interrobang (‽)

A few weeks back I was attending my regular Alanon meeting, and the person who led it asked the question “Why are you here?”. They were thinking more of “Why are you here at Alanon?” with the point being: are you here for the alcoholic or for yourself? (Spoiler: it should be for yourself.) But as a broader question, that’s something I have been mulling over for a while now. Why am I here – on earth, living this life? I can’t honestly say I enjoy life – or at least not taken as a whole narrative arc. There are certainly moments of unbridled joy, but for the most part I resent having to live it. I didn’t ask to be born, but here I am, and I have to deal with it. Welcome to life! Now put your nose to the grindstone; get a job; pay your taxes; and deal with all the other bullshit that’s necessary just by virtue of being alive. It just seems so unfair. Again, I didn’t ask for this. I never signed up for it, or accepted the terms and conditions, so why do I have to do it?

Now, I’m not suicidal. At least not in the same way as I was when I was seriously contemplating a way out, during my darkest days. Now it’s more of an underlying un-satisfactoriness – or even resentment – at being here. Maybe this is, in part, that all my (three) kids are now adults and can get by on their own, without me. But I’m now in a place where if a brain aneurysm should take me in my sleep, I wouldn’t be disappointed. Quite the opposite.

So what’s stopping me from actually ending it all? Well, this is where my Buddhist beliefs come in. Being a Buddhist, I believe in re-birth (in some form or another – probably just in mind/spirit…) – and my greatest fear is that I’ll be re-born into a life that’s even shittier than this one. Buddhism has six realms into which people can be born. From best to worst, these are: The god realm, the demi-god realm, the human realm, the animal realm, the realm of hungry ghosts, and the hell realm. The human realm is already in the top half, so there’s certainly scope for ending up in a worse one, on your next trip around.

Now, before you think, “That’s crazy! Re-birth…realms, what a crock of crap!”, let’s consider things from a (traditional) Christian perspective. Christians believe that when you die you go to heaven or hell. Well, that’s a kind of re-birth, isn’t it? It’s just that in Buddhism we recognize that where you go after you die is also temporary, and eventually you’ll die in that realm too, and go through the cycle again. “But six realms?” Sure. If you believe 1 Corinthians (15:40) – which the Church of Latter-day Saints certainly do – there are actually three levels of ‘heaven’: The Celestial Realm, the Terrestrial Realm, and the Telestial Realm. And if you believe Dante (who effectively ‘Christianified’ Aristotle’s texts on this) there are also nine levels (circles) of Hell, for different misdeeds, ranging from the first circle of Hell, which is (interestingly) reserved for “non-believers” or the “unbaptised”, then through levels for lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence (which includes suicide!), fraud, and finally the ‘ultimate’ sin: treachery. So all told, Christianity has thirteen levels of after-life (actually 12 plus life on earth…) versus only six in Buddhism. So who’s crazy, now?? [As an aside, you’ll notice that several – but not all – of the Seven Deadly Sins have their own level of Hell. So my advice, if you want to sin, choose sloth; there’s no circle of Hell for that one – probably because you’re too lazy to do any actual sinning!]

So if we accept that there is somewhere we go after our (human) death, and there are a range of possible destinations, how do we ensure we get a favorable re-birth – into a ‘higher’ realm, and one that won’t suck as much as this one does? This is where the Buddhist concept of karma comes in to play. Karma is often mis-understood (especially when (mis-)used in the context of people getting their come-uppance), but ultimately it boils down to: if you do good, good things will happen for you (in this life and the next); and if you do bad things, bad things will happen for you. And this isn’t purely a Buddhist invention. Galatians 6 (7:9) states “Man reaps what he sows.” And certainly Catholicism is very clear that if you do bad deeds, you’re going to Hell.

So if I want a better life next time around, I need to do more good things in this life. I don’t think I’ve led a particularly sinful life thus far – I don’t have a huge negative karma balance I need to rapidly offset, but clearly I could do more.

This brings me back to my Alanon program, where service work is highly encouraged (particularly in Step 12). I do try to provide service there, in no small part by being an active Alateen Group Sponsor. Previously I considered this to be at least in part out of guilt of not doing more to protect my own children from the effects of their mother’s alcoholism, and wanting to do better for other kids. But now, I find I’m a little more altruistic in my approach, doing it out of a genuine desire to do something good for other people, as opposed to as a form of personal atonement for past inadequacies.

And I’m trying to take this altruism further than just my 12-step work. I’m making a conscious effort to just be more friendly, approachable, and helpful in day-to-day life. Sometimes just small things like complimenting a stranger on their attire (which does sometimes elicit a mistrustful frown, but more often than not a smile), or picking a friend up from the airport (even when it’s really inconvenient to do so), or sharing my professional skills and knowledge for free. When I look for them (which is how we work Step 7) I see that there are many, many opportunities to practice this. And hopefully all these small, simple acts of kindness will add up, and I’ll keep that karma scale in the positive.

Now, it could well be that I (along with all the other Buddhists – and Christians – in the world) am deluded, and there is no next life. But even if that’s the case, the worst that will come from all of this is that I’ve been kind, and done some good for other people ‘for nothing’ (or for nothing that that benefits me personally) – and that’s not really a bad thing. Honestly, we could do with more of that in the world anyway – regardless of your beliefs or hopes for personal redemption.

On a final note, it may be just the co-incidental timing of my Buddhist Temple finally opening up again for in-person services recently, but I’m also finding that my 12-step work (and particularly 12th-step work) is enriching my spiritual program. And vice versa. Because it turns out that Buddhism is actually pretty compatible with the 12 Steps.

Buddhism starts, for a person, with the recognition of the Four Noble Truths [my summarizing]:

1. Life is permeated by suffering (or un-satisfactoriness [that word, again!], or a general feeling of unease).
2. This suffering has a cause.
3. It is possible to remove this cause.
4. The way to remove the cause of suffering is by following the Noble Eightfold Path. (Which then gets into the full Buddhist dharma.)

Comparing this to the 12 Steps, in Step 1 “We admitted we were powerless [over alcohol] – that our lives had become unmanageable.” That sounds like suffering, to me! Then in Step 2, we “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”, which is the essence of the fourth Noble Truth – looking to something outside our current thought processes. Then, all the steps around identifying and removing our defects of character are really addressing the elimination of karmically-negative actions and committing to taking only (or more…) karmically-positive actions, which is fundamental to Buddhism. Step 11 references meditation, which we’re 100% on board with, and then in Step 12 we’ve got the service work discussed above and “practicing these principles in all our affairs”, which is just reaffirming our commitment to this changed attitude, which applies equally to Buddhism.

So after all of this, I still think this life sucks, but maybe if I consciously try to be a better person, and help other people (which is tough for me, because Acts of Service isn’t my primary Love Language…), I’ll hopefully come out the other side better off. Or at least spread a little positivity around. In the meantime, though, I’ve still got my fingers crossed for that brain aneurysm…

Update [21-OCT-2023]: In the process of re-engaging in my Buddhist studies, I came across this in Approaching The Buddhist Path by His Holiness the Dalai Lama: “The third type of duhkha [suffering] – the pervasive duhkha of conditioning – is the fact that we have a body and mind that are not under our control. Without choice, we take a body that is born, falls ill, ages, and dies.” This is so apposite to how I have been feeling, it is impossible to ignore. And coming across it now shows me I am on the right path.

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