Eric on Surrender, Zen Buddhism, and the Final Crushing of Self-Sufficiency

About This Speaker Tape

12 Steps and Buddhism Retreat - 2008

Eric E. dismantles the idea of surrender as a mere intellectual label or a one-time event. He traces his own wreckage—eighteen years of knowing he was an alcoholic and five years of failed attempts at sobriety—until he hit a final crushing of self-sufficiency that left him homeless. He maps out a path where surrender is not a 'condition of groveling despair' but a direct experience of reality blending 12 Step principles with Zen Buddhist practice. He argues that the intellect is a scavenger a 'bird of appetite' that tries to consume spirituality as a trophy whereas true surrender is found in the simple gritty reality of listening in a meeting or feeling the pain of knees hurting on a meditation cushion. For Eric E. surrender is the active process of letting go of the vision of how life should be to embrace the life that is actually given.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Eric E. opens by defining surrender as a vast, open space rather than a label.
• 2:15 Reading from the 12 and 12 regarding the Seventh Step and the 'crushing of self-sufficiency'.
• 4:30 Eric E. describes his 18-year struggle and the period of homelessness before finding grace.
• 7:10 Discussion on the 'birds of appetite' and the danger of approaching spirituality as something to be gained.
• 9:45 The story of Bahia and the practice of seeing 'just the seen' and 'just the heard'.
• 12:20 Exploring the concept of hope and the necessity of entrusting oneself to life as it is.
• 15:10 Eric E. discusses the fundamental confusion of the alcoholic who clings to thoughts to avoid seeing themselves.
• 16:30 Q&A: Eric E. distinguishes between surrender (the action) and serenity (the result).
• 18:15 Laughter: Eric E. discusses the physical pain of sitting on a Zen cushion and the struggle to avoid the pain.