Gravy: A Poem by Raymond Carver

Here's a poem by Raymond Carver that I've always found inspiring:

Gravy

No other word will do. For that's what it was. Gravy.
Gravy, these past ten years.
Alive, sober, working, loving, and
being loved by a good woman. Eleven years
ago he was told he had six months to live
at the rate he was going. And he was going
nowhere but down. So he changed his ways
somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?
After that it was all gravy, every minute
of it, up to and including when he was told about,
well, some things that were breaking down and
building up inside his head. "Don't weep for me,"
he said to his friends. "I'm a lucky man.
I've had ten years longer than I or anyone
expected. Pure Gravy. And don't forget it."

                  RAYMOND CARVER
                   (1938-1988)

Stanford happiness class proves popular, helpful

Here's an excerpt from a San Francisco Chronicle article about a happiness class at Stanford (written by Kathryn Roethel, Special to the Chronicle - Tuesday, November 29, 2011)

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/28/BA821M2BVL.DTL#ixzz1f73UeBrf

Demand for Luskin and Pertofsky's classes is high. The fall class is full, and in a similar summer course for graduate students, 75 applied for 30 spots. Pertofsky said each year there are students - she estimates 10 to 12 - who take the course at the recommendation of the university's mental health counselors. 


In past classes, Luskin and Pertofsky surveyed students' stress levels during the first week of class, and again during the last week of class. On average, Pertofsky said, students were 27 percent less stressed at the end of the class. 


Course assignments include examining research on what leads to happiness - and what does not. One week, students must hold a discussion with people outside the class to share class techniques. Another week, students must seek out "invisible people" on campus, such as food service employees, janitors or groundskeepers, and thank them for the ways their work contributes to life at Stanford.

Pertofsky tells a story of one former student, an athlete with a tough exterior, who begrudgingly told the woman who cleaned his dorm bathroom each morning that it was nice to have a clean shower every day. 

"He said the woman burst into tears and said she'd cleaned at Stanford for 16 years and this was the first time anyone had ever thanked her," Pertofsky said.

Finding happiness at Stanford

Fred Luskin, instructor of the Stanford happiness class, said that the simplest definition of happiness is "wanting what you have." Conversely, the simplest definition of stress is "wanting something to be different."

Below are five techniques Luskin teaches for reducing stress and increasing happiness.

-- Keep a daily gratitude journal, listing items for which you feel grateful.
-- Perform a meditation practice, or simply a few minutes of deep breathing and quiet reflection on something that made you happy. Consider what you can do to achieve that happiness again.
-- Make a habit of sharing the highlights of your day with someone close to you.
-- Practice forgiveness routinely.
-- Construct a list of all activities and experiences that relax and rejuvenate you. Use items from this list to manage your daily stress.

Here's an excerpt from the Noah Levine article on Huffington Post (entitled "Against The Stream: The Dharma Punx Path") that I read from last week:

"I came to the realization that the only thing that had ever truly alleviated confusion and suffering in my life was meditation. So I began to explore the possibility of finding a spiritual solution to my living crisis. One of the foundational experiences of my early spiritual exploration was the twelve-step process of recovery from alcoholism and addiction. Although I had been sober for a couple of years and was attending twelve-step meetings regularly, I had never truly attempted to practice the principles of the steps, which together form a practical spiritual and psychological process. In 1990, I began to do what was suggested in the recovery program, which consisted of prayer, meditation, personal inventories, and amends."

Click here to read the whole article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noah-levine/against-the-stream-the-dh_b_138541.html

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

(This poem gives me a lift every time I read it. -w)

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Dream Work)

Dharma & Recovery Reading List

Here's a partial list of books to check out that I've found particularly helpful on the road to exploring Buddhism, spirituality and the 12 Steps of Recovery (note that not all of these are related directly to the 12 Steps):

One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps by Kevin Griffin

A Burning Desire: Dharma God and the Path of Recovery by Kevin Griffin

The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham

Dharma Punx: A Memoir by Noah Levine

Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries by Noah Levine

The Heart of the Revolution: The Buddha's Radical Teachings  on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness by Noah Levine

The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering by Bhikkhu Bodhi

12 Steps on the Buddha's Path: Bill, Buddha, and We by Laura S.

The Sound of Silence by Ajahn Sumedho

Mindfulness and the 12 Steps: Living Recovery in the Present Moment by Therese Jacobs-Stewart

Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guise to Awakening by Stephen Batchelor

Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil by Stephen Batchelor

Confession of a Buddhist Atheist by Stephen Batchelor

All of Jack Kornfield's books

All of Joseph Goldstein's books

All of Sharon Salzberg's books

The Dart Sutta (On Not Being an Uninstructed Worlding)!

(NOTE: We will be discussing this sutta on Tuesday, July 30.)


The Dart of Painful Feeling -- The Buddha (SN 36:6; IV 207-10)

"Monks, when the uninstructed worldling experiences a painful feeling, he sorrows, grieves, and
laments; he weeps beating his breast and becomes distraught. He feels two feelings--a bodily one
and a mental one. Suppose they were to strike a man with a dart, and then strike him immediately
afterward with a second dart, so that the man would feel a feeling caused by two darts. So too,
when the uninstructed worldling experiences a painful feeling, he feels two feelings--a bodily
one and a mental one.

“While experiencing that same painful feeling, he harbors aversion toward it. When he harbors aversion toward painful feeling, the underlying tendency to aversion toward painful feeling lies
behind this. While experiencing painful feeling, he seeks delight in sensual pleasure: For what reason? Because the uninstructed worldling does not know of any escape from painful feeling
other than sensual pleasure. When he seeks delight in sensual pleasure, the underlying tendency to lust for pleasant feeling lies behind this. He does not understand as it really is; the origin and
the passing away, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in the case of these feelings. When he does not understand these things, the underlying tendency to ignorance in regard to neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling lies behind this.

“If he feels a pleasant feeling, he feels it attached. If he feels a painful feeling, he feels it
attached. If he feels a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, he feels it attached. This, monks, is
called an uninstructed worldling who is attached to birth, aging, and death; who is attached to
sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair; who is attached to suffering, I say.

"Monks, when the instructed noble disciple experiences a painful feeling, he does not sorrow,
grieve, or lament; he does not weep beating his breast and become distraught." He feels one
feeling--a bodily one, not a mental one. Suppose they were to strike a man with a dart, but they
would not strike him immediately afterward with a second dart, so that the man would feel a
feeling caused by one dart only. So too, when the instructed noble disciple experiences a painful
feeling, he feels one feeling -a bodily one, and not a mental one.

“While experiencing that same painful feeling, he harbors no aversion toward it. Since he
harbors no aversion toward painful feeling, the underlying tendency to aversion toward painful
feeling does not lie behind this. While experiencing painful feeling, he does not seek delight in
sensual pleasure: For what reason? Because the instructed noble disciple knows of an escape
from painful feeling other than sensual pleasure. Since he does not seek delight in sensual
pleasure, the underlying tendency to lust for pleasant feeling does not lie behind this. He
understands as it really is the origin and the passing away, the gratification, the danger, and the
escape in the case of these feelings. Since he understands these things, the underlying tendency
to ignorance in regard to neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling does not lie behind this.

"If he feels a pleasant feeling, he feels it detached. If he feels a painful feeling, he feels it
detached. If he feels a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, he feels it detached. This, monks,
is called a noble disciple who is detached from birth, aging, and death: who is detached from
sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair; who is detached from suffering I say.”

"This, monks, is the distinction, the disparity, the difference between the instructed noble
disciple and the uninstructed worldling."

from In the Buddha's Words: edited and translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi

Latest Entry by Kevin Griffin on Huff Post re: Steps 6 & 7

Here is a link to Kevin Griffin's latest entry on the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-griffin/the-higher-power-of-karma_b_890510.html

And here's an excerpt from the article that struck me:

To me, this process isn't about God in a Western sense, but it is about power -- the power of karma, action. In the Bible it says, "Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you." This sounds a lot like Step Seven to me. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, a Thai forest monk of the 20th century says this about that passage: "From the Buddhist point of view, this is a matter of karma ... we beseech the Law of Karma through our action and not merely with words." From a Buddhist point of view, the Law of Karma, which says every action has a result, can be seen as a Higher Power. For those of us who have been lost in addiction, when we connect with karma in this way, take the actions that harmonize with the Law of Karma, our life changes in radical ways. There's no magic here, but there is great effort and faith. We have to abandon long-held beliefs, about ourselves, and about the world. We have to fight the self-destructive and pleasure seeking habits that have destroyed our lives, even as we have devoted ourselves to them. We have to take actions, internally and externally that may be uncomfortable and unnatural, and we have to stick with these new behaviors even when they aren't producing the results we want.