Jessie P. at the 12 Steps and Buddhism Retreat – 2011

About This Speaker Tape

12 Steps and Buddhism Retreat - 2011

A dorm room at Purchase College in 1981 serves as the backdrop for a crash course in desperation. Jessie P. recalls drinking whiskey from coffee mugs and the visceral horror of nearly losing a friend to a choking fit in a triple room a moment of wreckage that forced a sudden desperate plea for help. After discovering the Big Book on a parents' bookshelf Jessie P. spent years fighting the theistic language of the program feeling like an outsider in a world of Mother T.s. The narrative shifts to a Buddhist lens where the Third Step Prayer is decoded not as a plea to a deity but as a surrender to the present moment and a release from the 'bondage of self'—the delusion of a separate isolated identity. Change shows up as a shift from fighting reality to accepting impermanence moving from the dread of the morning after to a conscious willingness to be present for others.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:30 Jessie P. introduces the goal of decoding the Third Step Prayer from a non-theistic, Buddhist perspective.
• 2:15 Recounting the 'wreckage' of 1981: drinking whiskey from coffee mugs at Purchase College.
• 3:45 A harrowing account of a friend nearly choking to death in the dorm room.
• 5:00 The first 'spiritual experience': the brief moment of peace before the dread and shame returned.
• 7:15 Discussion of the struggle to conform to a theistic view of the Third Step Prayer for years.
• 9:00 Decoding the Third Step Prayer: 'I offer myself' as entering the present moment.
• 11:00 Analysis of the 'bondage of self' as the delusion of a separate, centralized individual self.
• 13:00 Reinterpreting 'May I do thy will always' as staying awake and present for others.
• 14:30 Laughter: A comment on Jessie P. leaving their speech on the kitchen island.