Selfism in all Religions - Buddhism

Though many of us have no obvious problems with booze, drugs, gambling and other standard addictions, there is something on which all of us are hooked. And this could just be the hook that snags all the other hooks.

I’ve often asked myself questions such as: On what am I most dependent and stuck? Which habits and behaviors keep driving me into trouble and suffering? What is the worst drug in my life? The response that makes most sense to me is: “self,” ego, this knot of self-centered identity that I keep re-creating and rebirthing.

Recognizing the ego games is also necessary for sobriety and staying clean. As I’ve heard it, the alcoholic puts forth various forms of egoism to avoid facing the realities of being a drunk. Denial, sorry treatment of family, dishonesty and other alcoholic symptoms are rooted in highly defensive selves. Recognizing these addictive patterns is necessary for lasting, mature sobriety.

Part of the wisdom of the Twelve Steps as a spiritual path is that they don’t stop with just staying dry. They bring the drunk face to face with these ego manifestations and provide guidance in releasing from them.

It seems to me that the addiction to self underlies and provokes all the other addictions. My AA friends keep pointing out that once one gets started with the Steps and maintains sobriety, then one must deal with the pains and hurts that got one lost in drinking or opiates in the first place. And when we face our pain, we find that its source is self-love run amok; it all comes down to selfishness.

The word addiction captures the power of how badly we are stuck in and deluded with self. One advantage the alcoholic has in working the Twelve Steps, as compared to the many of us who dabble in Buddhist teachings, is that the alcoholic has hit bottom, perhaps a few times, and more fully acknowledges the degree of suffering we are capable of inflicting on ourselves and those we love. By looking into the parallels between the work an addict must do to stay clean and the Buddhist practitioner’s work, I hope to help the latter—such as me—make the depth of commitment that is necessary for lasting liberation.

Join a genuinely honest and caring community of those in the process of recovery from self and all its spawn that hurt us. Find a sponsor or mentor who knows the territory. Breathe well. Pay attention. Courageously face the nasty bits. Be kind. Forget about it being easy or quick. Wake up. Love. Serve. Have fun. Forgive the next self-relapse (they’re pretty common until “stream-entry”). Get on the wagon path again and again, breath by breath.