"The Buddhist is not asking to be given happiness. Rather, happiness comes from putting the doctrines into practice. Buddha teaches the actual refuge - how to practice the doctrine - but the main responsibility lies in your own implementation. And we find many similarities in the monasticre life of all religions - simplicity, devotion through prayer and meditation, and service to others."
This is the thing about the particular brand of spirituality we find in Alcoholics Anonymous - at its heart it's just a repackaging of spirituality in a form that doesn't make the alcoholic gag and choke.
I went to a men's meeting once that wasn't published in the A.A. meeting directory because we took some liberties not accepted in polite society and not condoned as proper for a normal meeting. One of the things that happened that always amused me that when we read the part in How It Works that says (referencing our Promises): "They will always materialize if we work for them" guys would start shouting: "Work? Work? Work??!!" like we didn't really dig the fact that work was involved. The other line that tickled my fancy was a call and response to the reminder that this stuff can come true "sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly." The room would thunder with this: "Sometimes real fuckin' slowly."
Our ideas did not work. It didn't work. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work.
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