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Contemplation.
Contemplation:
- from contemplati, orginally “to mark out a space for observation”.
- “com”, within, “templum”, area for observation.
- A long and thoughtful observation.
- A calm, lengthy, intent consideration.
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Compassion Comes from Releasing Pain
Instructions:
The spirit is born out of acceptance.
Compassion comes from letting go of pain.
First, then, locate the source of the pain.
Live in that world for a long time.
Step One: we admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.
Were we ready to admit that we could not, under any means, change a thing about our condition? The answer to this question lies in how much pain you are willing to face and accept.
What is the difference between a bad night and a rock bottom experience? The difference is desire for change.
Desire indicates potential. Why do people change? People change when they are willing to pay the price of change. What is the price of change? The price of change is desire.
Want to change forever? Easy: become willing to desire that change deeper, longer, and more than you desired the original condition. For example:
You have sickness. You become willing to change that condition. You face realities ruthlessly and ask for help relentless. You learn and take charge of what you can. You do you very best. But what is happening underneath all that is that you want to be healthy more than you want anything else, and you’re willing to do anything to win it. That kind of desire eventually succeeds. That kind of desire is called surrender in spiritual circles, but it really means a desire, a hunger, a thirst of the spirit for awakening. In surrender is the seed of awakening, it’s said, because only full awakening to aliveness will satisfy the desire of the surrendered person.
Let’s return to our instructions:
The spirit is born out of acceptance.
Compassion comes from letting go of pain.
First, then, locate the source of the pain.
Live in that world for a long time.
The first two lines are for contemplating, for the mind to chew over for a while. The second two lines are two actions. Find the source of your pain and live there. Why? Because that’s where the spirit’s born. The precise nature of these actions are, 1 feel that pain without anything in the way, and 2 act in service to others by finding someone else to share it with.
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What is our message? Here is our message:
Anyone, anywhere, can get free of addiction.
Anyone, anywhere, can lose the desire to react compulsively and habitually.
Anyone, anywhere, any find a new way to live.
What is this new way to live?
It is different for everyone. But we can characterize it generally.
- It is a way of life characterized by individual creative freedom. So our style is therefore tolerant and loving of other individuals.
- It is a way of life characterized by profound human connection and cooperation - in other words, our hallmark is joy.
- It is a way of life that is characterized as inspired and fully alive. We are awake to life.
- It is a way of life that is responsible and integrous. Our whole person is alive and lived through.
The Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text (NABT) updated this message from Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1980s.
Together we carry this message of creative freedom by reading and sharing of ourselves. Thank you for reading and sharing!
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About the NABT 8YSTEM
What is 8YSTEM? It is a dynamic way of approaching, integrating and sharing the living experience of Being Awake.
So what is NABT? NABT stands for the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text.
What you now read here is a dynamic system of awakening which I call 8YSTEM which uses the NABT:
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This book will feature largely in this blog.
About 8SYTEM: A proven, creative, dynamic living system of recovery from addictions.
8YSTEM heralds a new phase of recovery. Twenty years ago when the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous was written, much had been written about addiction, but little about recovery (see the opening to Book One of the Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous). Likewise, now much has been written now about recovery, but this work primary concerns itself with the all the aspects of living recovery.
Recovery is a living system.
A system is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as “a complex whole” a “set of interconnected parts”. OED also defines system as a method of organization of considered principles of procedure. Finally, OED says “system” comes from the Greek for “a set [of things or ideas]”.
Now the new word, 8YSTEM, indicates the multiple play of meaning and relationship and inquiry and experience that is recovery.
Recovery: A Map to Joy.
There is no right way to seek recovery. But there are many slow and painful ways. In accordance with our creative freedom, then, and in devotion to our Higher Power, these following suggestions are given. They have been found to greatly accelerate recovery, and bring much joy and happiness besides.
1. Work the 12 steps by turning them into actions you have taken. (Slower, more painful way: work the 12 steps by feeling, thinking, or arguing with others about them).
2. Talk about what you have done and how it worked or failed to work, and talk with others about what they have done. (Slower, more painful ways: talk about what you are going to do and what others are going to do; work the steps alone; work the steps with people who are active addicts; work with thinkers rather than doers.)
3. Treat recovery like an radical experiment, and your soul the laboratory. Test everything out for yourself. Look for solid results. (Slower, more painful way: treat recovery like an obligation, the end of your life, a social group, a support group, a self-help group. Recovery is a radical spiritual process of awakening.)
4. Define spirit in terms of how alive you feel and how functional you are in the world and in yourself. In other words, do inspired actions rather than be spiritual; live in a spirited and creative way, rather than stick to rules that keep you shut down. (Slower, more painful way: define spirit as a set of rules and restrictions to our creative freedom, stay negative and shallow, breathe from the top of your chest.)
Take these four suggestions and you have the basic traits of the 8YSTEM:
- The 8YSTEM is a living system of actions. See suggestion 1.
- The 8YSTEM is a proven system of definite practical suggestions to be taken with others. Suggestion 2.
- The 8YSTEM is a dynamic system. Dynamic means it has the power to move you. Letting yourself be so moved is Suggestion 3.
- Finally, the 8YSTEM of recovery is precise in its goal: the 8YSTEM aims to recover our creative freedom as human beings. This goal combines the inspirational and functional aspects of the spiritually awake, as per suggestion 4.
If that sounds exciting to you (it does to me!) then you are in the right place. Welcome.
