Thursday 11 July 2013

Jesus and Buddha Walk Into an AA Meeting


From Darren Littlejohn at the Huffington Post 


"...Ultimately, we're tasked to live out our clean and sober lives with our thoughts and actions geared toward love and service. The Alcoholics Anonymous basic text says that, "Our very lives, as ex-problem drinkers, depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs."

In my view, those of us with addictions are uniquely qualified to understand the nature of what Buddha taught, namely, that in our lives we suffer and that the path out of suffering is about how to be better people. Buddha taught that we are to, "develop the motivation to benefit each other and extend it to cover all beings," and "It is the great merciful and compassionate heart, the motionless heart, the unpolluted and unattached heart, the emptiness-observing heart, the respectful heart, the humble heart, the uncluttered heart, the non-view and non-grasping heart, and the uppermost Bodhi (enlightened) Heart. You should know that such hearts are the feature and characteristics of this Dharani (mystical incantation), you should practice according to them."

Being an addict teaches us, probably more quickly than for non-addicts, the nature of what Buddha called attachment, aversion and ignorance and how these three poisons keep us stuck..."      Read it all 



Related Articles

Alcoholism, Identity and Emptiness

Vajrasattva Purification

The Three Poisons of the Mind 


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