The Friction of Asking a Separate Consciousness for Help – Ben M.

About This Speaker Tape

March 2013 - 12 Steps and Buddhism Retreat - 2013

Ben M. maps out the intersection of Buddhist practice and recovery focusing on the struggle to extend compassion to oneself. He traces his history of fluctuating sobriety—years of abstinence followed by slips into social drinking—and a particularly brutal period of study where isolation and a rigid demanding environment pushed him back into drinking alone at night. He dismantles the traditional Serenity Prayer finding friction with the idea of asking a separate consciousness for help and instead offers a revamped version centered on watering wholesome seeds. The talk culminates in a guided loving-kindness meditation moving from the self to friends neutral strangers and eventually all sentient beings treating the practice as a way to exercise the heart and soften the internal wreckage.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Ben M. introduces himself as an adult child of alcoholism.
• 2:15 Discussion of the Dalai Lama and the foreign concept of self-hatred.
• 4:30 Ben reflects on the difficulty of feeling compassion for himself until he feels it for others.
• 7:10 Mention of the four bodhisattva vows and 'watering seeds' of compassion.
• 10:20 Ben discusses the Serenity Prayer and his need to revamp it to fit his spiritual beliefs.
• 13:45 Explanation of the loving-kindness meditation process, starting with a neutral person.
• 16:10 Ben describes his relapse into drinking alone at night and his first experience with AA.
• 19:30 Guided loving-kindness meditation: focus on self, friends, and all beings.
• 22:15 Closing thoughts on compassion as a gateway to the Eightfold Path.