Beings Are Numberless, I Vow to Free Them

Fosterverse Weekly #42

As writers, we often find ourselves in search of communities like Foster—spaces where we can share our questions, our uncertainties, and our hopes for our ongoing leaps into the void of imagination. Where we can admit that sometimes we don't know what to write, or even how to begin. In my Zen training, I've been studying the bodhisattva vows, ancient promises that speak to this human need for connection. The first of these vows—"Beings are numberless, I vow to free them"—reminds me of another kind of gathering where this ancient wisdom takes on new meaning...

Cyril Porchet, Untitled, 2014

The amazing thing about recovery meetings is they never run out of people to join them. Beings are numberless and so are addictions, which are an obvious if highly flawed way to end suffering, at least for an instant, and, as we know, life is suffering. Addiction will be with us as long as suffering is with us, and that might be a while.

I go to recovery meetings for the same reason I practice Zen and write things on the internet—to feel less bone-crushingly alone. A recovery meeting is a miracle because for one hour we can save each other. In the presence of others who are willing to acknowledge how difficult it is to be a human, and how much pain is involved, we are free. We hold hands and chant the serenity prayer at the end of it. “God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

I go to the recovery meetings to free and get freed. We can’t do it alone. We need each other to create the container so that it can hold us in our efforts.

A man at the meeting on Friday night wearing a ripped black t-shirt and a black baseball cap pulled low over his eyes stroked his moustache as he told us how he’d been in recovery for four years now and it was all going pretty well—he doesn’t want to drink or use most of the time. And still, he said, “The thing I am most often wondering about is, ‘What do?’ I mean really,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing all the time. What do??”

I knew what he meant. I often look around at people and wonder how their agendas are so clear. Always one thing after another, a life that seems to me as the person looking in like they have it all figured out. Or at least more than I do. It soothes me to know I’m not the only one confused about something that seems to come naturally to so many.

What do?? It’s obvious some of the time but less so others. And if you’re not accustomed to numbing out, like those of who attend recovery meetings for our various addictions are, choosing how to spend your time feels onerous. Some of us work too much or overcommit to some project or another. We conquer one addiction and then seek out new ways of suffering when the old ones aren’t available anymore. And then we figure out how to stamp them out before we move on to another one. I went on the 12 Steppers website and discovered 32 different types of recovery groups, but I’m pretty sure there are far more. New ones spring up all the time.

This is a good thing and a sign of hope, as far as I’m concerned. We may never run out of suffering or addictions but also we’ll never stop trying to help ourselves and each other to escape them.

In writing, as in recovery, as in life, we show up for each other. We create spaces where confusion can exist alongside clarity, where uncertainty finds its voice, where we can all ask "what do?" and know we're not alone in the question. This too is a form of liberation.

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Sara Campbell is a steward at Foster who writes Tiny Revolutions and does lots of things at Angel City Zen Center. She wrote a longer version of this post on Tiny Revolutions, too, and you can read it here.