"There is nothing mystical about recovery. You simply go to meetings, follow the steps and don't act out your disease. There is nothing mystical about Zen, either. In fact, you're already doing it. Zen mind is often called everyday mind. It is the Zen teacher's job to make you aware of what you already know… What are the actual mechanics of being fully present in this moment, of letting go and letting God, or our Higher Power, of not judging everything we experience? Or better yet (since we're only pointing at the moon), what is the flavor, the sense and the feeling of this experience?
Buddha said that a man drowning in a river is saved by a raft. When he reaches the other shore, he leaves the raft. Only a fool would continue to carry the heavy raft around with him on dry land. So it is with all teaching, philosophies and programs. Don't try to know so much. You'll get there. You're already here… When you have discovered your true way, there will be no denying it. You'll know for sure. A common term for recovery meetings is “Freedom Hall,” because of the diversity of opinion and belief encompassed and encouraged in the membership. Zen is considered part of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Mahayana means “great vehicle,” because it is a big and generous enough philosophy to contain many methods of liberation. Zen, too, is a large enough boat to save all beings from drowning in the sea of suffering, especially people in recovery.
The similarity between the Mahayana tradition and recovery traditions of tolerance and support further encourages us as we take the path of Zen in our quest for spiritual wellness… As people in recovery, we have no choice but to undertake this journey of spiritual awakening. It's that or back to the active progression of our diseases. Buddha said there are many kinds of cures for many kinds of diseases. For this alcoholic's spiritual diseases, the practice of Zen is the ideal prescription. For others, Christianity, or even atheism, might be the cure. It really doesn't matter.
Zen is not evangelical, and it attracts rather than converts. You probably wouldn't have read this far if you didn't feel this medicine might have some value for you, too. A lot of what is contained in these pages can be put to good use by Jews, Christians, atheists and even people who take the fellowship itself as their Higher Power. It's a big boat with no requirement to sign anywhere. I insist on your freedom. So should you. Whatever your level of knowledge or exposure to either Zen or recovery, I believe you'll readily understand this work and, to paraphrase AA's “Big Book,” be capable of grasping and developing this manner of living. In fact, the greater your pride in your intellectual grasp of Zen and recovery, the less your heart will be able to implement these ideas. So don't worry about what's in your head. Trees, rocks and clouds understand this stuff without even trying. So do you. Just become willing to believe in yourself.
A lack of formal knowledge about any subject is called “Beginner's Mind” by the late Japanese Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki in his classic Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. In the Twelve Step programs, we might refer to it as “Newcomer's Mind.” Zen Master Seung Sahn calls it “Don't Know Mind.” Don't lose this mind; always keep your sense of wonder and anticipation. In the recovery programs we say, “Keep it green.” As beginning Zen students or recovery newcomers, we seem to be like sponges, soaking up new experiences and learning with 100 percent willingness, without judging or checking. Only later on, when we become smug and complacent in our program or practice, do we lose this initial mind and become Know-It-Alls. If we were truly Know-It-Alls, then what in hell would we need Zen or the programs for? We've got plenty of experts in this world and we can easily see the sad results for ourselves. Don't Know, Newcomer's Mind is the one that will save the world, or at least your part of it.
The opinions, pronouncements and teachings of this book are, for the most part, mine and mine alone. Nothing in it should in any way be taken as the official teaching or opinion of Zen Buddhism, its centers and teachers, or of the many Twelve Step recovery programs and their members. Without these influences I would surely be dead already, and this book is written out of profound gratitude to them and in the hope of giving back what has been so freely given. We can't keep it unless we give it away, for it belongs to us all…
If you can view this book (merely as the journal) of how one person in recovery does it and thereby feel encouraged to form your own practice, I will have succeeded. If you can use this book as a mirror for your own unique spiritual odyssey and gain some insight into how you might approach it, then I bow deeply to you as well for giving me this great opportunity. For a very long time I refused to even consider writing such a book, believing it to be in conflict with the programs’ traditions and the spirit of Zen. When I was at meetings, I was one among many and studiously avoided speaking in Zen terms, although many others would talk of God and Jesus.
At the Zen Center, very few people knew I was in recovery. In Zen practice, one often hears the question “Are they the same or different?” applied to just about everything. For years this question in relation to Zen and recovery plagued me. But as I have grown in each area, I have learned where they are the same and where they are different. It's of primary importance to know this and not mix them up. Don't sit in a meeting feeling different because you might practice Zen. Feeling different is one of the symptoms of your human disease. Only by being one among many do we find true recovery of our human nature. We're just recovering people who happen to use a different Higher Power—not better, not worse. Our disease must remain our primary point, our primary purpose.
By the same token, Zen practice is not the place to air issues better dealt with in meetings, with sponsors, in stepwork or in therapy. However, there are places where Zen and the Twelve Step programs intersect. It is at these junctures that we can attain great serenity, understanding and perhaps even wisdom. Part of my reluctance has also been worn away by the ever-increasing attraction throughout the fellowships to meditation in relation to the Eleventh Step. What was once considered at best eccentric is now commonly acknowledged to be of great value to everyone. More and more, the people showing up at meditation and Buddhist centers are in some variant of recovery. Quite often, the catalyst is a great need to penetrate the Eleventh Step, which stipulates meditation as one of the means for solid spiritual recovery. While most people have some idea of what prayer is about, they have only the vaguest notion of how to meditate or how to “improve our conscious contact” with a Higher Power.
A lot of what is said in the following pages might seem repetitive at times. As human beings with self-destructive and addictive diseases, we need to have this stuff pounded into our heads time and time again. Face it, if you've been to one meeting, you've basically heard it all. Over and over again, we return to hear the same stories and the same clichés. Each time, however, our understanding deepens and the message becomes clearer. The steps and the dharma rise or descend to our level of readiness like water. They don't change, but the way in which we understand them does.
It is my personal belief that Bill W., the author of the Twelve Steps, was an American Buddha, that he attained enlightenment as a result of his tremendous suffering and then passed on his profoundly simple teaching to us. He has saved millions from death and never, during his lifetime, asked for anything in return, not even fame, using only his last initial in lieu of his name until his death. Truly the mark of a great bodhisattva or saint. When the history of the twentieth century is written, I am certain that Bill's introduction of the Twelve Steps will be viewed as one of the greatest spiritual, if not religious, movements of the time. Only half a century later, virtually no one is untouched by the message and almost everyone at least knows someone who attempts to practice the steps.
Bill's wisdom in not rigidly organizing the fellowship, in not codifying its beliefs and not making himself a prophet figure all have parallels in early Buddhism. Buddha's dying words were to the effect that each person must seek his or her own salvation, depending on no one else. It is at this intersection of self-work in both Zen and recovery that another revolution occurs. The growth of Zen Buddhism in the West has also paralleled that of the recovery programs. Something new is emerging, something that doesn't hand our spiritual guidance over to others, something that insists on the dignity of each person's unique search. Something is emerging that doesn't merely give lip service to the spiritual, but actually and fundamentally saves lives and changes awareness for the better.
I write as a recovering alcoholic, addict and survivor of a brutalized childhood. I have been the living laboratory for these experiments in the nature of suffering and serenity. The results are mine but might have some relevance to your life as well. Because I write from my own experience, the words “drinking” and “alcoholic” might appear more regularly than others, but this book is meant for all types of people in all types of recovery, even people with no apparent dysfunction other than the human disease of suffering.
As you will discover in your reading, even our addictive, self-destructive diseases are not special or different from the sufferings of so-called normal people. All beings are afflicted with the disease of life and death and of dualistic thinking. Our diseases merely act as amplifiers for our human nature, turning up the volume of our attachments and suffering. In that regard, we are fortunate. We have to recover our true selves or die. Others aren't so lucky and have to accept their anxiety and suffering as normal because they don't know what else to call it. Most don't even realize they're suffering, confusing their tortured fears with their true nature. They are candidates, as well, for the recovery of our original nature that Buddha taught and for the universal lessons that the Twelve Steps enunciate.
All beings suffer in one form or another and want to learn how to stop their suffering and gain lasting happiness. In that respect, this book is dedicated to all those in active, conscious recovery. Try to read it as though you were listening to a friend talk about issues of vital importance to both of you. It was in that spirit that I wrote—as if I were speaking to only one person: you. When asked if he was a god, Buddha replied that he was not. “Are you a saint, then?” he was asked. He replied that he was not a saint either. “Then what are you?” “I am awake,” was his answer. It's surely a miracle that we can even answer, “I'm alive and recovering.”
~ Mel Ash, The Zen of Recovery. Ash was formally recognized and authorized as a dharma teacher by Korean Zen master Seung Sahn in 1988 after several years of study and living at the Providence Zen Center, and given the dharma name "Jeong Mu Poep Sa," translated as "Clear Emptiness Dharma Teacher." The Zen master told me, laughing, that he couldn't fix me because there wasn't anything broken except in my mind. When he asked me to show him my mind for fixing, like one would show a foot or hand or something and I couldn't, everything got fixed by itself in a hurry. He laughed like an idiot when I thanked him and told me to "Keep that mind." Keep that mind? What mind? Can't lose what you've never had, although I did lose any need to get fixed. Presently living in the Bay area with his family (a lifelong dream come true), Ash currently works out of Berkeley and teaches workshops locally as well as seeing private students.
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