Kevin Griffin

This practice asks us, challenges us, to become comfortable with our own mind. Mindfulness lets us have some clarity and understanding of what's actually going on with our mind-body system and then allows us to have more choices. So mindfulness is kind of an intervention. Because if the definition of addiction includes the idea that you're not deciding anything—you are being dictated to by your addiction—then being able to intervene in that, to perform this sort of mindful intervention, gives us the chance to actually change the whole flow and direction of our lives.

Interrupting an addiction means interrupting a very powerful force. The great challenge is this: how do we engage in an effort to change that isn’t driven by grasping, that isn’t creating more suffering? This is why it’s important that we keep an attitude of kindness when we meditate, otherwise it can turn into another struggle to achieve something or to do something right. Our practice of mindfulness is a vital step in any kind of love or self-compassion practice. If there isn’t kindness inherent in this process of recovery, it's not recovery.

What’s most important about karma is what I call our emotional karma. What does it feel like when you make amends? If you work the 12 Steps, it’s a really precious thing to do. Not because it fixes anything, but because it changes you. It actually gives you a feeling of strength because the burden of the past, of guilt and regret, keeps us hiding, keeps us fearful, keeps us trying not to look, not to feel. But when we can stand up, and say “Yes, this is true,” then there’s a freedom that comes with that. What “making amends” does is that it finally convinces us of the value of honesty, and of the freedom that comes when we stop protecting the ego.

We want to let go of negative patterns and adopt positive patterns. In Buddhism, this is called “right effort.” We’re going to abandon the negative behaviors, thought patterns, speech patterns—all that destructive behavior—and we’re going to cultivate positive patterns in our lives. It is through changing our thoughts, words, and deeds, rather than through God intervening and fixing our lives, that we are going to change our lives. By definition, we’re going to change ourselves. We’re going to become different people who operate differently because we think, speak, and act differently now.