Buddhist 12 Step Program matched to AA 12 Steps
Rod Butcher
First 4 Steps are defined in the “Four Noble Truths”:
1. All life contains suffering and unsatisfactoriness
(1) we admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanagable
2. Suffering is caused by craving (for base objects, goals, desires)
3. This Craving can be eliminated
(2) Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
4. The key to the elimination of craving is “The Noble Eightfold Path”.
(3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him
The Noble Eightfold Path (ariya atthangika magga) is summarised as follows and defines steps 5 thru 12
1. Right view
understanding suffering
understanding its origin
understanding its cessation
understanding the way leading to its cessation.
(4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
2. Right intention
intention of renunciation
intention of good will
intention of harmlessness
(5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
(6) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
(7) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
3. Right speech
abstaining from false speech
abstaining from slanderous speech
abstaining from harsh speech
abstaining from idle chatter4. Right action
abstaining from taking life
abstaining from stealing
abstaining from sexual misconduct
(8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
(9) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
5. Right livelihood
giving up wrong livelihood
one earns one’s living by a right form of livelihood
6. Right effort
the effort to restrain defilements
the effort to abandon defilements
the effort to develop wholesome states
the effort to maintain wholesome states
(10) Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
7. Right mindfulness
mindful contemplation of the body
mindful contemplation of feelings
mindful contemplation of the mind
mindful contemplation of phenomena
(11) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
8. Right concentration
the first jhana
the second jhana
the third jhana
the fourth jhana
(12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our afairs.
URL of this page—Revised:
12.19.18.7.17 13 Kaban 5 Sots [G4]
(Thu Jun 09 2011 04:22:10 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time))
Copyright © 1998-2011 Rod Butcher
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Additional materials Copyright © 2005-2011 Ivan Van Laningham
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