Meditation. Aaaaaargh! Do I really have to become a Buddhist?

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. (p. 58, 'Alcoholics Anonymous)

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. (86:2)

There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer. (87:2)

We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. . . We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. (68:3)

Most people I know trot off to the local Buddhist centre for the meditation bit. I, personally, have benefitted from various Buddhist practices (which I am not going to discuss here).

My principal problem is lack of power (45:1–2), and God, to put it bluntly, is the source of my power. I need a relationship with God, and I need it now. Very alcoholic, I know, but that is what I am. God does not make too hard terms with those who seek him (46:2). I have to trust that they meant what they said when they wrote that. Prayer I started to get the hang of early in AA, but meditation—as a means of seeking God's will for me and the power to carry that out—was a different matter. Mindfulness, awareness, breathing exercises, and other techniques have been sensational. But they did not help me develop a relationship with God as I understand him (which is not to say they do not help other people do precisely that—I am speaking solely of my own experience).

I suspect my failure successfully to use Buddhist techniques to develop a relationship with God may lie largely in my own inadequacy. I suspect a further significant problem has been trying to marry a concept of a loving God as father who will look after me if I stay close to Him and perform His work well (63:1) with techniques that arise out of a tradition where God—in this sense—is not such a big topic, to say the least. But I'm going to shut up about Buddhism, now, because, relatively speaking, I know squat.

Back to my experience: I have needed to develop meditation techniques that (a) fit in with what has worked for me in terms of a concept of a Higher Power (as indicated above: father/child, director/actor, cf. 62:3) (b) suit my alcoholic mind (which is busy-busy-busy) and (c) allow me to fulfil the precepts of the AA programme without huge amounts of cross-adaptation from one culture to another.

To this end, here is a meditation technique that really works for me.

To put it simply:

I take a passage of spiritual (or religious) literature—some piece of AA literature, some 'page-a-day' spiritual book, some piece of spiritual writing, a prayer book, the Bible, some other religious text, whatever. As long as it emphasizes the principles of the programme (87:2).

I read it slowly, line by line, assimilating the meaning into my being.

I wait for a line to go 'ping' and strike a chord, as being of relevance to me, my life in general, or a particular situation.

I memorise the line, and repeat it over and over, whispering or silently, entering as deeply as possible into the meaning and returning to the line every time I get distracted.

As I enter the meaning, eventually, the words start to evaporate and appear superfluous, and I end up with just the idea, on which I am fully concentrated.

Once that happens, I talk to God about the idea and let the words flow out of me, however they come, with no censorship. I might talk to God about how the idea relates to my life or a particular situation; I might let out thoughts or feelings; I might confess; I might laugh; I might cry; I might petition; I might beg; I might apologise; I might give thanks; I might complain and bitch. But whatever I say, I say knowing I am in God's presence, and He accepts me as I am. When the conversation dries up, I listen for a bit, then loop back to the beginning of the exercise and carry on reading.

Why this is good for me:

(1) It uses my busy mind to build my relationship with God. The aim is not to de-busy my mind, but to work with it and lift it above its current plane onto a higher plane (86:2). This means even newcomers can use it, too! And, some days, I might as well be a newcomer. CRAY-ZEE.

(2) As I am, in any case, asking God to direct my thinking (86:2), I am implementing that by filling my brain with the thoughts and words of those far wiser than me and assimilating those into my being before I let my own mind loose on the material. Much more effective for me than simply observing, as if as a bystander, the craziness of my mind with increasing objectivity (which is a mindfulness technique I sometimes employ alongside the AA programme to calm myself before meditation or when stressed). The latter is great, but, in my first ten years, every time I was left alone with my own brain and told just to observe the thoughts like clouds passing I wanted to shoot myself. True fact. Might as well give me a bottle of vodka. I could not stand it. SUBSTITUTION (152:2) is the name of the game.

(3) It can provide a link between (a) the situations I am bringing to God—the plans for the day/the twenty-four hours ahead (86:2), (b) other people's wisdom ('being quick to see where religious people are right' (87:2)), and (c) inspiration, intuitive thoughts, and decisions from God (86:2).

(4) It can be practised for a few minutes or even a few hours without excessive exhaustion. It also prevents me from lapsing into trances, falling asleep, or just becoming plain kooky through abstraction from the 'real world'. Being brought back to words on the page, letting out what comes up inside my mind, and yielding that up to God keep it majorly real.

(5) It provides lots of nice variation as I get to pick the material I use, and, ¡boy! do I choose diverse material.

(6) Looking at my daily circumstances or past or prospective situations through the lens of written spiritual/religious material and combining that with two-way conversation with God and a touch of the mindfulness technique of repeating and concentrating on a particular word, phrase, or line is the best combo I have encountered in seventeen years for changing my attitude to the past, present, and future and converting that attitude into an action plan that approximates as closely as I can possibly get to my idea of what God's will is for me. Sorry about the long sentence. See? Busy mind! And Step Ten is right there to clean up the inevitable messes (absurd ideas and actions—87:0) that sometimes ensue from my presumption.

I do not know about any other alcoholic, but I need the loving hand of God in my life at all times. I need techniques that put me straight in touch with God. I need conscious contact, or I'm toast. I need God on speed-dial. And this technique has provided it to me.

If this works for you, hoorah! If it does not, too bad!

By the way, if you're wondering where it came from, it's said to be from Saint Benedict, and has been used for centuries. If you want to find out more about it, Google lectio divina.