“Once I started chanting my abuse of dope as a means of escaping from the realities of my life became even more uncontrollable. Even though this was happening I continued to practise. In retrospect I realize that this was a very deeply-rooted problem which floated to the surface when I started to stir up my life.
My uncontrollable desire for dope is a manifestation of the poison in my life and it is necessary to change this poison at its source.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo works at the deepest level of one’s life and gets right to the heart of the problem.

I made a new determination to change this tendency I have to try to escape from reality in such wasteful and destructive manner. It struck me that what I was trying to escape was in fact ‘the most precious of all treasures’ – my own life!

Of course it is easy to make such determinations and then just slip back into patterns that we have been building up over many years. I have proved time and time again that if I do not keep up my life-force (in the way of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo), I lapse so easily into my ‘escape through dope’ and into subsequent guilt.

I realized how much energy I concentrate on the aim of buying dope and doing it as quickly as possible. What I am now trying to do is to channel all this energy and passion into positive directions. I find this much more effective than surpressing my desire.

In practical terms this means directing my energy towards chanting to change, telephoning a good friend, offering someone a cup of coffee or a drink instead of doing dope only by myself, or making an effort to speak about Buddhism. It can be very painful to take such actions, because old habits die hard and even though you know you are doing terrible things to your body and mind by stuffing yourself full of dope, or pouring a bottle of whiskey down your throat, there is also a certain perverse enjoyment in doing so.

These habits are familiar and it’s very difficult to wave goodbye to our old buddies and guilt upon whom we have depended for so many years. I feel that I am now chipping away at the imprisoning wall of my incessant craving and instead I am opening out my life, rather than retreating into the lethargy produced by the dope.

Cravings still do come up when I am feeling nervous, bored, angry or destructive. But I’m rapidly learning to tackle the problem.

In a sense we’re lucky that the addiction takes on such an obvious form, so that we know what to attack. I think many people go through mild versions:
- a cigarette before making a difficult telephone call
- a cup of coffee before writing an essay
- a drink before going home to ‘face the family’.

In moderation these are natural ways of relaxing, but if the telephone call is never made, the essay not finished until 7:00 in the morning and the family not faced until the pub closes, this is clearly a case of people escaping from what we have absolutely no need to feel somewhere afraid of.

We can allow everything to loom forever as monsters to be pushed away into the recesses of our minds, or we can get right in there and do them and finally enjoy them. Basing your life on chanting you bring out the dynamic life-force necessary to do so and then life will become ‘the most precious of all treasure’.”

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This page was last modified on Sunday, August 20, 2006.