This bowl is broken

A friend of mine recently mentioned that a Buddhist teacher once, while holding his favorite (intact) bowl, said "this bowl is broken."  That is to say, look at it as already past, lost, broken and you won't be attached to it.

I need that kind of reminder a lot.  I remember when I first heard the AA bumper sticker "an expectation is a premeditated resentment."  What, aren't we supposed to have any expectations.  I twisted with that one for years before realizing that the answer was a simple 'yes.'  We can look to the future and plan, but to expect is to attach yourself to an anticipated outcome and attaching yourself is a dangerous thing.

Life doesn't have to be justified

Life doesn't have to be justified.  It is the justification.
I was up for a job a couple of weeks ago that required knowledge of HTML, the language used to lay out information on web sites.  Since my knowledge of HTML could only optimistically be called rusty, I started giving myself a crash course in it and was surprised at just how much fun I was having.  Shortly after I started playing with HTML I was told that I would not get the job.

Those pesky Promises

Anybody who knows me in AA knows how I feel about what has become known in AA circles as "The Promises". Those often quoted lines on pages 83 and 84 that are such a staple and a favorite of so many people in the fellowship. They know... I hate 'em.

Okay, maybe I don't hate them. As a matter of fact, I love many thing about them. What I hate is what they have come to represent and how they are misunderstood.

Spiritual Materialism

In my last post I called using the AA program as a way to feel good a form of 'spiritual materialism' (also known as 'spiritual narcissim').  As I understand it, spiritual materialism (a term coined by the Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche) involves ego inflation rather than the AA goal of 'ego deflation in depth'.  We inflate our egos when we use our program as a source of temporary pleasure, as a tool for feeling good, rather than as a tool for changing ourselves in a fundamental way, surrendering to our higher power and facing reality.

Are these extravagant promises? (part of a series)

The following is part of a series Dave and I are doing on the Promises. (See Contingent Promises, Learning to Play, and Love for an earlier post.)

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and selfpity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.  
Are these extravagant promises?

Well, as I often hear them interpreted in meetings, yeah, they are extravagant.