I've been so moved by Juriki Samuel, our Shuso's, deep devotion, commitment, and vulnerability in sharing his class on the Dharma of 12-Step Recovery. As we approach the closing 3-day retreat on Samish Island and the conclusion of our 2026 Fall Practice period with the final Shuso's Dharma Inquiry Ceremony on Sunday morning, I'm reflecting on what I've learned and the openings I see to new learning.

One of the teachings of Buddhism that can be hard to get our minds around is the teaching on "disenchantment." This is the insight that no matter how well we arrange our lives in the relative world of our identities, plans, and theories we'll always be unsatisfied. Disenchantment is a teaching on addiction is what I'm seeing now. The tweaks and improvements and acquisitions we work towards are the shiny objects we're hooked on. And no matter how many of these we get ahold of it will never be enough.

There is deep wisdom to this. It's obvious enough in middle & upper class materialism for instance. I admit to reading some reviews of Apple's new super-duper folding cell phone that opens up to become an iPad but fits in your pocket. For a mere $2,000! I felt a little surge of excitement - how cool is that? Sure, my next thought is "I do not need this and can't afford it anyway" but that spark of addictive excitement is there. We know that's not the path to lasting happiness!

Japanese painting of a gaki (hungry ghost) being tormented! A bit dramatic, but don't we all have elements of the hungry ghosts in us? Here's a short talk I gave about the Hungry Ghosts Ceremony.

But disenchantment points to much more subtle grasping and clinging. We also know how we can become like hungry ghosts obsessively searching for the perfect partner, the ideal place to live, a career that's ideally suited to our needs and is deeply meaningful and on and on. This kind of seeking can be an infinite loop of striving and dissappointment. 

Disenchantment is a real thing and it's worth studying. To learn to not get too excited or too convinced when the mind gets lost in excitement or in lack. To feel how there is a deeper refuge in the practice. How gradually over time as we study, meditate, learn from our teachers and with our sangha peers the bright and shiny hold of the relative world dims a little. And to encourage us we may feel deep moments of surprising peace and okay-ness too even in the middle of the usual chaos (and then have to watch out that we not make those into new shiny object to grab onto!).

And yet people do have real needs at the same time. We need food, shelter, a reasonable degree of safety. We need connection, support and love. We need ways of healing and growing through the traumas and unmet needs of the powerful karmic past.

And still it's a great idea to improve your relative life as best you can! Of course we should pick our jobs and homes and partners wisely. To the extent that we have a choice anyway. Of course we should get organized and get it together and live as well as we can. It's all in the spirit we go about this it seems. A healthy attempt to make things better or endless striving for perfection? Can we accept things as they are at every stop along the way?

Sometimes these early teachings sound like if you just wander off into the woods and meditate hard enough you'll drift off into the bliss of nirvana and peace. I've read of people who tried to do that where it didn't end well. I've also met people who dived into practice with incredible intensity and came out the other end kind of shiny and above it all but also somehow off - righteous and self-centered about their spiritual attainments.

And so I'm musing about how our practice journey needs to include both the path of healing and the path of transformation. Healing: we do need to heal, we need support, we need to be seen, we have needs! Transformation: and yet we also need to see that wounds aren't as real as we think they are, and that the deepest hurt is in the mistaken belief that we are separate broken beings who need fixing. Gradually it all comes together in our hearts that the paths of healing and transformation converge in the end. That not being so enchanted by our small self and it's endless need for reassurance is also key to true healing.

I also mused recently about the 12 Steps themselves in this talk.

Please do join us for the Shuso's Dharma Inquiry Ceremony on Sunday - everyone who touched in during Practice Period is very welcome. You can come down to Skagit Valley and see the place we do our residential practice or you can Zoom in. It's an important moment for Juriki Samuel and the whole sangha as we complete the process of birthing a new Practice Leader!

With love and a deep bow,
Nomon Tim