Kevin Griffin - One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps

In a wise and honest way, Kevin Griffin has written a book that is truly helpful to Buddhist practitioners and the Twelve Step community alike. I am grateful that he brings together these two traditions so skillfully.

JACK KORNFIELD, author of A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

A Buddhist goes through the Twelve Steps to find God within. A book of compassion and grace.

STEPHEN AND ONDREA LEVINE, authors of A Year to Live and Turning Toward the Mystery

This is the book modern Dharma libraries have been waiting for! A wonderful and thorough presentation of the essence of what the Buddha taught and instructions for meditation practice spoken in the idiom of Twelve Steps and in the voice of a gifted narrator. The shared message of the possibility of freedom rings clearly from every page.

SYLVIA BOORSTEIN, author of Its Easier Than You Think and Pay Attention, for Goodness Sake

One Breath at a Time is a brilliant merging of Buddhist insights with those of the Twelve Step program. This fine book will be of great benefit to all who are recovering from something, and who isnt?

WES NISKER, founder/editor of the Buddhist journal Inquiring Mind and author of The Big Bang, the Buddha, and the Baby Boom

This is a brave book, heartwarming and clear. It is a groundbreaking coming together of the Twelve Step program with the Buddhist teaching in a way that is practical, personal, and liberating.

SHARON SALZBERG, author of Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness and Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience

This book is intended as a reference volume only, not as a medical manual. The information given here is designed to help you make informed decisions about your health. It is not intended as a substitute for any treatment that may have been prescribed by your doctor. If you suspect that you have a medical problem, we urge you to seek competent medical help. Mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities in this book does not imply endorsement by the publisher, nor does mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities in the book imply that they endorse the book. Internet addresses and telephone numbers given in this book were accurate at the time the book went to press.

2017, 2004 by Kevin Griffin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

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Credits appear on page 284 (page number refers to the print edition).

Book design by Christopher Rhoads

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.

ISBN 9781635651805 paperback

ISBN 9781635651812 ebook

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To RG and GLG. Its with the two of you that I find my deepest comfort. I send you every bit of my love.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable.

Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

by WILLIAM A LEXANDER

Both Buddhism and the Twelve Steps are kept alive, generation to generation by sincere and deeply committed practitioners...KEVIN GRIFFIN

Kevin is just such a sincere and deeply committed practitioner. We can all be grateful to him for his work in this book and his others, and in his workshops around the world. He is an embodiment of the Bodhisattva vow to put an end to suffering. He has done so for himself, and, by freely sharing his hard earned wisdom, he has offered that freedom to us all in this remarkable book.

This book is for addicts of all kinds, in the same vein that the 12 steps are useful for overcoming a multitude of painful habits of body, speech, and mind.

Mindfulness is not an afterthought, a something else for the recovering person to add to their recovery toolkit. It is a quality that illuminates and clarifies the spiritual nature of the undertaking in a way that is truly practical. In the felicitous phrasing of Thich Nhat Hanh, the two qualities inter-are.

Humane, witty, tender, and engrossing, this is both a good stand-alone book on mindfulness practice and an excellent look at the 12 steps. This is the first book to meld these two, and seamlessly at that. And it has yet to be surpassed.

Like the book Alcoholics Anonymous, known as The Big Book, which first posited the twelve steps and twelve traditions as a way out of suffering, One Breath at a Time changes with every reading. I first read it when I was 22 years sober. Now, many years later, on rereading, I find a new depth and a vivid richness. The book hasnt changed. But my mind has, due in no small part to mindfulness practice.

There is no grandiosity here, no new age assumption of cosmic specialness. In fact, Kevin warns practitioners and recovering people of becoming over-zealous, of becoming too excitable and missing the mystery, the joy, the gratitude and bright attention. Here is the voice of the bemused elder and the lighthearted beginner, all in one.

Kevin evidences deep knowledge and enviable authority in his work. But he brings to this book and to his workshops two rare qualities that spotlight the knowledge and the authority. He brings us his story and his implicit empathy.

The inviting chapters range from the specifics of mindfulness practice to its connection to the spirituality of the 12 Steps and the concepts of surrender, personal admission of wrongs done, amends, and the ongoing practices of prayer, meditation, and awakening. Interspersed with stories of his life including years on the road as a rock musician, we are given a complete portrait of what it was like, what happened and what its like now to quote the AA literature.