Basics of Buddhism – 6 - Addictions and Afflictions

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This morning we continue a series of talks about the Basics of Buddhism by exploring how we cause our own suffering.  We all do it at some time or another—we think, speak or act unskillfully.   Buddhism offers some practical ways to untangle the power that we give to unskillful thoughts, unskillful emotions and unskillful actions.

As we explore these practices to change our thinking, there is some helpful research that is being done in the field of addiction recovery.   First, Roz and Pam shared with me a new book entitled, The Power of Habit  by Charles Duhigg.  In it, he encourages us to see more clearly how cues lead to routines, lead to rewards, which create cravings out of the cues.  When you start having a cup of coffee in the morning, and you get that little jolt of caffeine, you create a routine of wanting the reward of the coffee high.  Over time, just smelling coffee gives you a little jolt, BEFORE YOU EVEN HAVE A SIP.  If you don’t drink any coffee after smelling it, you may start to experience the discomfort of craving.  We have bodily sensations that are unpleasant because of the habit that we have formed around coffee.  This can be true of any routine that we establish that includes some kind of reward.  There are the habits of drinking and drugs and smoking, and the other habits of anxiety, depression and fear—in fact both sets of habits can reinforce and support the other.

Finding the cue, the routine, the reward and the craving is exactly what The Buddha was teaching.  In Sanskrit the word for this craving, aversion or ignorance (the three poisons) is Klesha or affliction.  The Buddha noted that craving, aversion and ignorance were at the root of our suffering.  We can now see through the lens of the scientific research, that he was right. 

Another excellent psychiatric study, entitled “Craving to Quit” by Brewer, Elwafi and Davis, details the positive impact that mindfulness training can have on eliminating unskillful habit loop.  They outline three contributors to addictive behaviors:

• Over-ruminations (cyclical mind-states) 
• Internal sensations (emotions, bodily sensations) when we try to run away from or wallow in some uncomfortable feeling.
• External cues: past experiences that were pleasurable, neutral or painful that now drive our present response.

In Buddhism, we practice uncoupling thoughts/emotions of craving and aversion from reaction by no longer ignoring them.  We can in fact develop a tolerance for craving and aversion.  We can be mindful of thoughts, emotions and automatic behaviors and objectively observe them rather than being sucked into responding in our old habitual unskillful ways.

Every day, we have many opportunities to practice! First, we can practice in a controlled environment, like our focused meditation time, and secondly and equally powerful, we can practice in the moment of an afflictive thought or emotion arising.  It is powerful to practice in the eye of the storm.  With time, these practices become a new default mode of simply being present to whatever is arising.

AND we can use this process to develop skillful habits as well.   In the book, the author gives the example of toothpaste.  In the early 1900’s, only 6% of people brushed their teeth.  Through advertising, people were encouraged to create a routine in order to look more beautiful and have greater health.  The advertising connected the activity, toothbrushing with a positive reward, beauty and health, and made it a routine to do every morning.  Toothbrushing went from 6% to 65% in just two years.

There are no ads for mindfulness and meditation, at least none that are as powerful as toothbrushing, because these practices don’t always have an immediate reward, the issue that we have with working out or eating right.  So, we can overtly build in a short-term reward to encourage the routine leading to a habit of mindfulness and meditation.  Our February Love Challenge of meditating at least five minutes a day can be this opportunity.  In the Buddhist teachings, we are encouraged to meditate like our hair is on fire, having that great of a sense of urgency.  But, perhaps, meditation could be rewarded in some subtler way—it’s even been proven that if we who love our to-do lists, put meditation on the list, then check it off each day, that feeling of reward that we get when we accomplish something good for ourselves, that can create the habit. 

In the article on addiction, the psychiatrist emphasizes that realizing our thoughts and emotions only have power because we give it to them is also a powerful step towards changing our habits.  If we try to merely distract ourselves from them, or ignore them, we might find temporary relief, but we are not getting to the core, to the source of the suffering—this is why many addiction recovery processes fail.   Instead, we can learn to become disenchanted with these afflictive thoughts and emotions, to realize that we have the power to see through them and beyond them, then practice taking away that power through creating a replacement habit of mindfulness. 

Techniques to create the gap and become disenchanted

Recognize shenpa:  Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun who has studied the Buddhist teachings for over 50 years.  She has written many incredible books and given talks on how we get hooked-when we know what we are thinking or feeling is irrational, but we can’t shake it. The Tibetan word is Shenpa.  She also calls it that “sticky feeling”, the feeling like we can’t shake something off, like having an itch that you feel like you must scratch or you’re going to die.  Addiction can be seen as getting hooked, when we feel like we must take that drink or smoke that cigarette or eat that food, or we feel like we’re going to die.

We can also get hooked in smaller moments, when we get hooked into old habits and emotions triggered simply by a situation or something someone says.  Someone says something to you that makes you tighten inside.  Pema calls it pre-verbal, a yucky feeling at the pit of our stomach perhaps.  Then, the thoughts come and the intense desire arises to respond in a unskillful habitual way.  Think of a time when you’ve been criticized by someone.  Recall the exact moment when they said something negative about you.  What did that feel like?

Rise above:  To broaden our perspective, the monk Matthieu Ricard encourages us to use a visualization of the ocean, imagining soaring above the ocean of afflictive thoughts and emotions, instead of being caught in a boat on the surface, in the midst of the storm.  Meditation, mindfulness and visualization can be key practices in overcoming addictions and afflictions.  Hooray for this possibility of transformation, without any special equipment needed! Just our minds!

Serve others:  Another method of dissolving the power of unskillful thoughts is finding ways to serve others, instead of myopically focusing on ourselves.  One practice that works well in AA is when a newly sober person is given a job to make the coffee or set out the chairs, a simple job that serves others.  How might you serve others to get beyond your limited ways of thinking?  With this new understanding, we then practice again and again.  Through consistent practice, we strengthen the mental muscle of choosing the more skillful path.  We actually are re-wiring our brain.

In her book, Taking the Leap, Pema Chodron related a story that was circulating after 9/11.  It was said that a Native American grandfather was speaking to his grandson about the violence and rage in the world, and he likened it to having two wolves in your heart.  One wanting to be vengeful and angry and the other wanting to be understanding and kind.  The grandson asked him which of the two wolves would win….and the grandfather said, “The one you choose to feed.”

Today and every day forward, we can make the commitment to feed the right wolf, to be aware when we have that tightening in our gut, and sense negative thoughts and emotions arising, AND we can pull the plug, not feed them.  We can forego that short term sense of pleasure, trade it in for a longer term sense of well-being and happiness:

Matthieu Ricard in his book, Happiness, recommends three specific practices that correlate to these techniques mentioned above, for getting beyond unskillful actions and moving towards a deeper sense of happiness and well-being, regardless of our external circumstances or our habitual thoughts and emotions:

•Concentration (strengthening our ability to stay present) Identify the positive result you’re getting from the unskillful behavior.   Part of this mindful awareness is discovering how our fear and unskillful behavior is actually serving us.  If we overeat, we might do so because we remember the short term relief that comes from doing so.  If we get angry, we want that sense of relief when we first strike back.  A major part of mindful awareness is looking for the short term payoff.  Right now, take a specific example of a bad habit you are trying to stop, and bring to mind a recent situation where the desire to respond in that unskillful way was so strong AND when you did actually follow through with the unskillful action.  What did that desire initially feel like right before responding?  Then, what was the payoff that you imagined and received?  Psychologically, it is often described as some sense of relief.  I can’t stop thinking about that drink or that cigarette, until I give in, and in that action, we do feel some relief from the sense of suffering.  Mindful awareness enables us to catch ourselves in that moment of fantasizing about the good feeling we will get from doing the unskillful thing, AND TO REINFORCE THE LONG-TERM NEGATIVE RESULTS—THIS IS A CRITICAL STEP TO STOPPING THE HABIT.  Replace the thought and emotion about the short-term payoff with a different thought about the long term good of a skillful response.   

•Loving-kindness (cultivating positive mind-states) We can trust in our innate goodness.  Find the strength that is within you to change—it’s there within every single person.  If you are constantly telling yourself how bad you are for having these reactions and responding unskillfully, you are feeding the wrong wolf.  Trust in the fact that you are innately good, that there is good within each and every one of us, that we each have an enormous amount of energy and power that we can focus with laser-like precision to change the way we respond.  I work in a spiritual center that has the largest Alcoholics Anonymous group in the city.  I personally know dozens of recovering alcoholics and addicts who had been abandoned by their family and friends as completely unsalvageable, and many have found the power within themselves (and through the strength of the group support and process of AA) to transform their lives into good, even into joyful living!  It is possible!

•H.A.L.T.  Choiceless awareness (not taking things personally)   There’s an easy acronym that some of you may have heard, H.A.L.T.  Halt.  I learned this many years ago when I was reacting in very irresponsible ways, and I’m amazed at how helpful it has been.  HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.  Whenever these kinds of emotions arise in us, we can begin to see them as signposts, reminders to HALT, to pause, TO CREATE A GAP, to consider carefully whether we want to act upon our urges in that moment.   

RECOGNIZE—RISE ABOVE—SERVE OTHERS