Eric E. at the 12 Steps and Buddhism Retreat – 2012

Nice and relaxed. You know how it is at a meeting that we all go to. It's a little larger meeting than most often, and people have been talking about things you didn't really want to hear for a long time. The last person to speak is that person you're always having difficulty tolerance-wise because they talk a little bit too much. Well, here I am. My name is Eric and I'm an alcoholic. They also call me Zengan and I am a Buddhist. And today I'd like to talk to you a little bit about my life. Some of this story will be about my alcoholism and my recovery but most of what I wish to speak to you about tonight is service and how it integrates life service is the principle of the twelfth step it is also considered foundational in Buddhist circles amongst us Buddhists in both the outcome desired the outcome believed in is to lessen suffering. In the Twelve Steps, we believe that service and practice begin a state that we call happy, joyous, and free. In Buddhism, with service and practise, we speak of nirvana. They are the same thing. I'd like to begin with a quote from the Middle-Length Sayings These are the middle-ranked discourses. And for those of you who haven't become familiar with those texts, know them from the Theravada traditions as a collection of Buddhist sayings that some believe are his actual words, what he said. And so these would be his words. Although nirvana does exist and the way to it exists and I, an advisor, also exist. Some of my followers will attain the unchanging goal but others will not. There is nothing I can do in this matter. All I can be is a shower of the way. All any of us can do is to be a shower or the way but how do we do that what do we do, what do we say how do we create a path for others for ourselves that leads to happiness to joy to freedom to nirvana that is what I'd like to discuss with you tonight so to plant my very first claim service is here right now. We are all doing it right here, right now and being here now we need to be very careful. We need to respect it, to see it, to experience it and to know its wonder. I grew up in a large family, seven children it's easy to get lost in seven children being the second oldest I held standing with my younger siblings although I didn't really know that until much later and I was not careful in that in fairness I was simply ignorant very ignorant and most of my ignorance the worst most damaging part of my ignorance was that I felt quite alone quite different from others unconnected not integrated into the whole of life and I felt exclusively responsible for me when I speak of service when we speak of service it's important to realize this characteristic that those who wish to serve may see themselves as unique different from us holding their own truths believing that they must light their own way their own path if we are to serve we must be very careful not to magnify this ignorance by being separate ourselves. As I grew, many people gave service to me. My parents were wonderful and doing the best they could to teach me the methods of life. Of course, I didn't see this. My teachers in school and church served me their knowledge. I didn'T see this either. I had a few friends in the neighborhood we had a small number of children in that area it was that kind of a place but they too were quite separate and my focus was on what I didn't have in this case, friends Boy Scout leaders and Little League coaches gave of their time and energy I spent my summers at lake homes of friends or canoe camps all without charge. It was all just given to me. Much less did I see a whole society without whom I would have likely perished. It is all service. And the second lesson I missed was gratitude. service holds gratitude it manifests gratitude we do it because we are thankful for being part of the whole of life my senior year in high school I had held firm to the belief that cigarettes and alcohol were not for me both changed on that New Year's Eve My tempest was wanting to fit in. That and wanting to be someone big enough to handle these adult things. I wasn't. Self-centeredness and ego were ascendant in my life. My drinking was soon exacerbated by the Vietnam War, drugs, radical politics, and the college experience. in my senior year in college I received a physical deferment from the draft in 1968 that was wonderful I thought of the gift glory glory that winter quarter no longer needing my student deferment I dropped out of college and went skiing my father was he was upset my family had served me for years and I you know with a little thought I spit at them in the spring a family friend offered me a job as a banker I ran the trust operations department and learned that two Manhattans for lunch was just about right I was off and running I also learned that to be computer knowledgeable a byproduct of my responsibilities gave me freedom to work my own hours when I needed to and I did and it created a certain distance and a certain protection for me this was the early 70s and before you know as far as computer technology it was something like before rocks I was a star and that gave me all I needed to grow my addiction I moved on to another job fully in the computer arena and I met my first real 12 step person Ray Ray Ackerman he was a recovering alcoholic and head of accounting he saw who I was and he reached out to serve me to help me he took me to my first AA meeting it was 1976 and I knew I was an alcoholic nobody had to tell me the Buddha said some of my followers will attain the unchanging goal but others will not the big book says those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves I left the meeting when they read the Lord's Prayer at the end I would have nothing to do with asking for or receiving help much less would I allow a God I simply would not allow a God Ray worked by my side for another three years and he never pressured me again but he was always there in his service I learned that giving does not have expectation the Buddha said all I can be is a shower of the way what I learned about myself was that the main factor the thought idea about God and recovery had nothing to do with my life had nothing to do with relieving my alcoholism but that came much later I drank myself further and further away from others by 1984 that included my wife and children. By then, my foolish image of myself, able to leap tall buildings with a single drink, had completely crumbled. Over the next five years, I attended AA regularly, received three inpatient treatments, put down abuse with no success, lost jobs and friends, and accumulated all the consequences this disease could throw at me. I was served by many. Countless people reached out and offered a hand. There was Warren McGinley and Bob Bee, Pat Holden, Art Ballmeister, Gretchen Bonner, the nurses that cared for me in hospitals. well I thought it was just so funny to be so completely drunk and stumbling and falling down they saw death and they still served me the list is so long so many people gave me service I went through a few sponsors and landed on Paul Markeson in the end I couldn't stay sober regardless of what I tried I couldn' t stay sober in the end Paul told me that the people of AA had even given up on me they knew I was going to die I had lost everything and I was homeless I slept on Paul's wood floors for a while all of life had beckoned me but I could not see that was September of 1989 and then it happened Surrender is a grace so large that the only word I can use to describe it is boundless Life came back Only now it was simple It had none of the trappings I had pursued Trappings that had blinded me it was full of a gratitude that I did not fully understand it simply filled me up I returned to those who had served me for so long and they welcomed me without recrimination or rebuke and showed me a new path their service was in their practice practice these principles in all our affairs says step 12 and they did not perfectly but with a fierce intention we spent the last two days remembering the principles of this practice honesty hope action, courage, integrity, willingness, humility, love, self-discipline, perseverance, spiritual awareness, and service. But sober now, I was still floundering. every time I lost touch with that profound grace I returned to wanting those trappings I wanted to be somebody not my somebody but somebody in other people's eyes I wanted to be their somebody I had not learned that practice takes time that practice gives. That what it gives is not known before it gives. About a year into this confusion and grace mixture, my new sponsor Terry Troy took me to a silent meditation weekend at a nunnery in Wayzata the same one that Therese talked about the Senegal I win only because Terry said so it was his service to me once again I had missed gratitude for it I had dabbled in yoga the spiritual kind and even spent some time at the Minnesota Zen Center I remember calling it the Minneapolis Zen Center but it was some confusion then and it really had no impact so I went with some arrogance I knew all about this stuff it was a Catholic place and I still had that arrogance too God said no place no use there on a late Sunday afternoon during a question and answer period I met met isn't quite the right word I felt I saw I experienced you can't quite describe exactly what it was even now but I met a man whose service changed my life. He was Zen. I don't even remember his name. But he was Zen He had a profound way of loving and being compassionate a way of holding everyone we began that session as individuals but that had disappeared there was a seamless unity amongst us all practice and service unfolded for me right there they are one and the same seamlessness applies to everything I wanted so desperately to have what he had his principles were contained in the precepts that we studied this afternoon and in the eightfold path right practice right attitude right understanding he said another way wisdom containing right view and right intention ethical conduct containing right speech right action right livelihood and mental development effort, mindfulness concentration along with the precepts along with the principles of AA these formed for me lights along a path towards happiness joylessness and freedom a path to nirvana I stumbled often and I've learned that that stumbling is necessary I've also learned that to use the idea of principles to allow them to become fixed and hard is to lose them. Attention to all of this is what I mean when I say be careful in service. Awareness of our play in all things, of those guiding lights. Be careful. we must try to see others we must try to see ourselves just as we are in suchness of who we are we must not magnify our ignorance our separateness when serving others to serve needs humility whether we serve others or ourselves gratitude for life for those who serve us for our service to others gratitude is always present in service service is manifest gratitude and with that there is no exception what service gives is not known before it is given. The Buddha said, all I can be is a shower of the way. That is the wonder. That is magic in the ordinary. That is the magic in service. Thank you very much. we have a couple of more minutes before the party begins if there are any questions I'd be more than happy to entertain them about this talk or anything else that you might care about yeah I have a question about service. I especially see that many people who give giving are very, there's a way I care that I open myself and I'm not going to be given all the gifts Susan, that's an excellent question. And one that we should pay attention to closely. I would like to say that the gratitude that we have for life itself and to this knowing that you and I, you and all of us are really just one phenomenon is enough to answer your question. But it's not. We live in this kind of real world, right? And so it's important that when you give service to others, that you also learn to give it to yourself. And most often that you give it to yourself first, so that you can give it to others. The hardest part for me personally, and I don't know you, but the hardest part for me has always been to receive. to learn how to do that is very difficult it means that I have to be worthy I have to feel loved by others I have to know that they care about me or would be willing to stretch themselves that far and since I know none of that before I begin I have to have trust and I have to have faith that they'll be there for me there are the three pillars of Zen that I love so deeply and you probably have all heard them but great faith is one of the legs of the stool great doubt is another one and perseverance is the third sometimes we will get drained out and then we have to go find somebody to help us. Thank you for your question. Anyone else? Yeah, there you are. Did you all hear that? Great faith, great doubt, and great perseverance. Some people call those the three pillars of Zen. I think that comes from a harada. Barry's teacher. Old. Yes, Rob? If you don't mind, can you just share what your program or practice is? sure absolutely that's a fair question as a preface to that okay i will tell you that my ideal of my program and practice is something that i have never met what i think are the important parts of the ideal that i have never met is to have a sangha a community like this community here okay and i come every year and have from the beginning to this meeting okay that is something i'm committed to But I also think that you need it more than once a year. And this is an area that I failed on in the last number of years. I have gone through three different teachers. They've all been great. I haven't left them because of them. I've left them for a long time. I've lost them because inconvenience to me. But they've all taught me a lot. I try to take time during the year to attend sessions like week long sessions. Barry and I were talking about this earlier because there's such energy after seven days. And so if I can get three or four or five of those in a year, then I feel like I've really had a good year. I try to go to an AA meeting at least once a week sometimes more I very much try to give service to people who walk into the door I have a whole smash of wonderful sponsees but unfortunately most of them have got 15, 20 years of sobriety and what they're dealing with is life you know and what they teach me about life is much more than I ever teach them about life. But they called, you know, and they started out like they have a problem and like I might have an answer. And then we struggled together, right? I had a sponsee that while we were having this particular weekend together called and he'd lost his job he's got 20 years of sobriety he struggled for 10 years to accomplish a degree that was very hard for him because he has attention deficit disorder and he did it in physics and math which is a lot of work okay and the only job he could get when he came out of school last year was a job in a gas station. But he was happy, and he was feeling fulfilled, and he wasn't alone. He was helping others. And he was fired yesterday when he went to work and the employee there said, oh, we got a memo that you're no longer working here. his boss who runs the gas station is a young man with his own suffering that he's dealing with. And in his manic depressive characteristics, he didn't have the courage to even send him a letter. We don't know why. so he calls me not because I can get him his job back he calls with me to share his life and we can cry together and we can talk about things I don't know if that helps but that's my practice One more. If anyone has one. All right. And I think it's time to party. The way we only do this is we did it last night. I'll do it again. Big circle and let's have some fun. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.