The July Shambhala Sun is coming soon, but in the meantime, our May magazine is still available and loaded with great reads. So we’ve shared longer excerpts of two of its features: Andrea Miller’s interview with Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman, and Pico Iyer’s meditation on Leonard Cohen. Click here to read “The Dude and the Zen Master,” and here for “Leonard Cohen burns, and we burn with him.”

You’ll find the full articles, along with stellar photographs by Peter Cunningham, and Charla Jones, inside the May magazine.

You can also read full May articles, online, from Bernie Glassman, the Reciprocity Foundation’s Taz Tagore, and His Holiness the Karmapa.

To see them all, click here. If you’re not a subscriber, click here to subscribe and save, and here to order a copy of this issue.

Meredith Arena on what it feels like to be embodied and alone.

As I understand it, being alone is of great importance in Buddhism. When I sit quietly, following my breath as it travels through my body, holding myself upright and dignified in whatever way I am able on that given day, I am alone with myself. I am alone inside my body. When I began writing this, I had intended to write about being 35 and single and whether or not that made me “free,” but the thing about Buddhist practice is that it has helped me shift focus from the little me alone to the big me alone. In these few years of practicing meditation, the lexicon “who I am” and “what I do” has begun to wither, allowing me to be more present with the who and what of each passing moment. When I was new to Buddhism, I heard the words embodied and disembodied a lot. On my first weekend retreat I came to understand these terms a bit more.

When I am disembodied, I take myself very seriously, like when you try to learn a dance, but you can’t bring the knowledge from your brain into your legs. Situations become story banquets. If I feel hurt or angry, I expect resolution. Ironically, seeking resolution to emotional dilemmas often involves waging both an internal and external war. I have waged many wars with armies of deaf hearts. When I am embodied, I can hear something under the discord of discursive thought, sometimes it is just the sound of feet outside my window or running water. When I am embodied, I notice the piercing darts of emotion in my shaky knees or tightening chest. Rejection stabs. Jealousy slaps. Sadness seeps or pours. I observe the spread of the poison through me; the moment before it grows arms, legs, and teeth and sprints into battle. When humans are agitated, our vision narrows and our capacity for creative thought lessons. In this process of working with awareness, there are so many false starts, spears thrown, little deaths. I screw up all the time.

My understanding did not come with a poof! One thing I had to accept about a Buddhist path is that, although there is magic everywhere, inherent in all of nature, it is truly mundane, there is not one magic moment. I am delighted or bored, titillated or furious, drunk or sober, but I am, just here, occupying space. I finished the weekend retreat knowing that being embodied was the experience of my awareness resting within this flesh that I call Meredith. Disembodied, I send experience through a series of defense and offense filters, distilling it into something finite. Embodied, I just experience it. If I receive a compliment such as, “I like your writing,” I can graciously say “Thank you.” I also notice that there is awkwardness, an instinct to escape the compliment or to launch it into the pinball machine to be plundered by second-guessing. Being disembodied obstructs our ability to feel pleasure and warps our experience of pain. I was ready to learn this because I was ready to begin relaxing with myself.

That I walked away knowing the difference does not mean that suddenly I was an embodied being, graciously moving through life like a ballerina. I am a clown, a bull, a mouse, shape-shifting through these years, as I have all the others with the only difference being that I am learning how to apply non-judgmental awareness to the fire coming out of my nostrils or the venom I inhale in failed attempts at skillful action. It didn’t solve the most fundamental problem, that I am alone.

I am an expert in the little me alone. Little me alone is single. The big me alone bridges this separate self experience – the big deal feeling of loneliness – and the more general sense of aloneness that I feel in my bones. Embodiment is a practice. Being alone is a practice. So what is the experience of being embodied and alone? To begin, I feel afraid. Fear comes and I don’t have someone to hand it off to. I have often used my romantic relationships to offset the fear of being alone and mortal. Being single for the entire time I have been a Buddhist has given me the opportunity to be loved by and to love many people.

These facts are clear: my parents will die, my actions matter. I am not the center of the universe. I am, in fact, a very small particle whose implosions and explosions still tilt the scales of my immediate environment because we are interdependent, that I cannot simply take all these emotions and stuff them back inside the dart holes to protect the wounds, that the wounds are the source of my embodiment. They are my potential for joy for myself and the impetus to help others experience joy. The late David Foster Wallace said, “The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad of petty, unsexy ways every day.”

There is a story about a grain of sand on a beach that begins to suffer once it looks up and says, “I’m a grain of sand.” By practicing loving everyone, anyone, I find more acceptance for the fire-breathing beast that I am. We are really just beasts, you know? Beautiful beasts. The fire subsides a bit.

Meredith Arena is a writer, artist, teacher and sometimes performer from New York City, who currently resides in Seattle. She began studying Buddhism at The Interdependence Project in 2008 and completed teacher training there in 2011. She teaches meditation to willing students, sells fruit and vegetable in the Pike Place Market and works with homeless youth in Seattle.

To see the rest of our Under 35 Project posts, click here. To read more and submit your own work, visit the project’s website.

“When ‘tasted’ deeply, life itself is more genuine, less guarded,” writes Bonnie Myotai Treace in her review of William Scott Wilson’s “The One Taste of Truth: Zen and the Art of Drinking Tea,” from our May magazine.

One person who understands that is Jesse Jacobs, the owner of Samovar, a San Francisco tea lounge previously profiled in our magazine. Samovar is dedicated to educating people about tea and tea culture. In this video, Jacobs and Zen Habits‘ Leo Babauta introduce the Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Tea, a series of exclusive educational web videos. You can watch another episode, “How to Taste Tea the Samovar Way,” absolutely free, by clicking here and entering your email address. Click here to browse all of Samovar’s online videos.

Every week we choose a photo submitted to Andy Karr’s contemplative photography site seeingfresh.com that really exemplifies the practice. This week’s photo, by Petra Schlitt, is a tribute to the perception of visual space (sometimes called negative space). It’s a fine example of fresh seeing.

For more about contemplative photography, and lots of other great photos, visit seeingfresh.com. And don’t miss this video or this article on contemplative photography. You can see all our Seeing Fresh posts on Shambhala SunSpace here.

It’s hard to know which was more surprising: that I would run for political office at all—and then win—or that I would become a Buddhist. Politics happened first… or maybe not.

A recent return visit to the New Hampshire State House served to remind me that I’ve put dharma teachings to work in my interactions with individuals whom I find difficult. Putting your practice to work in a political setting should be no different from doing it at any office, but a legislature of 400 members wins hands down as a place to find plenty of challenging personalities.

Where did it all start for me? Back in the early aughties I picked up various dharma books from my husband’s collection. I found them interesting but couldn’t make a personal connection. By early 2007, I’d begun meditating, and this coincided with the start of my second term as a member of the NH House of Representatives. The cushion became my main refuge.

For the next few years a local sangha provided a welcome constant in my life, but my sitting practice was an on- and off-again effort.

Between the sangha, the books, and a few retreats, I kept my toes in the dharma. But every time there was an opportunity to take the Refuge Vow and call myself a Buddhist, I declined. It didn’t resonate for me. I said I didn’t need or want the “label.”

Meanwhile I continued to steep myself in my legislative work, appreciating the opportunity to contribute. Over the decades I had volunteered in many campaigns, but it wasn’t until 2004 and living in New Hampshire that the idea of running for one of the 400 House seats took root. Once at the State House, any sense of equanimity was continuously challenged by the most cantankerous and self-righteous colleagues.

No issue important to me was without its detractors. But from the beginning of my freshman term in 2005 to my third and last two-year term, I made it a point to reach across the aisle in an effort to make collegiality one of the hallmarks of my service. Sitting down to lunch with someone from the other party, or even inviting myself to a lunchtime cafeteria table filled with “the opposition,” was part of my attempt to fight stereotyping. I wanted to get to know these folks whose philosophies were so different from mine and I wanted them to know me—in a way that would transcend politics.

Right, left, red, blue—did it really matter at lunchtime? Did it really matter when we bragged about our kids or grandkids together or shared stories about growing up in NH or elsewhere? And maybe the good cheer would spill over into committee work.

In my second term, when listening to floor speeches by certain colleagues, I touched in on what I’d learned from dharma teachings. I made deliberate efforts to consider that they, too, had families they loved and maybe elderly parents to care for, as I did. Some had children with special needs or spouses fighting illness. Each one, I had to remember, wanted happiness the same as I did. Each one had a Buddha nature, just as I did. The tough ones, though, the ones who seemed so self-righteous in their opinions (did I, too?) were my best teachers. I had to pay attention—and tamp down the “us” vs “them” dualistic thinking.

The weekly floor debates during our House sessions, however, became a test of my patience and equanimity.

“What would Buddha do?” or “How would Buddha vote?” were not exactly questions on my mind. I don’t waiver much when it comes to issues affecting inequities or the common good (at least my definition of it). The main issues I gave my time to—renewable energy and the electric grid, human trafficking, and substance abuse prevention and treatment—were of primary importance to me. Despite my opinions, it didn’t take long once I was actually in the thick of the political drama to realize that other voices and viewpoints must be heard.

I also learned that when mindfulness, compassion, and loving kindness intersect with politics, interesting things can happen—if not yielding a desired result, then creating a change in you. Rather than having kneejerk reactions to the opposition, I found myself consciously trying to understand their positions and just accept that we had different worldviews.

Several weeks ago I attended a hearing on a bill at the State House and was greeted enthusiastically by many former colleagues. Then I found myself sitting next to one of the legislators who always gave me pause. We might have spoken once in all the time we were colleagues. We could probably find maybe one or two issues on which we might agree. Even as our elbows touched on the chairs’ armrests, he was not acknowledging my presence.

Remembering his difficult family health issues and my meditation practice of taking in others’ suffering and sending out love, I took a breath, turned to him and asked, “How are you?” “Fine,” he answered, looking straight ahead. Simple, straightforward. He was not interested in engaging with me and that was okay. I’d reached out with an open heart.

And so, after never having given a moment’s thought to running for office, I did and served six years. Then, by the end of 2011 I’d finally met the teacher who would inspire my regular practice on and off the cushion and give me a deeper appreciation for the Buddhist path. When she offered the Refuge Vow recently, I thought, “Of course!”

Suzanne Harvey lives in southern New Hampshire with her husband. She is a student of Lama Willa Miller, the founder of Natural Dharma Fellowship and spiritual director of Wonderwell Mountain Refuge in Springfield, NH.

See also: Mindful Politics: A Shambhala Sun Spotlight page | “Taking Refuge: The Decision to Become a Buddhist,” by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The lotus is a favorite Buddhist symbol. After all, it grows in the mud of materialism or suffering, but blooms pristinely above the water’s surface, symbolizing the achievement of purity or enlightenment. There are other plants that have similarly water-resistant and dirt-repelling surfaces but scientists refer to the phenomenon as the “lotus effect.” In 1964, the lotus effect was studied by scientists for the first time and since then it’s been adapted for industrial use.

Now researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia are uncovering additional secrets of the sacred lotus. That is, they have sequenced and described its genome. The focus of the team’s research is on the lotus’s ability to generate heat and regulate its temperature like a warm-blooded animal. Apparently, the evolutionary advantage of a warm flower is that it attracts pollinating insects. The lotus has a biochemical pathway that it uses for generating heat and it has the ability to switch this pathway on or off, depending on whether more or less heat would be advantageous.

On Science Alert, Associate Professor Jenny Watling is quoted as saying  “Other flowering plants also have this metabolic pathway, but few use it to the same amazing extent as the lotus.”

And here’s one more amazing lotus fact: The sacred lotus, one of the world’s oldest flowering plants, produces seeds with a remarkable shelf life. They are viable for more than a thousand years.

But Andy’s first book — while no doubt artful — wasn’t about art. Titled Contemplating Reality: A Practitioner’s Guide to the View in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, the book not only presents the fundamental Buddhist views, but also contemplations that can help transform confused seeing into clear seeing. Contemplating Reality has just been released in an electronic edition, and so we thought we’d share a taste of Andy’s teachings with you. In “Reality Isn’t What You Think,” first published in the Shambhala Sun, Andy explains how contemplative practice can help repair our common, fundamental misunderstanding of reality. Click here to read it now, and enjoy.

We told you last year about Planting Seeds, a documentary produced by Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village community and the group at Peace is the Way films to teach children about mindfulness. The film uses animation, songs, stories and engaging activities that children, parents and teachers can use.

The film is currently in post-production, and the filmmakers need $214,5000 to finish production over the next few months. Currently, the filmmakers are running an Indiegogo campaign to try to raise $70,000 by June 5, with the hope of exceeding that goal. Check out the new teaser trailer above, and if you like what you see, consider making a donation.

A young Nanao Sakaki oversaw the proceedings by way of this blown-up photo; Gary Snyder addresses the gathering. Photos and below text by Steve Silberman.

Friday night, in celebration of his new book of collected poems “How to Live on Planet Earth,” the San Francisco Poetry Center and Green Arcade Books hosted a tribute to Nanao Sakaki in a mattress factory. The event featured Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, Patricia Wakida, Gary Lawless, Dale Pendell, Malcolm Margolin, and other poets and friends. It was a marvelous evening.

Nanao was a wonderful Japanese poet, ecological activist, and Zen rascal. When he was growing up in Japan during World War 2, he was drafted into the army. He was on radar duty the day that an American B-29 brought death to Nagasaki; he saw the little blip come in on his screen, and then the mushroom cloud rising in the distance. (“It’s a volcanic eruption!” some of the soldiers said.) After that, he became a lifelong wanderer, free Zen spirit “in the lineage of the desert rat,” original Japanese hippie and founder of a commune on Suwa-no-se island, and friend of American Beat poets including Snyder and Allen Ginsberg.

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days with him, Gary, and Allen in the 1980s that included the most intense breakfast I’ve ever had: buckwheat soba with lots of wasabi, oysters on the half shell, green tea, and beer. He was quite old by then, but as we were walking in San Jose he suddenly climbed a tree like a young man climbs a staircase.

Nanao died in 2008.

For more from Steve Silberman, check out previous posts by and about him here on Shambhala Sun blog, and be sure to follow him on Twitter.

Even at twelve, Chris Lemig knew he was gay — he just didn’t want to believe it. Spurred on by intolerance, ignorance, and fear, he took his first steps into the closet, and so began twenty-three years of drinking, drugs, and attempted suicides. Finally, after being victimized in a hate crime, Chris knew it was time to make a change. He came out, and in part thanks to his study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism, got — and has stayed — clean.

Chris tells his story in his brave and harrowing new book, The Narrow Way: A Memoir of Coming Out, Getting Clean, and Finding Buddha. Here, in an online exclusive, is “Rebirth,” a crucial chapter from it, shared here in its entirety.

Time passes unhindered. When we make mistakes, we cannot turn back and try again. All we can do is use the present well. — H.H. The XIV Dalai Lama

Up, up, up I climb. Up into Rocky Mountain foothills; up into the heart of my fears and limitations. The whoosh of the highway is now far in the distance as the still air becomes thin and clear. Cool rivers of sweat pour from my temples running fast down my neck and back.

Today, six months before heading off to India, I am alive!

I walk a furious pace, over the craggy landscape, through awakening sage and scrub oak, bound and determined to conquer these seven miles that have turned me back a dozen times. But five months without cigarettes or liquor now and my lungs feel like new. I breathe in deep at the two-mile mark, the start of the long loop trail, and pause.

I will not turn back this time. I will not give up. I have come too far, too fast.

Five months old now. A newborn and delighted at the rush of senses only just discovered. I think back, remembering that first day, the day of my rebirth.

I can see myself coming home from the short vacation I took just after coming out. I thought I should celebrate. But now, standing outside the airport waiting for my ride, I look long and hard at the crumpled pack of Camels in my hand. My eyes follow down, down as they fall away into the trash and I dive in after them in my mind, trembling at the thought of walking the path ahead without my dear old crutch.

But then a shout from my cousin’s husband in the pick up lane and I hop into the truck.

“Whoa, you smell like booze!” he says.

“One last bender,” I say. One last desperate grasp at the old way. One last bout with the hammer over my head. But then I imagined my new life out of the closet, stained by the same old tired songs of abuse and shuddered.

I remember the vow. Never again. I do not speak it out loud. I keep it close and secret, afraid that the power of it will evaporate like a wisp of cloud in the wind. And so we drive home where I will live with my cousin and my aunt and the hope of one last chance.

Four days later without a drink or a cigarette and the cravings come in powerful Waves that threaten to bowl me over.

“Just one drag, just one drink and it Will all go away,” say the voices of old demons still squatting in a back room in my mind.

“Stay quit, stay quit, stay quit,” says another voice, a voice that I am just learning to trust, a voice that I’m beginning to recognize as my own.

I chant the mantra to myself when the bargaining and the drafting of new promises begin and the demons withdraw.

Stay quit, stay quit, stay quit.

•••

I am in the doctor’s office cold and half naked as the skin of my thighs sticks to black vinyl. My heart beats a furious rat-tat-tat as the nurse takes blood pressure and pulse. Did he just whistle faintly through his teeth? Is he amazed that I am still alive?

I am. In fact, I am certain that I am dying. Two weeks sober and in the clarity memories flood back from two decades of abuse. No one could have come out of that unscathed. So I toss and turn for long nights, searching for lumps and tumors in my throat. I am certain that the numbness in my fingertips, the aches in my chest, the bulging veins I never noticed before, the muscle spasms near my left shoulder blade and above my right eye are all signs of an imminent end.

”Three-twenty-four,” a bright voice says. The doctor has appeared out of nowhere to read the mysterious number from his laptop chart.

“What?” I snap out of morbid fantasies of my funeral that I watch, disembodied from above.

“Cholesterol. Your bloodwork came back. Your cholesterol. It’s three-twenty-four.”

I feel faint, woozy as I feel my blood pumping hard and fast through narrowing veins. It sounds bad.

”Is that bad?” I ask.

“It will be if you don’t do something about it.”

He is stern but kind and soon I find myself pouring my heart out to him. I tell him my story in fifty words or less. I am gay. I have just come out. I am two weeks sober. I am living with family and I’m trying to stay clean on my own.

He doesn’t blink or roll his eyes. He doesn’t shift uncomfortably in his swivel seat. He is used to this sort of honesty, like a priest taking confession. He listens with all his attention then after the calm of gathering thoughts he gives me a prescription. He tells me about Twelve Steps. He tells me about medication. He tells me about vitamins and eating better and exercise. He tells me I can do it, but not alone. I take it all in, open now to advice and wisdom that only a few months ago I would have shooed away like a moth flapping by my ear. But now I have promised myself I will try anything.

So I do. In a week I get up the courage to go to an AA meeting. There is warmth there, and love and support but there is something missing, like there is something else calling to me from just around the corner. I read through the Blue Book. I tear out big fat strips of fearless moral inventory, making amends and taking ownership. I toss them all into a crock-pot and cook up my own nourishing stew of recovery.

Body. Mind. Soul. Spirit. These I have neglected and now they call out to me in unison. They call out for attention and healing.

First I declare war on the enemies of my body. They have been hiding in the tree line, camouflaged and disguised as license, reward, and freedom. But now I flush them out like spies and traitors, hunting down and driving out all their agents and co-conspirators. Sugar, caffeine, fast food, French fries, bacon, cheese, butter and grease, I rout them all out, send them retreating to the hills. I don’t give in to their cries for mercy. Instead, I eat good food, fresh food, green food from the good earth. I listen to my body and let it tell me what it needs. It knows, it has always known.

Every morning, I reach down to touch my toes. At first, the pain is unbearable, muscles flabby and unused for years. But I take it slow. Stretch, do not strain. Sit-ups then push-ups. An easy workout. Ten minutes a day. I hate it. I love it. I do it no matter what.

In two weeks my blood is tested again. Just like that I am back to normal. No drugs, no treatment, no pharmaceutical courtship.

It’s a tiny victory, proof that I can change.

I am still scared. I am on new ground that shifts and sometimes even crumbles under my feet. I do not even know how to stand, how to walk, how to run. But I put one foot out anyway, hoping it will touch solid earth.

I read old journals, my diaries of confusion and despair, filled with drunken ramblings and cheap shots at a self that cries out for love. The repression so obvious now, a life filled with so much turmoil and fear. But here and there, clues and glimmers of hope. I want to explore Tibetan Buddhism, I wrote in big, sloppy letters across the top of one page. I remember it now, The Calling, clear and ringing out of the fog of fifteen beers, cocaine, and a cloud of smoke. I just wasn’t ready to hear it.

But I answer the call now. I stride into the little bookshop that I have passed a hundred times, with purpose and certainty. I march down the aisle to the three shelves marked Buddhism, breathe in the aroma of old musty books stacked haphazardly on floor and shelves. I let my fingers caress their spines, close my eyes and read the titles like Braille, absorbing their essence through my skin.

I find the one. My breath quickens. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It jumps into my hands from the shelf up above. I flip to a random page and read. Yes, this is the one.

I cradle it in loving arms all the way home, down the stairs and into my room. I am giddy as I read. The words resonate in my mind like a melody forgotten or a poem I once knew by heart. With each turn of the page, each soaring Ah—ha, certainty grows. The ideas and concepts seem so familiar. I can’t explain why or claim to understand it at all, but they ring in a high, clear note that shatters years of doubt.

The book is filled with stories of Tibet and they take me to the high places there. Tears run down my cheeks as I read the words of the Rinpoches, Buddhas in the flesh, who teach compassion with every breath. Impermanence, suffering, devotion, discipline, concentration, meditation, liberation. This is what Buddhism is all about and it is so much more than I ever imagined. I close the cover and all I want is more, more, more.

So I read. I read like I’ve never read before. In five years I’ve choked down two airport horror novels. Now I read two books a week. Life after death, quantum physics, Vedanta. I read the life stories of the Buddha and the Dalai Lama. I read the story of a western Zen student who spent six months in a monastery in Japan and was changed forever. I read Robert Thurman, Shunryu Suzuki, Milarepa, Sommerset Maugham, Jack Kornfield, Alexandria David-Neel, Peter Mattheissen, Santideva, Thomas Merton, Walpola Rahula, Herman Hesse and the Dalai Lama.

I read anything that stirs my curiosity but always I come back to Tibetan Buddhism, like a compass needle pointing north or a stream rushing to meet the big river that leads to the sea.

I fly high on the wings of the spirit, spin and glide free in the heavens. But when I look down and see the ground far below, I become afraid again. What if I fall? My heart is still heavy, weighed down by the unresolved past that threatens to send me crashing helplessly to the hard earth.

I have so many wounds. Most of them self-inflicted. I cannot heal them all by myself. So I get help. I find a healer, someone who will listen. It is slow and unpleasant and difficult work, digging through the layers of the past. But we work through it together, this kind elder and 1. Slowly and patiently, she guides me to my own wisdom, teaches me how to love myself again.

I stand in front of the mirror day after day following her simple instructions.

“I love you,” I say to myself.

At first I feel foolish. I don’t believe it. So I look deep into my eyes and say it again. Then again. Then again. Then again. I love you, I love you, I love you! Weeks go by then months. Soon it doesn’t matter how silly this is or whose ears might be pressed to the door. I look into that mirror and deep into those eyes every morning, every night. I love you, I love you, I love you!

Then slowly, very slowly, I start to believe it.

Soon, I find myself sprinkling little acts of kindness towards myself throughout the day. A kind word or a smile as I pass my reflection in a window. A gentle caress when I feel overwhelmed. A deep breath. A massaging of tired shoulders. A wish for happiness for myself and everyone I know. And then, without even noticing that it’s happening, I begin to realize that I am my own best friend.

But this is only the beginning. There is still one last dragon to slay, snarling and gnashing its teeth right there on the path in front of me. I know I can’t go any further unless I face it. So finally, standing on solid ground and trembling only a little, I take the next step.

•••

We round the lake at Memorial Park for the third time and the storm clouds over Pikes Peak are held at bay by the power of our conversation. We have been talking deeply for almost an hour, this after barely speaking for a year. Three hundred and sixty five days of carefully orchestrated avoidance. Bristling at the sight of one another. Walking on eggshells.

But now the walls are down. The truth has been freed from its cage and there is nothing left of me that can be hurt.

“Mom, I’m gay.” There. I have said it. It is done.

Droplets of rain begin to fall, Welcome cool in the hundred degree heat of July summer.

“Ya know,” she says. “I’ve never told anyone this.”

I smile down at her, my mother, who used to loom before me and terrify me.

“When you were born, the hospital was out of blue blankets. So ya know what they did? They brought you to me wrapped in a pink one. I should have known then.”

I exhale a little laugh through my nose and smile wider.

“Signs and portents,” I say. “Signs and portents.”

•••

I wake up grateful. I am here; I am alive. It’s been five months since my last drink and I am out of the closet and free.

I face the batik wall hanging of the Buddha I have placed above a simple altar of candles, incense, a single flower. I fold my hands. I bring them to my crown, my throat, my heart. I drop to my knees then stretch out my body, accordion-like, on the floor until my forehead touches the ground. I reach out my arms as far as I can, lift up the fingertips in one last gesture of reverence. Then I get back up and do it again.

I am nervous. This feels awkward and strange. I wonder if anyone is awake and can hear my breathing getting faster and faster as I prostrate over and over again. What would they think if they could see me? I do a hundred and eight repetitions and when I am finished I am panting and pouring sweat.

Then I stack the pillows from my bed one on top of the other, a makeshift cushion. I recite the words of the Refuge Prayer even though I only suspect what they mean.

I take refuge until I am enlightened in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha.

By practicing generosity and the other far reaching attitudes: ethics, patience, joyous effort, meditative concentration, and wisdom,

May I attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all beings.

Then I sit, back straight, not proud but with great dignity. I clasp my hands in my lap, thumbs pointing upward and lightly touching. My eyes are full of sleep and I yawn.

I try to remember the instructions again, so simple yet so elusive. Don’t force anything. Don’t intend anything. Sit and watch the breath. Then the thoughts rise like high, cresting waves in a storm. But I keep trying to come back to the breath. Breathe in… one. Breathe out… one. Breathe in… thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. But it’s ok. I sit for twenty minutes, foot asleep. I sit until I can’t sit any more.

When I get up I write in my journal, I write about how happy I am. I write about how difficult it still is, how I will never be able to say with certainty that I will never fall back. I write myself love notes, and words of encouragement. I forgive myself. I am gentle with myself.

Then I go to the mountain. Today, I will finish the trail. I haven’t felt this good in years. I will make my way to the high point. Eight thousand feet. It will be cold and the wind will bite even at the end of winter. But I will still feel warm. I will look around, seeing that I am alone in the great expanse. Alone but not lonely. The mountain will rest in front of me testifying to its own weight and presence.

Then I will skip down the narrow path shouting out loud, “I am going to make it!” Almost seven miles when only days ago a flight of stairs left me winded. When I get to the trailhead I will leap up, click my heels and cheer. I will look back up the mountain and then, smiling, heart soaring and breathing heavy, I will know that it’s the little victories that are the best.

•••

I have decided. I am going to India! There is nowhere else that I wish to go, no other goal that would be more worthwhile. I am afraid, afraid that it is too big a task, afraid that I might fail or falter or fall. But I don’t care. I refuse to let my fear rule my life for one more minute.

Now is the time to study and prepare. All the money and energy that I used to spend on getting high are now available to me. All the restless energy of addiction can now be funneled in a new direction: Forward!

I go to work at the restaurant everyday with this burning purpose and resolve. The shiny bottles of booze are no longer a temptation, just baubles and widgets. My coworkers and my boss cheer me on. They like the new me and want him to stick around.

Goals and the possibility that I might actually attain them keep me awake at night. I lie there with eyes.wide open imagining all the challenges that await me. Malaria, heat,sickness, culture shock, language and giant insects fill my mind with a delightful terror.

“Guess What?”

”What?” say the guests at the bar.

“I’m going to India… for two months!”

Blank stares and confusion. I am getting used to these. I try to answer the question “Why?”

To live for two months by my wits and with no more than I can carry on my back. Isn’t that reason enough?

But there’s more. There is the call of pilgrimage. Sarnath and Bodhgaya, Lumbini and Kushinigar, the four holy places of Buddhism call out to me. But of these I do not speak, afraid that I will break the spell.

I hang a calendar above my desk and begin to tick off the days. Six months to go. I have all the time in the world but still, there is not enough. There is so much to plan, so many thousands of little things to get done. It becomes my new obsession, my great problem and I wear it down like a boulder blocking my path with a piece of silk. I read, I study, I watch, I listen. I talk to those who have gone before me and make new friends. Can I actually do this? I laugh. Yes, I can!

Where is the man who used to rage and cry and beg for death? He is gone but not forgotten.

Rejoice in this life right now! Every moment is a gift, every breath an opportunity to be aware and to wake up. Time is slipping away!

Only a year ago a shameless, hopeless drug addict. Only a year ago drunk and blacked out. But now I look at how far I’ve come. If I pat myself on the back everyday then so be it. I know my weakness. 1 know that I could fall back into that life at any time.

So I congratulate myself to remind myself how far I have to fall, to remind myself how much I have to lose and to remind myself how important it is to love and respect myself.

I needed the discipline of sobriety, of meditation, of compassion to bring me here. But most of all I needed the discipline of self worth. Everyday I look at myself in the mirror with love and I know I am worth the effort.

Now all has been forgiven, all sins admitted and confessed. This is purification, nothing left to regret. The past has happened but now it is over and done. All this time I thought I had an eternity to live. But I don’t. None of us do. So I promise myself I won’t waste anymore time. It’s time to live today. It’s time to go on pilgrimage…

Reprinted from The Narrow Way: A Memoir of Coming Out, Getting Clean and Finding Buddha with permission of the author and Mantra Press. To learn more about the book and its author, visit Mantra Books online.