I n d e x |
| "After all, God gave us brains to use" | This has been described as possibly the most misquoted part of the AA Big Book. It's usually ... |
| "Right livelihood" | One of the Eastern religions has as part of its path a commitment to "right livelihood" -- that is, ... |
| "Seeing" | Here is an interesting and different meditation. It's a variation of awareness meditation, that ... |
| "Tried to carry the message to others" | If we idly scan the walls of the meeting room where we gather with our friends in our recovery ... |
| "When we were wrong ...." | Someone told me ... |
| (Im)practicality | It is easy to see the spiritual way of life as being impractical. It is in this very way, we are ... |
| ... and I'm an alcoholic | The admission of our core addiction, and our acknowledgement of our powerlessness over it and over ... |
| A Step 10 exercise | Here's a different way to do Step 10. Sit still somewhere and focus for a while on your breathing. ... |
| A chance of a lifetime | Many years ago now, we heard a friend share in a 12-Step meeting. The topic was "Why I keep coming ... |
| A clean slate | It's easier to write on a clean slate, they ... |
| A constant practice | Elsewhere we have looked at the nature of our Step 10 practice. It's clear from the AA Big Book ... |
| A high price | There is a story in "the other Big Book" about a merchant. It's a brief story. One day he saw a ... |
| A little gift | There has been much written in recent decades about the impact of Alcoholics Anonymous and other ... |
| A little way | One of the strangest English literary figures of the nineteenth century ... |
| A random universe | We've mentioned before the tongue-in-cheek "eschatalogical laundry list" that was written by an ... |
| A seed | "A sower went forth to sow," begins one of the most famous stories of the world. To the original ... |
| A series of moments | Meditation was always a mystery to me. I didn't know how to do it, and I never like trying ... |
| A stark choice | When we've spent several years in Program, most of us get to the point where we think we know a few ... |
| A third of the way there | An acquaintance who follows Buddhist practice ... |
| Acceptable? | After years of slipping and sliding, I was brought to my senses over the First Step by a new ... |
| Age and death | We have talked elsewhere about the world's first superhero, Gilgamesh, whose activities are ... |
| All our activities | We tend to think about "practicing these principles in all our affairs" as being the province of ... |
| All together now | In its treatment of Step 10, the AA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions ... |
| An aching void | The subject of an eighteenth century poet's hymn ... |
| An alternative Step 10 | For many years, my reading of Step 10 ... |
| At its heart | When the AA Big Book was first written, psychology was in its infancy. It is sometimes forgotten ... |
| Attachment to views | At the invitation of a friend, I recently attended a talk by a Buddhist monk. He spoke about the ... |
| Awareness meditation | Besides the "traditional" form of meditation, which is focusing the attention on just one object, ... |
| Awareness meditation | Besides the "traditional" form of meditation, which is focusing the attention on just one object, ... |
| Back to basics | These pages on Steps 10, 11 and 12 make no claim to originality. They are based on stories, ... |
| Back to the beginning | When we first came into our respective programs, we were beaten. We were out of new ideas, and we ... |
| Bad days | Sometimes we just don't feel so good. This may not necessarily be a physical feeling -- ... |
| Because | When we get annoyed or upset, angry or afraid, there's always a reason. We get upset, we believe, ... |
| Bedazzled | Harold Ramis' remake of the 1967 movie Bedazzled doesn't really have the punch of the original, in ... |
| Beginning again | It is very easy to see Steps 10, 11 and 12 as simply a repetition of the preceding nine Steps. ... |
| Behaving ourselves | If we listen carefully in meetings, we'll find that a great deal of the discussions we have tend to ... |
| Behaving, contemplating, understanding | One of the better-known Eastern faiths reduces its daily practice to three fundamentals. We might ... |
| Being afraid to meditate | Confronted by Step 11 in our 12-Step program, many of us say, "I can't meditate." At least in my ... |
| Being good and being bad | For many of us, our lives are lived like some sort of medieval morality play. In the first part of ... |
| Being pushy, being superior, being among | A striking contrast between the spiritually-based life and the religiously-based life is that ... |
| Believing and doing (1) | Several friends in my 12-Step program had told me of a Buddhist weekend course that I might enjoy, ... |
| Believing and doing (2) | There is nothing easier than finding the differences between the religious beliefs that we espouse ... |
| Believing what we want to believe | Like so much of Program, the permission we are given when we first arrive to define God in our own ... |
| Betrayed with a kiss | The Gospels of the New Testament can be irritatingly vague on certain details about which you'd ... |
| Bicycle Repair Man | In a city full of super-heroes, who -- perhaps because of their environmental sensibilities -- ride ... |
| Big Jake | One of the aims of working Steps 10, 11 and 12 is to remove fear from our lives. A great deal of ... |
| Big-endians and little-endians | In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the hero discovers the source of the conflict between the ... |
| Bill Wilson's first Step 11 | Buried in Bill's story in the first chapter of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is a little ... |
| Blot | If you have ever been in the hands of a mental health professional, you may have been give a ... |
| Bombshell | Buried in the middle of the chapter "We Agnostics" in the AA Big Book is a little bombshell, which ... |
| Born in Samaria | A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, says the writer of Luke's Gospel, and fell among ... |
| Bridge over troubled water | God lives at the intersection of here and now. The aim of meditation is to be in the moment and to ... |
| Broken flowers | (Note: If you have not seen this movie, you may prefer to skip this ... |
| But what did he mean? | "I found myself in AA," said the man in the meeting the other evening, and for a moment you could ... |
| But why? | Philip Kapleau is said to have quoted frequently this otherwise unknown ... |
| By Chance | In the movie Being There, a gardener called Chance is mistaken by the Washington establishment for ... |
| Can you forgive her? | This is the unlikely title of a nineteenth century novel by the man who is said to have invented ... |
| Carpe momentum? | "Seize the day," says the Latin proverb -- carpe diem. This is one of the first lessons we learn ... |
| Carrying the message (1) | Most of us thought that the message we carried was: "You don't have to drink any more!" or "You ... |
| Carrying the message (2) | We've thought before about what the message is that is carried in Step 12 of Program. Is it merely ... |
| Carrying the message (3) | Chuck Chamberlain's book A New Pair of Glasses is not AA-approved conference literature, but it ... |
| Carrying the raft | A very famous teacher from the east characterized his teachings as being like a raft. A raft is ... |
| Centering prayer | There are many different types of prayer that we can use in our practice of Step 11. Those among ... |
| Chatter, chatter, chatter | If we were able to hear the constant chatter in our heads -- when we're driving, for example -- it ... |
| Citizens of Gotham | Of all the super-heroes, it is perhaps Batman who best represents for us the spiritual poverty of ... |
| Conclusion or premise? | I was visited recently by an old colleague I'd not seen for many years. He -- like me -- had ... |
| Conquering time | We sometimes think we don't have enough money, or enough love in our lives. But the only thing ... |
| Conquering time | We sometimes think we don't have enough money, or enough love in our lives. But the only thing ... |
| Constant stranger | The writer and singer of several definitive songs of the last century once ... |
| David | The figure of David dominates much of the Old Testament. His story in the Books of Samuel brings ... |
| Dealing with feelings | Those of us who are committed to working the last three Steps on a continuous basis are used to ... |
| Death -- again | Steps 10, 11 and 12 are a means of living, but also a preparation for that death which none of us ... |
| Defects of character | Step 7 leaves us hanging. We have humbly asked God as we understand God to remove all our defects ... |
| Desperation | It is said in AA that no one ever stopped drinking because things were going too well. That ... |
| Distractions during meditation | Perhaps the most common problem we run into when doing our Step 11 meditation is distraction. We're ... |
| Do we find God or create God? | If we follow the suggestions of the AA Big Book, particularly the first sentence on page 47, then ... |
| Doing Step 10 for the first time | I did Step 10 for the first time when I did Steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. That's how difficult Step ... |
| Doing nothing | I don't think I should ever have started to work seriously on the last three Steps if it hadn't ... |
| Don't ask | We do Steps 10, 11 and 12 not to attain a result, but for their own sake. To do any action in the ... |
| Doubt to the faithful | The director of the local C.G. Jung Center, while he was still a minister, used to ... |
| Dr. Bob again | How would we feel if we were compelled to embrace the tenets of first-century Christianity before ... |
| Dr. Bob | We don't tend to pay as much attention to Dr. Bob as to the other co-founder of AA, Bill Wilson. ... |
| Dying of having lived | A character in a novel by a turn-of-the-century American author comes up with a phrase so moving ... |
| Dying | Here's a Step 11 ... |
| Encore! | There is a story of an opera house in a small Italian town, where even the most humble of citizens ... |
| Eschatology | Eschatology: not a word you will frequently hear in the local Starbucks or amidst the chatter at a ... |
| Everyman | From the late Middle Ages comes the tale of Everyman. This morality play about the life and death ... |
| Everything we do | We are often inclined to think that meditation is something that takes place in quietness, alone or ... |
| Exercise, not accomplishment | Steps 10 and 11 offer, among other things, complementary ways of engaging ourselves in identical ... |
| Expect two miracles | An AA club in the area where I used to live had a main meeting room with only one decoration, other ... |
| Fear | "Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear," says the AA Big Book in its ... |
| Feeding the monkey | It is said that the first British lunar landing was actually coordinated by NASA, since that agency ... |
| Feeling good | We addicts have made a lifetime study of feeling good. In our addiction, we were concerned about ... |
| Feeling | As recovering addicts, we tend not to be very good with feelings. In our addiction, we either have ... |
| Five minutes, three Steps | "Don't give up five minutes before the miracle occurs," say our friends when we're in the early ... |
| Fix it, Daddy | Many years ago there was a children's riddle that went, If God can do anything, can He squeeze ... |
| Frank Buchman | Frank Buchman was the founder of the Oxford Group. Both Bill Wilson and Bob Smith, the co-founders ... |
| Gaining the whole world | During the Renaissance, Europe re-discovered what it had lost for a thousand years. The ... |
| Get off the stage | It was only when I started sincerely practicing the last three Steps that I realized my life had ... |
| Getting out of it alive | Although the story is very old, its most modern incarnation may be in one of Wayne Dyer's books. ... |
| Giving up the old | When we consider setting aside specific time for prayer and meditation, we find a variety of ... |
| Go away and leave me alone | Recovery from any kind of addiction is not easy. It takes work. And it takes ... |
| God 'n me | Our lives as practicing and then recovering addicts generally pass through three phases with ... |
| God in a box | Did you ever have a God-box when you were first in Program? Many of us did. The idea was that we ... |
| God in disguise | On occasions, the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes would have to disguise himself in order to ... |
| God is a mongrel, and so are we | Some of the books of the Bible squeaked into the so-called canon by the skin of their teeth. One ... |
| God's address | Perhaps everyone in a 12-Step program knows "God's address." According to people in Program, God ... |
| God's secret agents | God has countless secret agents working in the world, and the chances are that you're one of ... |
| God's will and my will | Most of us have attended meetings where the topic of God's will has come up. This member has a job ... |
| Going to hell | The hero of one of the very greatest books ever written is a ne'er-do-well boy, the son of the town ... |
| Goodbye to all that | The regular practice of Steps 10, 11 and 12 may be a considerable burden, particularly if we have ... |
| Gotcha? | From one point of view, our practice of meditation in Step 11 is always unsuccessful. No matter ... |
| Greater love hath no man than this | There is a theme that runs through both Program and Christianity, but is perhaps best expressed in ... |
| Guilt | The guilt we bring into Program with us can persist for many years. From the outside, there can be ... |
| HOW: Honesty and Step 10 | Honesty, open-mindedness and willingness are the keys to the last three Steps, just as they are the ... |
| HOW: Open-mindedness and Step 11 | Step 11 is about improving our conscious contact with God as we understand God. However, we have a ... |
| HOW: Willingness and Step 12 | Step 12 is a tall order. It begins with the assumption that we have had a spiritual awakening, and ... |
| Hakuin and the cicada | In a letter, the eighteenth-century master Hakuin tells of watching a cicada casting its skin. It ... |
| Hare's blik | The philosopher R.M. Hare used the made-up word blik to describe the adoption of an article of ... |
| Having it both ways | I went to one of the best AA meetings in my life recently. The topic of the meeting was the last ... |
| He knew he was right | A well-known Victorian author from England, famous for his novels of clerical and political life, ... |
| Heroes | Those of us old enough to have survived the drug culture of the 70's and 80's have probably read an ... |
| Holden and Franny | Step 10 is a means of becoming aware of what we are thinking, feeling, and doing moment by moment, ... |
| Homeless | Jesus Christ was homeless. It is a striking feature of his documented life, not least because it's ... |
| How does one meditate? | Our 12-Step literature is a little short on information about how to meditate. But it is also true ... |
| How important is meditation? | A friend ... |
| How it works | What exactly is the change that comes about from working the last three Steps? I can tell you, ... |
| How should it feel? | An Internet forum thread on meditation addressed the question of how you should feel when you ... |
| How to cook | If you were told that you could purchase a book entitled Instructions for the Zen Cook, you'd ... |
| How to meditate | It's so simple to teach someone how to add meditation to their practice of Step ... |
| Hurting | Someone in a meeting recently ... |
| I am my habits | Working Steps 10, 11 and 12, particularly Step 11, will sooner or later bring to our attention that ... |
| I can't stand ... me | We all have friends. Some are close friends, some are more distant; some are perhaps better ... |
| I'm not OK ... I think .... | It's easy to look back on the pop psychology crazes of earlier decades and laugh. Yet those ... |
| I, Self, Me | Those of us who are members of AA have heard many times that the "-ism" in alcoholism stands for ... |
| If it works for them, it'll work for me | There is a story of two alcoholics sitting at a bar. The first alcoholic orders a mysterious drink ... |
| Imagine | "Imagine there's no heaven," goes a song from the last century. Imagining can be fun. It can also ... |
| In community | In an unjustly neglected film from several decades ago, a talented British actress more famous for ... |
| In the moment | I am out early most mornings, walking or running, and often meditating at the same time. This ... |
| Indecision | In The Claverings, an obscure novel by one of the best-known English Victorian writers, the hero ... |
| Innocence | We think of little babies as being innocent. Even the great St. Augustine, convinced of the ... |
| Integrity | When St. Paul was still called Saul, he was an enthusiast about persecuting the followers of Jesus ... |
| Inward and outward | Step 12 consists of looking inward and looking ... |
| Iris and the Net | Iris Murdoch was a British philosopher and novelist, perhaps now most famous in the popular mind ... |
| Is that so? | This story comes from Japan, and is only a few hundred years ... |
| It'll be the death of me | A famous early Christian writer ... |
| It's all about service, stupid! | An arrogant TV newsman is sent to a small town to cover the antics of Punxsutawney Phil, the ... |
| James the Buddhist? | The Epistle of James has had a checkered career. Oddly, for a book whose author is believed by ... |
| John Powell | Unless you are an ageing addict, the chances are that you have never heard of John Powell. He was ... |
| Judgment | Our practice of Steps 10, 11 and 12, if undertaken without precondition and with commitment, must ... |
| Just because | This is the story of an addict, just like you and me. For the purposes of anonymity, we'll call ... |
| Just for today | Many 12-Step fellowships have the Just for Today Card. Newcomers like it a lot, probably because ... |
| Keeping it simple | Some of our friends in Program tend to be puzzled when they find how much emphasis we're placing on ... |
| Knowing vs. doing | Suppose two men with the same disease visit different ... |
| Learning to meditate | When we first try to meditate, we seem to do nothing but fail. Perhaps we are focusing on our ... |
| Learning without making a mistake | A group of language teachers were surprised to be told by their tutor that their "homework" after ... |
| Leather | Even if we have determined that "our troubles ... are of our own making," as the AA Big Book puts ... |
| Leaving the workhouse | The workhouse was provided by the British Victorians as part of the solution to the problem of the ... |
| Lee Quai Quat's tigers | It's always easier to see others' lack of enlightenment than our ... |
| Life is a pomegranate -- perhaps | A story in Dae Gak's wonderful book Going Beyond Buddha tells of a Jewish rabbi who was about to ... |
| Life's little ironies | Many of us in the West subscribe to a religious belief that promises us life after death. ... |
| Light | There is a very old joke that tells of a man late at night searching on the pavement for something ... |
| Lines and squares | Whenever I walk in a London street, begins a children's ... |
| Living and partly living | A well-known but rarely seen play from the last century deals with the martyrdom of an English ... |
| Living in Step 10 | This is a very ancient ... |
| Living in my "me" house | While I was still practicing my addiction, I lived in my "me" house -- and what a mess it was! ... |
| Living in the moment | When we live in the moment, we cannot help but live out Steps 10, 11 and ... |
| Looking back | The Bible seems to be hard on those who want to look back. In the Genesis story, Lot's wife looked ... |
| Looking on glass | An old English hymn ... |
| Losing our bearings, finding ourselves | Let us imagine a man setting out on a journey -- a journey of recovery. He begins with his Big ... |
| Loving-kindness meditation | This meditation is Buddhist in origin, but it's none the worse for that. You may want to make it a ... |
| Maze or labyrinth? | A friend in Program recently had his first experience with a labyrinth. For those of you unfamiliar ... |
| Me and my broom | Life, someone once said, is about me and my broom. There is my sidewalk, and here is my broom. My ... |
| Meditating now and meditating later | Most of us say that we meditate, but there is a very easy way to determine whether our commitment ... |
| Meditating on one point | One of the traditions of meditation is the meditating on one point or object. This may be a candle, ... |
| Meditation and change | An AA friend said something a little startling recently. He ... |
| Meditation as hard work | Are you like me when you do your daily Step 11 ... |
| Meditation | I used to wonder how people could meditate for even a couple of minutes, never mind half an hour or ... |
| Moderation | We've all heard the ... |
| Moral psychology? | The Doctor's Opinion in the AA Big Book is an interesting document. It reflects the joint thinking ... |
| More God | Recently I was in a meeting on Step 10. Most of the meeting consisted of members with a ... |
| More about karma | Elsewhere in these pages someone talked about karma -- the idea that good intentional actions bring ... |
| Motivation | Several 12-Step programs, in particular those associated with sexual or relationship addiction, ... |
| Mr Loveday | Mr Loveday's Little Outing is a darkly comic short story by the author of Brideshead Revisited. A ... |
| Mr. Pooter and Mr. Sartre | The first comic roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas were performed by George Grossmith (who ... |
| My very best friend, whom I never listen to | Imagine that I were to tell you about a good friend that I have. This friend, I tell you, is kind, ... |
| Nagging at God | I belong to a close-knit OA community. Recently one of our members fell seriously ill and had ... |
| Naught for your comfort | Do you have a hidden agenda underlying your Step 11 meditation ... |
| Never Never Land | The play Peter Pan appeared in 1904, and its author J.M. Barrie published a version of it as a ... |
| Never mind why | It may be so long since we've done our Step 4 that we misremember it. We may now think that -- ... |
| Niels Bohr and the horseshoe | Modern American Christians can get very exercised about what they believe, but from the earliest ... |
| No effective mental defense | You sometimes hear people say that they come to AA meetings to be reminded of the fact that they ... |
| No justice | If you want peace, seek justice, says the slogan. Perhaps it's true in a political environment. ... |
| Not for the faint of heart | Supposed someone were to begin to tell us about an activity which required above all else a ... |
| Now I know | The practice of Step 11 is intended to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand God. ... |
| Now and then | The heart of Step 10 can be summarized in one word: now. What's happening now? What am I looking ... |
| Now-ness | A striking feature of Steps 10, 11 and 12 is their focus on what is happening now. These are not ... |
| No | A short story from about two thousand years ago gives us the key to doing Step ... |
| Of our own making | "Our troubles, we think," says the AA Big Book, "are basically of our own making." So, in fact, ... |
| Old friends | On occasions in our lives, we have the opportunity to revisit people we used to know well but have ... |
| On being right | There is a saying in Program which goes, "Would you rather be right or happy?" When we first heard ... |
| One bathroom | A friend in Program spoke recently of her life being like her own bathroom and the guest bathroom ... |
| Only the beginning | It can be all too easy to see Program as a recipe. If we put the appropriate ingredients -- going ... |
| Onward through the fog | When we first start to practice meditation as part of Step 11, we tend to be torn between two ways ... |
| Open-ended | The Anglican church (known as the Episcopal church in the US) began as just another variation of ... |
| Our common welfare | In one vital area, Program is closer to Buddhism than any other religion. Buddhism often claims ... |
| Our livelihood | When we start to work Step 12 as a matter of daily routine, we are forced to consider what it means ... |
| Our lot | We talk about practicing meditation, practicing these principles in all our affairs. Why do we do ... |
| Our old ideas | "Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas," says the AA Big Book, "and the result was nil ... |
| Our spirituality, our religion | Many of the texts we use in our various programs urge us to revisit again the religions we may have ... |
| Out into the world | Most of us are familiar with the figures of Buddhist monks. However, because of our Western ... |
| Paradise and paradox | The writer and critic H.L. Mencken is reputed to have ... |
| Peace, transmission, and the plank | What is the connection between the peace that starts to come with daily practice of Step 11 ... |
| Peace | No one with a spiritual focus to their lives, Christian or not, could fail to be moved by the ... |
| Performative prayer? | Take the following remarks: "This hamburger is tasty"; "The weather today is sunny"; "I promise to ... |
| Picking and choosing | An old Eastern poem ... |
| Pointless? | Some months ago, at the suggestion of my sponsor, I began going to prison meetings and assumed ... |
| Portrait of the artist as an alcoholic | One of Wales' best known poets, in that strange land of poets and druids, sheep and slate quarries, ... |
| Prayer and meditation | Step 11 says, "Praying only for knowledge of God's will for us, and the power to carry that out." ... |
| Prayer and ritual | It is very easy to make our prayer ritual in nature. All spiritual movements are prone to ... |
| Praying for everyone, meditating for everyone | Meditation is sometimes regarded as a selfish activity. While we pray for others, it seems that ... |
| Present tense | From a song by a greatly loved and talented singersongwriter come these ... |
| Problems and solutions | Prayer all too often can be a means of asking God as we understand God for a solution to a ... |
| Problems with service | Step 12 suggests service -- to other alcoholics, in the AA version, but to "others" in the Al-Anon ... |
| Quiet time (1) | Inevitably, there arise around the core of every 12-Step program certain sayings or proverbs which ... |
| Quiet time (2) | The tradition of "quiet time" in the Oxford Group, from which AA and all our 12-Step programs came, ... |
| Read all about it | Those of us who are attempting to find a spiritual solution to our lives through working Steps 10, ... |
| Reading versus doing | When we talked about Step 11, many of us used to say, "I pray every morning and evening, and spend ... |
| Recapturing the glory | A famous nineteenth-century poet ... |
| Redirecting the committee | Many in Program speak of having a "committee in their heads." We tend to identify with the endless ... |
| Religion and meditation | Most religions have a meditative component to them. In Christianity, there has been a meditative ... |
| Remembering | Why is it that -- when we meditate -- our minds drift away after a ... |
| Repetition, habit, faith | I'm from Texas. I saw the following saying on the wall in a local AA club the other day. I'd only ... |
| Retiring from politics | There are certain characteristics that our friends who are working Steps 10, 11 and 12 seem to have ... |
| Right now, just for right now | Most meditation practice focuses on the breath. If we are doing single-pointed meditation, we ... |
| Right now | In the main, meditation is about being in the moment and being aware of being in the moment. When ... |
| Rules, sympathy, and compassion | There are at least three ways to deal with oneself and the ... |
| Running towards | One of the great classic works of the Christian faith tells of a man who becomes aware of the ... |
| Sail on | As children, we learned that mankind was so foolish that for centuries it believed that the earth ... |
| Scalp-hunting | Twelfth-Step work can easily become "scalp-hunting." How many people do we sponsor? Do we rush ... |
| Secrets and lies | The fifth chapter of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous sets out the bare minimum conditions, as ... |
| Security | Why do so many of us in 12-step programs prefer to work Steps 4 thru 9 over and over again, rather ... |
| Seeing | Luke is the evangelist who is read because of his love for the dispossessed of his time -- groups ... |
| Self-help | 12-Step programs aren't self-help programs. In fact, a good case could be made for saying that ... |
| Service work or ego work? | A recent meeting on Step 12 showed the narrow divide between selfless service work and the danger ... |
| Service | Prior to vigorously attempting to work Steps 10, 11 and 12 on a daily basis, many of us wallowed in ... |
| Sick Heart River | The last novel of a great adventure writer tells the story of Sir Edward Leithen, an eminent lawyer ... |
| Sir Gawain | Into the feasting court of King Arthur on Christmas Eve strides the huge and mysterious Green ... |
| Sitting still | There is a French philosopher who was famous for suggesting that belief in God should be treated ... |
| Slave of the Lamp | In the well-known fairy tale, Aladdin acquires an old and tarnished brass lamp. When he starts to ... |
| Sleeping through the storm | Most of us are familiar with the story of Jesus being asleep in a boat when a great storm arose. ... |
| Slip-sliding away | People in Program tend not to be very good at lifetime habits. It's hard enough to keep coming to ... |
| Socrates revisited | Supposedly it was Socrates who said, "The unexamined life is not worth ... |
| Solipsism | Is it possible for atheists and agnostics, Christians and Jews, Buddhists, Moslems, Hindus, Mormons ... |
| Somebody's appendix | I heard this from a man called Al in an AA meeting over twenty years ago. I've never forgotten ... |
| Speaking mindfully | In his last speech to AA, Dr. Bob urged that we guard against "that erring member, the tongue." ... |
| Spiritual malnourishment | "I only meditate when there's a crisis," says someone in a meeting. Isn't this the equivalent of ... |
| Spiritual origins | We sometimes forget that AA was born as a spiritual movement. It began as an unwitting extension ... |
| Spiritual people get wetter than non-spiritual people | The figure of St. Francis is one of the strangest in all of Christianity. It is reasonable to ... |
| Spirituality as experience | The history of Program is full of anomalies. The sponsor of Bill W., the co-founder of AA, was not ... |
| St. Francis, God, and me | The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of the AA program dedicates part of Step 11 to the prayer of ... |
| Starting meditation | There is nothing more discouraging than reading about, or listening in meetings to, people who are ... |
| Staying baffled | If knowledge is about knowing, wisdom is perhaps about not knowing. We have a tradition here in ... |
| Steering | A close-up: A boat sailing along. Someone comes up to the top man on board and asks him a ... |
| Step 10 and Narcotics Anonymous | There is a delightful treatment of Step 10 in the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous. (The book ... |
| Step 10 and listening | Perhaps more than anything else, Step 10 is about listening. If we listen to other people, we are ... |
| Step 10 | One of the most common ideas in 12-Step programs is that Step 10 is merely a repetition of Steps 4 ... |
| Steps to the house | We sometimes forget in Program that we are working Steps. "Steps" are supposed to lead somewhere. ... |
| Sticking with the winners | One of the very few 12-Step programs that changed the Twelve Steps themselves had the following as ... |
| Still crazy | During World War II, a USAAF doctor is told he must fly combat hours periodically. Because he is ... |
| Still inexperienced? | As it deals with Step 11, the AA Big Book makes a peculiar ... |
| Stopping drinking, stopping thinking | An AA friend ... |
| Strong enough to do it | In a much-neglected novel of a much-neglected American author, the following exchange takes place ... |
| Stupid is as stupid does | The movie hero who quotes these words from his mama differs significantly from his original persona ... |
| Success | One thing that can damage our meditation practice is thinking about ... |
| Swimming, riding a bike, getting sober, and .... | How on earth do we ever learn to swim? Or ride a ... |
| Taking Step 11 apart | Step 11 suggests that we seek "through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with ... |
| That's all there is | We have talked elsewhere of the great Japanese religious figure, Dogen. And we have discussed ... |
| The "Step 10, 11 and 12" prayer | The Buddhist Eightfold Path has for centuries been conveniently reduced to three concepts: sila ... |
| The First Tradition | Alcoholics Anonymous is a paradox in many ways. Not least is its American origins: it is this ... |
| The Maccabees | When we awaken against the practice of the last three Steps, how do we know what to do? If the ... |
| The Two-Step | No matter what program we come from, we are familiar with -- and have probably performed at some ... |
| The Warden | If you have not read Anthony Trollope's works, a good place to start is The Warden; it is shorter ... |
| The addicted toad | The children's book The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame was published in 1908. It was an ... |
| The angelic doctor and the forgotten Japanese | In the thirteenth century two very remarkable men created some of the supreme spiritual or ... |
| The banker, the bum, and Step 11 | A New York banker was disgusted to find a bum lying on his favorite lunchtime bench in Central ... |
| The beginning -- not the end | Some members of Program get puzzled when we say that our concept of God is inadequate. After all, ... |
| The cardinal | As I sat thinking how difficult it had been for me to meditate lately, I noticed a cardinal ... |
| The children of light | Here is an updated version of a two thousand year-old ... |
| The community | If we have been in recovery a long time, we have discovered two kinds of community in Program. ... |
| The desperate doctor | One of the most famous stories of all time, retold by a great English dramatist and a German ... |
| The doubtful sponsor | The word "sponsor" is absent from the first 164 pages of the AA Big Book. Some thirteen or so ... |
| The elder brother | I am fascinated by the story of the Prodigal Son in the Bible. When I first came into Program and ... |
| The end? | For each of us, there will come a day when we pass away from this life to something else. What ... |
| The famous and the not-so-famous | Let us now praise famous men, begins a chapter of the Old Testament Apocrypha ... |
| The first superhero | One of the most fascinating discoveries of the nineteenth century archeological expeditions in ... |
| The flashlight | There is a story of a man who was wandering through a gloomy part of the world with a flashlight in ... |
| The good, the great, and the totally ordinary | "If I were President, this is what I'd do," we say. Of course, it's nonsense. We don't really ... |
| The great heresy | We know from early Church history that one of the first heresies Christianity had to deal with was ... |
| The great leveler | A great deal of time and effort went into the creation of the Tradition-based structure of the AA ... |
| The hidden depths of selfishness | It can sometimes be hard to see the depths of our selfishness, even if we believe we are committed ... |
| The horse, the beer, and the last three Steps | In a letter in 1942, Bill Wilson ... |
| The infallible, customized guide to meditation | There is good news and bad news when it comes to developing our Step 11 meditation practice. The ... |
| The lives of others | The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of the pernicious influence of the Stasi -- the ... |
| The man who lost | In 1886 there appeared in England a novel, a study of an alcoholic, of an unusual forthrightness ... |
| The middle way | The Buddha famously proclaimed the Middle Way. Having attempted to live his life enjoying all ... |
| The most difficult Step? | I used to think the most difficult Step was Step 6. I just wasn't ready for God to remove all my ... |
| The most persistent heresy | Heresies in the Early Church often look a little obscure to us today. The ideas of the Arians or ... |
| The natural and the supernatural | Two twentieth-century English writers dominated the subject of what the future holds for mankind. ... |
| The next life | A therapist asked me early in recovery what I thought the next life was like, if there was such a ... |
| The non-existence of forgiveness | In the New Testament is the following ... |
| The old sailor | A children's poem from the last century tells of an old sailor left to fend for himself on a desert ... |
| The rest of Step Nine | Step 9 is never really finished. We may make, or begin to make, the bulk of our amends early on in ... |
| The retired bus driver | For too long my life was like a bus which picked up passengers but never set them ... |
| The saint and the absent God | In the summer of 2007 a biography was published of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It contained dozens ... |
| The secret garden | A well-known children's story tells the tale of Mary Lennox, "a disagreeable-looking child," who -- ... |
| The secret of the Second Step | Right at the end of the Second Step comes the secret of Program -- the "restoration to ... |
| The sound of silence | It is generally recommended that we seek silence in order to practice Step 11. We know that Jesus ... |
| The suicide bomber | Without the daily aid of Steps 10, 11 and 12, I become a suicide bomber -- at least in the ... |
| The three-cent stamp | A small town in the very north of the country is the movie setting for several murders -- the ... |
| The vacuum cleaner | This is not the old story of the Buddhist vacuum cleaner which comes with no attachments ... |
| The wandering monk | About two and half thousand years ago, an Eastern king decided his son should never be exposed to ... |
| The weight of judgment | One morning, two monks were walking in silence across the countryside and came to a wide river. A ... |
| The whole package | One of the hardest things to get my head around is that we don't practice meditation in order to ... |
| The wise parrot | There is an old Program story about a sponsor who had a parrot, which was always present in the ... |
| The world of the Spirit | At the beginning of its treatment of Step 10, the Big Book of AA ... |
| The wrong reason | In a well-known English play, the protagonist is facing martyrdom. In trying to determine what his ... |
| Think, think, think | Those of us who are members of AA are used to seeing the Gothic-lettered slogans in the meeting ... |
| Thinking and being aware | Our Western way of thought is influenced strongly by the thinking of a Frenchman over three hundred ... |
| This breath | When we practice our Step 11 meditation, most of us start with focusing on the breath. Firstly, ... |
| This day, this moment | There is a prayer at the front of the so-called Twenty-Four Hour book that is used by countless AAs ... |
| Thomas Merton | Thomas Merton died in 1968, in Bangkok, Thailand. He was stepping out of a bath and for some ... |
| Those defects of character | There was a man who changed as a result of joining a 12-Step program. From being almost completely ... |
| Thy peace | When Bill Wilson came to write about meditation in the AA Big Book and in the Twelve and Twelve, he ... |
| Time | We don't live in the kind of environment that monks and nuns live in. We live in what we call "the ... |
| Too small | Most of us have heard the story of the man who joined Program because, despite his religious faith, ... |
| Turtles all the way down? | The world, so some people say, is supported on the back of a turtle. But what supports the turtle? ... |
| Two and a half hours | Recently a dialog between a sponsor and her sponsee appeared in a blog on the Web. The sponsee had ... |
| Unfeeling? | One day, a woman approached Jesus, broke open a box of expensive ointment, and rubbed it on his ... |
| Universalism | Many religions and spiritual movements seem to follow the same pattern of change. Their founders ... |
| Unpredictable | There is a story of a man who was condemned to death. When he asked what day the sentence would be ... |
| Visions | The description of Bill Wilson's vision which marked the beginning of his sobriety is characterized ... |
| Vladimir and Estragon | Vladimir and Estragon are two men -- often referred to as "tramps" -- in a French play by an Irish ... |
| Wandering | It's very pleasant to go home. That's where we find security. We venture out into a world which ... |
| Wanting nothing | In The Gateless Barrier, the author Robert Aitken quotes approvingly from the Christian mystic, ... |
| Washing up | A monk said to the Zen master Joshu, "I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me." Joshu ... |
| Watch and pray | The injunction to watch and pray comes from Jesus during the Agony in the Garden, prior to his ... |
| Watching oneself | Until we "wake up," we spend our lives being driven by our ego. We want this, we hate that, we ... |
| Water | A Zen master asked his student, "What is the taste of ... |
| What we have in common | What hope can there be of finding common ground between Judaism (which maintains that the Messiah ... |
| What's important | They say that if you want to find out what's really important to a person, look at her ... |
| What's normal and what isn't? | A friend in OA recently commented on the treatment of Step 10 in the AA Big Book. Seeing that it ... |
| What's the message? | What is "the message" that Step 12 says we are to try to carry to ... |
| When it gets difficult | When we practice Step 11 constantly and begin to make meditation a habit, even if we are meditating ... |
| When prayer "doesn't work" | Why doesn't prayer always ... |
| When the mind stops | I was ill recently. For a couple of days I was really sick, and didn't feel like doing very much ... |
| When the thumping stops | Those of us that are in AA don't have to be sober for too long before we make the acquaintance of ... |
| Where we are | The story is told of two not very bright prisoners who escaped from jail. They got well away from ... |
| Who are you? | We Program people don't tend to think much about the Traditions of our respective 12-Step ... |
| Who's there? | Here's a Step 11 meditation ... |
| Why some people can't stay sober | There are people who just don't seem to able to stay sober. Most of us think that the reason is ... |
| Why? | Freud -- or at least the popular misrepresentation of Freud -- has a lot to answer for. It's ... |
| Windmills | Several centuries ago, a Spanish author wrote the story of a man who, inspired by the noble tales ... |
| Working Steps 10 and 11 together | The book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of AA ... |
| Working with others | Step 12 suggests working with other people in our respective programs. From the very beginning in ... |
| You dirty rat | Sometimes we in the West think we shall never understand the East. A Buddhist magazine recently ... |
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