How to Be a Flimsy Reed
How to Be a Flimsy Reed
The 12-Step Buddhist Podcast Episode 105
“We sought escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God. A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, a ‘design for living’ that really works.”
Working with “Life as it is, the only teacher.” Rather than fight, our recovery program says that we cease fighting anything, or anyone. This is surrender. From a Dharma perspective, as a Buddhist in recovery, this means we stop resisting our own mental\emotional\physical state. This is the Buddhist corollary to the AA adage, “Let Go and Let God,” except in our case, God, the authority, the truth and the reality is righte here, right now.
Resistance=suffering, so we try to relax, no matter what the situation. We work with it, rather than fighting against it. In AA terms, we “get out of the way,” but here again, it’s internal. We get out of the way of our own total experience and let life be, as it is, without attempting to fix it.
Moving with the wind, like a flimsy reed, we are less likely to break.
This is the path of bodhisattvas, yogis and Buddhists in recovery.
“You can judge me, but please take what’s in my hand.“
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