I dreamt I was getting some Marlboro cigarettes at a convenient mart, but  the proprietor was the owner of the Tibet store here in Portland. I found myself in line at a gas station, trying to get some deep fried shrimp dim sum. When I got up to the counter I opened my wallet and found that my Marlboros were really some kind of pack of 6 small cigarette-cigars. I looked at my credit card and realized it was a Visa with the brand name of the cigars. The other guy had given me the wrong stuff. But I had obviously already smoked one of those cigars, so I couldn't understand how I wouldn't have noticed already.  So I told the lady I'd be back in 15 minutes, even though I figured it might take longer.

I went out to get my money back and realized I was on a street I didn't know. The name had changed. I went down the way I thought I knew, and wound up in this hilly neighborhood where I asked some girls and they laughed and said I was not where I thought I was. Portland was far away. They walked down the street before I could get good directions home, so I carried my bike back up the hill and asked some guest house guy at the top. He took me inside and kept trying and trying to give me directions to freeways that I'd never heard of.  I didn't understand any of it, the street names, the map, I couldn't see or make out any of it. They were showing me how we were in this mountain town and I had no idea I was that far away. And no matter how many times he tried I couldn't understand him. So then this chic tried, and she was kind of flirting with me, but I still couldn't understand her. At one point, she showed me her butt crack and said something like, "look, I'll show you a map", but I couldn't look down since it would be impolite. Finally a guy from the program who I recognized from meetings wrote it all down neatly, with where to turn right and left. Then he turned to leave and said to the rest of them that he'd be back next week for meditation. I thought, "wait a minute, they're having a meditation meeting without me?".

I got on my bike and saw the freeway right down below. At that point I didn't care if I could ride my bike down it or not, I needed to get home. I saw a little path straight down there, which looked easy enough to navigate. But as I got down the hill, the path became more difficult and impassable. At the bottom, I actually found myself needing to cross a river to get to the freeway. So I decided to swim with my bike. In the water, the river became kind of an underground waterway. At one point I saw some smudge that made me think it was really kind of a sewer. I had left my bike underwater but retrieved it before I  crawled up from the underpass.  I was in someone's yard and I got up into this yard and was looking at what I thought was an overview, where there was a lady who welcomed me. I felt like finally I got to where I could see my path home, and although it looked like a really long way, I was relieved. Then some dogs came up to me and we were at a fountain that kept running, similar to what we have in Portland. Me and one nice doggy  shared a drink from the faucet and I wondered if it was pure water or water from the sewer. I couldn't really taste the difference.

I woke up and realized that in the dream I couldn't navigate, couldn't understand anyone and needed to find my way home. People gave me information, but I didn't trust it and when I did it became difficult to understand.  I got lost, couldn't understand the directions home and at the end I was trying to figure out why I never called AA to get someone to show me the way. I knew if I did, they would. That's a relief if I ever find myself lost on a bike in a strange mountain town, hungry for dimsum.

http://blacksamba.com/texts/LordsPrayer_EmmetFox.pdf

To read Emmet Fox's treatise on The Lord's Prayer,  click the link above. You can also right-click and Save to your hard drive to read later. Acrobat Reader is required.

The reason I'm putting this up is because I was recently thinking about this prayer and what it means to me. This is after I kind of got in trouble the other day at the end of an AA meeting for requesting that we do the Lord's Prayer instead of the Serenity Prayer. Someone was upset that I went against the group conscience and got confrontational with me about it. Then my friend the secretary said she hated the Lord's Prayer because it's patriarchical and guilt inducing. So it made me think about the prayer and my history with it as a spirtual device.

Since I have had this book, Power Through Constructive Thinking by Emmet Fox for many years, a scanner and Acrobat, I decided to scan it and post a blog entry on it this morning. My history with it is this: back in about 1986 I participated in a couple of 3 month long weekly discussion groups on Emmet Fox's The Sermon on the Mount and The Lord's Prayer with a guy who had known Emmet Fox in the 40's. His name was Dan Crouch and at the time he had 38 years of sobriety. So he taught us how to interpret this kind of what I call metaphysical Christianity in the context of AAs 12 steps. It was a fascinating, life changing adventure to go through this with program people.

What I learned was that if you look past the historical language, the distorted interpretations of theocratic institutions, the babbling of Bible thumping idiots... you can see that there is a lot of cool shit going on in some of the Bible in general, and in everything that Jesus said. Now I've been practicing Buddhism for a long time, and have never, ever considered myself a 'Christian'. As a matter of fact, I almost died at the hands of the Southern Baptist freakazoids in Texas (ok, it wasn't all their fault). But I don't think these people understand, in general, anything of a spiritual nature. Thier perspective is pretty sick. But that doesn't mean that there's nothing of value in things like The Lord's Prayer.

For example, in terms of blaming or fearing God.  The author says that 'the same fountain cannot send forth both sweet and bitter water". This view, that 'God' can't send bad stuff to us, because 'His' nature is goodness, kind of fits in with the idea of intrinsic Buddha Nature, which purports that we are all enlightened beings. But we're ASLEEP to that knowledge. Interesting! Also, the main Buddhist teaching on Karma works with this idea, that WE are responsible for our experiences in life. In AA we say, "we realized that we put ourselves in a position to be hurt". I always think of it in the mirror of that, namely that we can also put ourselves in a position to be not hurt, or in the Feng Shui, the flow, the stream of life. Our friend Noah talks about going 'against the stream' but I think he's just looking for an exuse to retain a punker's rebellious attitude. It doesn't look that good on a 35 year old, IMHO! My sponsor says that 'rebellion is BORING'.  But, I have to confess, I am a shit stirring mother-effer. I'm really working on it, but man, people need to be set straight. Wait, did I digress? Oh yeah, the Integration of Metaphysical Christianity with Intrinsic Buddha Nature of the Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma in the context of Recovery within AA's Twelve Steps.

So I invite you to read this .PDF with an open mind. Try to relate it to your own experiences\ religious beliefs\spiritual journey\recovery. Look past the 'Thou Shalts' , 'His'es and other male, Biblical language  to the deeper layer of meaning. Post up here what you think after you read it if you like. If you hate it and it makes your skin crawl with visions of nuns chasing you with rulers...feel free to expound on that. If you see parallels or contradictions with Buddhist Thought, I would welcome a comment to that effect. At least just read it and think about it. Maybe the next time you hear the Lord's Prayer, you won't wretch. As much. (-:

may you be free of suffering, and the root of suffering

-d

PS, in the teachings the root of suffering is said to be ignorance.