with the world through the Ten Clear Mind Precepts. These are:
No killing life / Cultivating and encouraging life
No stealing / Honoring the gift not yet given
No abuse of sexuality / Remaining faithful in relationships
No illusory words / Communicating truth
No misuse of intoxicants / Polishing clarity
No dwelling on past mistakes / Cultivating wisdom from ignorance
No praise or blame / Maintaining modesty
No hoarding teachings or materials / Sharing understanding, freely giving of self
No harboring anger or ill will / Dwelling in equanimity
No abusing the Three Treasures / Respecting the Buddha, unfolding the Dharma, nourishing the Sangha
For me, a life that wholeheartedly engages with these ten precepts, along with the Three Pure Precepts and the Three Refuges, is an awakened, harmonious, and peaceful life. Or, to return to the language of Step Two, a sane life.
At this point, I feel it important to say that these precepts, which Buddhists receive in formal ceremonies and vow to maintain, are not commandments. Their intent is not to “keep us in check” or help us find redemption for our flawed, sinful nature. (By the way, our nature is neither flawed nor sinful.) Rather, the precepts serve as reminders. Reminders of what? Of who we are, how we are, and would always be if the Three Poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance did not appear at times. Of who we are, how we are, and would always be if the Eight Worldly Winds did not blow with such force. The Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche offers an image of “the sun that shines through gaps in the clouds.” We are the sun. We shine brightly, always.
Sometimes we lose sight of that, though, and we need reminders of that ever-present luminosity. Other times our lives become cloudy, owing to causes and conditions, and the “next right thing” for us to do is unclear. There are questions. Kobun Chino Roshi would often say that a life in which there is wholehearted engagement with the precepts creates dilemmas for us. How do I communicate truth to someone that, as best I can see right now, seems unlikely to be able to receive it? How can I remain faithful in a relationship that has come to a fork in the road, and we cannot realistically both travel on the same path anymore? How can I cultivate and encourage life, when doing so in one area will inevitably result in harming life in another area? Yet this is our practice or, as my Guiding Teacher has become fond of saying, this is the art we are called to participate in—a mysterious and creative dance, where our partner is this life as it manifests, moment after moment.
I want to close by saying a few things about the word “restore.” For some, the consistent abuse of alcohol—often called “alcoholism”—is regarded as an incurable disease. Others describe the pattern of behavior as a sign of mental illness. Still others view it as a moral failing; this last has fallen out of favor in recent decades, happily. Yet I hear not infrequently it said that “I am a flawed human being” and “no one is perfect, I am certainly not perfect.” Traces linger. None of these views agrees with the teachings as I understand them. For each of them suggests something enduring, fixed, or rigid about me, and because of that I am somehow defective.
As far as I am concerned, my clearly not-sane behavior was all and only the product of an ever-changing collection of causes and conditions. Some of these causes and conditions I could see, others I could not; some of them were up to me, others were not; some of them were shared with others in similar situations, while others were not—they were unique to me. Yet no one of them—no thing whatsoever—remains as it is, even for a moment. Taizan Maezumi Roshi was fond of saying, I am told, that “in a twenty-four hour period we are being born and dying 6,500,000,000 times.” That is how fast things change—so fast that we cannot see it, feel it. That is how unstable, unpredictable, impermanent, freely-flowing and liberated all things are, necessarily.
The restoration to sanity happens not through an arresting or management of some inborn defect, but through a reconnection to that brightness I mentioned above—the complete, whole being that we are. Then there arises a sense that genuine transformation is possible. What previously felt fixed or unchanging now feels a bit more “wiggly.” We can come to believe, as Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, that “each of [us] is perfect just the way [we] are … and [we] can use a little improvement [too].”