Doubters Anonymous

I was performing at a very progressive spiritual center called Unity of Berkeley last Sunday and the Reverend Patricia Keel began her talk as though she was sharing at an AA meeting.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Patricia and I’m a doubter.” It was then that I noticed that that Sunday’s program had a quasi-12 step program printed on it under the title “Doubter’s Anonymous.” All the places where the word “alcohol” would have normally appeared were left blank to be replaced by the word “doubt.”

For instance, the First Step read something like “Admit that we are powerless when it comes to doubt..” The Second said “Come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.”The Third— “Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.” Pretty brilliant analogy, really.

Cynics like to indulge themselves by claiming that the only grounded viewpoint is their viewpoint… the negative one. But when we couch doubt as just another self-destructive habit like drug addiction, it’s easier to understand that “sinking thinking” is not something to take pride in, it’s something to grow out of.

Easier said than done, however. How can we rise above doubt when doubt is intrinsic to the very thought patterns that make up the ego that is trying to escape it? It’s like trying to remove your own brain tumor. We need help from outside the infected ego structure to do this. And this is where the power greater than ourselves comes in.

You don’t have to believe in a Big Daddy God to get in touch with a power greater than yourself because the real you, the real us, is the Power greater than the self. Beyond the old assumptions, and circular arguments and dried up streams of thought is an ocean of consciousness where all wisdom and empowerment reside. We don’t have to climb out of the box, we simply have to realize that we are already out of it with the help of our practice, our spiritual community and our essential Buddha nature.

We re-enforce the realization through prayer, and through meditation— even the kind of meditation that simply separates the silent witness from the thoughts it is witnessing. (i.e. “This is not reality. This is a thought. This is not me. This is a thought.”)

From the perspective of The Witnessing or the field of infinite potential, as Deepak Chopra would phrase it, all things are possible. But we need to check in with that field frequently, like an addict with his sponsor, so we don’t slip back into insanity.

We’ve all heard that old chestnut that goes “When you assume, it makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”. Likewise when you transcend old assumptions, you bring the “trance” to an “end.”

(for a full-sized view of the graphic go to http://www.bimmermail.com/Believe2.jpg)

Ode to Good Songwriting

I’m no poet. But I am a songwriter. And like a lot of poets, I sort of write musical odes to things that get me off. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote “Ode to a Grecian Urn” and Pablo Neruda wrote odes to a lot of other ordinary things like dogs, cats, violins, guitars, and dictionaries— things that he thought were “way cool” and way under appreciated. That’s pretty much what I do (except, of course, when I’m processing some inner turmoil or commenting on the human condition, etc., through composition).
Odes always have the underlying message that if people could just get more enjoyment out of things that didn’t cost so much, the not-so-necessary things that people send their children to war for (i.e. extra petrol, for the Hummer knock-off), the world would be a better place.
That’s why I think a song about surfing promotes world peace a lot better than a song about drag racing (Brian Wilson take note). Who’d have thought “Catch a wave and you’re sittn’ on top of the world” would have political implications? (As opposed to “Control the oil fields of the Middle East so you can blow as much of the Persian Gulf out your tail pipe as you damn well please… and you’re sittin’ on top of the world).
Buckminster Fuller dubbed the preferred direction of technical innovation, the one in which we strive to get more and more from less and less, “ephemeralization.” The idea is to pursue this path until we can eventually get “everything from nothing” as the Bucky wrote. The poet promotes the same principle in the field of enjoyment. We need to eventually learn to be supremely happy with things that cost next to nothing to obtain. Appreciation practice is key to this dharma.
So what kind of subjects do I think worthy of a song? Myriad stuff. How ‘bout:

Great parking places and deft inline skaters,
Excellent cooking that won’t kill me later,
Passionate lovers that don’t require bling,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Or just amusing ditties people like to sing.
I say create world peace by nurturing a deeper enjoyment of the little things, the real things in life. One of my songs goes “Be no need for feeding greed when the moon and stars are ours.” Who needs blood diamonds when you’ve got heavenly bodies, right? Not me.