International recovery day

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September 8th is International Recovery Day. Every day is a recovery day for me as I wholeheartedly go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. The more I can place these jewels at the centre of my life, the more I walk the Noble Eightfold path that the Buddhas taught as a way out of our misery.

This path is a way to live our life that will bear the fruits of stillness, simplicity and contentment.

Perhaps choose to focus on one of the stages of the path each week throughout September and October.

1. Transforming View – Consider transforming your perspective on life. If you related to your life differently what could that look like?
2. Transforming Intention – Consider transforming your thoughts. If you changed the way you think what could that look like?
3. Transforming Speech – Become aware of the traces you leave with your speech. Notice the impact of harsh, untruthful, frivolous speech. If you changed the way you communicated with yourself and others what could that look like?
4. Transforming Action – Do an inventory of your actions out there in the world. Which actions could you consider changing?
5. Transforming Livelihood – Livelihood refers to your work, career and your hobbies. If the way you earn your living is not ethical you may well like to reconsider what you are doing. Ask yourself how does your livelihood affect your heart and mind?
6. Transforming Effort – Become aware of what effort you are making in trying to live a more ethical, calm and balanced life. Do you need to put more effort in abandoning harmful thoughts towards yourself and others?
7. Transforming Mindfulness – And what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is coming back to your focus in life. Coming back to the present moment. Ask yourself how much time am I paying attention to being more aware in my life?
8. Transforming Concentration – Concentration is the next step after Mindfulness. When Mindfulness arises, one can begin to work at sustaining Mindfulness. What do you need to do to become more concentrated?

Enjoy looking at your life. Be kind. Acknowledge how much you have changed already, or how far you have come. Next month I hope to launch the free meditation download, 21 day meditation for addiction recovery, as part of the precursor to my new book Eight Step Recovery: Using The Buddha’s Teachings to Overcome Addiction. Check https://www.facebook.com/eightsteprecovery for updates.