The Humility of Becoming Invisible – Amy V.

I'm Amy and I'm an alcoholic, and it occurred to me in the meditation, I had to chuckle to myself, you started this retreat with me, and you're ending this retreat with me. I'm the bookend of your retreat. I hope that's not too bad for any of you, but it's good for me, I suppose. Anyway, before I get started, I just wanted to say what a wonderful couple of days this has been for me and to thank you all for being here. It's been a really great experience. Some old friends, some new friends, and And I was talking to a couple of ladies earlier, and I was saying, you know, it's just so interesting. There's so much anxiousness and anticipation before the retreat, and then there's that, is it ever going to end? How do we get through it? And then suddenly it's over, and you're like, oh, so soon? I think that may be an alcoholic's point of view, but anyway. And I think it's really important to thank, again, Ken for all of his hard work. And he's not here, but he is in spirit. I have an idea. Yeah, okay. I'm wondering if three people would be willing to write him a thank you note for all of us, and let me get three notes. So will you, and will you end in the way back? And you can do what you can for it at Clouds and Water. Awesome. And also there were a lot of people from Clouds who donated their time and their food and obviously their space to the other people who helped with this retreat. We've got Glenn and Grant and Eric and Diane. I don't know where she went. Oh, there she is. And Matt and Sue and Terry, who are timekeepers. Judith. You. Oh, yeah, Eric. I mean Ben Lord oh yes and me I've had a role thank you for letting me serve that was it's been a really great experience so yeah there was somebody else I wanted to thank and now I can't think of it Buddha Buddha Buddha Well, my topic tonight is on Step 12 and the Bodhisattva Vow. And I use sort of as my primary text both the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous And the No Time to Lose, Pema's book on the Shanti Deva, The Way of the Bodhisattva. And there were so many things. I mean, the title, the text, you know, The way of the bodhisattvas, but it kind of gives you an indication that there's probably a few directions in there and how that might work to become a Bodhisattva. And obviously the steps, I think, point to that as well. There's two verses that I wanted to start with and just briefly comment on. Um, there are two that I use daily. Um, and in class, Judith had told us with so much excitement that she finally found the third and seventh step prayer. So, I, I used them, and so I wanted to share them with you. And some of them speak, some of this speaks directly to the topic of the 12 steps. So, they are verses 2.8 and 2.9 For those of you who will remember that The Buddhas and their Bodhisattva children I offer them myself throughout my life Supreme Courageous One Accept me totally For with devotion I will be your servant For if you will accept me I will become your servant I will give you a benefit to all And freed from fear I'll go beyond the evils of my past and ever after turn my face from them. And after this weekend, the one line that really was standing out to me was the freed from fear. And I think it was kind of connected to Grant's talk last night. But really, when I thought about it, this whole weekend, from everyone who shared at all, whether it be here or in the meeting at large or in a small group, from all the risks that people took. People who have never sat before sitting through this weekend. To me, that is just absolutely unbelievable. to all of us just being able to come together and practice in this new and exciting way. And in terms of the 12th step, well, the 12nd step, the idea of going beyond the evils of my past, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, and ever after turn my face from them, practice these principles in all of our affairs. but I'm probably a little ahead of myself so I'm going to go back and read the step and read the Bodhisattva vow so the step first having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs and the Bodhisattva bow beings are numberless I vow to free them delusions are inexhaustible I vowed to end them dharma gates are boundless I vow'd to enter them the Buddha way is unsurpassable I vowd to realize it so in looking through the two different books and I threw a third one in just for good measure and that was Rev. Anderson's Being Upright. I found, I pulled out some of the couple different things from each of the books and I kind of grouped them together so I just want to quickly go through a couple of those and show you some examples of what I found. And we'll start actually with the being upright. You don't have to say anything in particular or do anything in particular to be helpful to people. You become a bodhisattva by wishing for your own happiness as well as for the happiness of others and opening to your own experience in a loving way. When you love yourself and are kind enough to yourself to be who you really are, you are showing others what they need to do in order to be free. You're showing them what it's like to be present in the middle of suffering. You're right here in the world just like them. You know about fear and anxiety but you don't run away. This is the way you join hands with people and walk together through birth and death. And the big book, You Can Help When No One Else Can. You can secure their confidence when others fail. Remember they are very ill. Life will take on new meaning to watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends. This is an experience you must not miss. I'm going to come back with some others as we go through but the one thing that really stood out for me in looking at these two things side to side was this idea of failure that failure in the Bodhisattva vow is just kind of built in I mean beings are numberless delusions are inexhaustible. There's just kind of no way to succeed on that in any sort of regular basis. And, you know, one of the quotes I have from Pema for later talks about baby bodhisattvas or bodhisatvas in training. I kind of like that. And in the step it says that we tried. We tried to carry the message. Not that we succeeded, but that we tried. And so it's really about this wholehearted kind of effort without the expectations and without the idea of the outcome. And what it reminded me of was in the fall, I participated in a practice period that was here And Ken Ford, our lovely Ken, was my practice leader. And on the day I was to meet with him, I also had a meeting with Judith. And at that meeting, Judith encouraged me to effectively double my sitting time each day. And yes! Which I did, by the way. But when she told that to me, I was like, oh my God, this is going to kill me. How am I ever going to do this? And so I was kind of, how does it work? How is my schedule? And so when I got to Ken about 15 minutes later, I was terrified to commit to anything. And he noticed. He noticed all by, well, I'm going to try to. and he stopped me very kindly and he said no, no, no. And he told me this story that Katagiri had told him about a student who was going out to California to try to be a musician and Kataguri told him no, you don't try to be a music musician. You go be a musician and when you fail and you inevitably will be a musician again. and I really like that and have used it ever since the whole idea of don't try, do and so I think that really fits into what both of these things are pointing to that we're going to fail but that doesn't keep us from doing so here we go Here's a couple more sets of quotes from the big book. Do not be discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once. Search out another alcoholic and try again. And Pema, don't worry about the results. Just open your heart in an inconceivably big way. in that limitless way that benefits everyone you encounter. Do not worry whether or not it's doable. The intention is vast. May everyone's physical pain be relieved, and even more to the point, may everyone attain enlightenment. So, both Buddhism and program, I think, address this issue of the inevitable failure. In program, we call it progress, not perfection. And then we call it practice. And I love that. I love that everything is a practice. Like learning to play the piano. I just practice and maybe one day I'll have some sort of proficiency but there's a long way between there and here. So I had pulled out this quote, and I wrote one of Judas in, and I'm sorry to have your words come back echoing at you, but so here's Judas' quote. to increase my capacity to be with whatever is going on. Progress, not perfection. Increase my capacity. And then, of course, Pema. Even we baby bodhisattvas don't design our lives to escape the chaos of the world. We go into the thickest things and work with whatever we find. Samsara becomes our practice ground or boot camp, so to speak. If we find we continually get hooked into the drama, we temporarily retreat to work on ourselves. But our passion is to alleviate ever greater depths of suffering and meet ever greater challenges with equanimity. The other sort of word that is in none of this, I mean it's not either the step or the vow, but I think it's there, is discernment. And we talked a lot about that, I think, over the weekend in various ways. You know, what is helpful, what isn't helpful. How to take care of other, how to takecare of self, and ultimately how to Take Care of Other as Self. I think it really comes back to that returning to the intention the vow over and over and over again whether you say it in 12 step language or you say in bodhisattva language or you say it in none of the above the humility aspect. For instance, I went for a walk today and what kept coming up for Step 12 was actually Tradition 12. And in it where it says we will practice a genuine humility. And that to be in a place where I'm actually able to discern what's going on and what is helpful and what isn't helpful versus responding to what it is that I want or how I think the situation should be or however I'm hooked, good or bad or indifferent. And so, to go back to our text, the big book says your job is to now be at the place where you can be of maximum helpfulness to others so never hesitate to go anywhere you can get helpful and Hema says a bodhisattva blends in and works within the cultural norms rather than standing out like a sore thumb in the best sense a bodhésattva becomes invisible nobody knows you're a bodhisattva You're just doing your best to wake up and benefit others. And a couple more that I think are relevant to that. The Bodhisattva's acts aren't limited to rigid moral guidelines. We do whatever inspires people to help themselves and whatever it takes to remove suffering. And from the big book, it is not a matter of giving that is in question, but when and how to give that often makes the difference between failure and success and sort of my last idea is Dr. Bob had talked about our steps when kind of boiled down to their last because he summarized it into love and service and I think that's true but I think we can also take it one step further and we can define service as love in action which ultimately leads us only to love the last thing that I would like to close with also are some verses that I use from the Shanti Deva on a daily basis. By the way, in case you couldn't tell, I was really profoundly influenced by that text. And I am amazed by how often things that I don't even know that I remember just are there. Even this weekend, there were so many times people would say something and I'd be like, oh, that first, blah, blah. Not that I could do the whole thing, but there'd be pieces. It just is really cool. So let me read the step again and then I'll read these verses from Chantideva. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all of our affairs. All right. May I be a guardian for those who are protectorless, a guide for those who journey on the road. For those who wish to go across the water, may I be a boat, a raft, a bridge. May I become an aisle for those who yearn for landfall and a lamp for those who long for light. For those who need a resting place, a bed. For all who need a servant, may I be their slave. May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of plenty, a word of power and the supreme healing. May I be the tree of miracles for every being the abundant cow. Like the earth and the pervading element, enduring as the sky itself endures, for boundless multitudes of living beings may I be their ground and sustenance. Thus for everything that lives, as far as are the limits of the sky, may I provide their livelihood and nourishment until they pass me on the bonds of suffering. And this is the really great part. Just as all the Buddhas of the past embraced the awakened attitude of mind, and in the precepts of the Bodhisattvas step by step abode and trained. Just so, and for the benefit of beings, I will always have this state of mind. And in those preceptS, step by steps, I will abide and train myself. Thank you for watching.