Two and a half years after I got sober, my mother was brutally murdered. She went into a derelict building with a guy to share some booze. When they ran out of booze and money he went mad. He broke almost all of her ribs jumping up and down on her. He left teeth marks in her breasts and battered her beyond recognition. She managed to get out of the house and died in hospital after about ten days.

Initially I was the main support to my father who was a suspect because of the history of violence between him and my mother. I knew he didn’t do it. He stayed with my family and I for a few weeks. Then I began to feel my own grief, anger and guilt. I was in a very bad state beneath the surface but it didn’t occur to me to drink.

I did start to think that I probably could drink which was the beginning of a slip that started 5 years later. I thought I had changed so dramatically and I had also lost my faith. Although my concept of a higher power was undefined and in many ways couldn’t really be called God, I became cut off from all things spiritual. I was more interested in political solutions.

I studied for seven years. I passed my ‘A’Levels, got a BA (Hons) Social Studies from the University of London and qualified to lecture in sociology; social and life skills; and drama.

I found a job working with young offenders in an open prison and was given a house in the grounds at very low rent . Having moved away from all my AA friends I went for a drink. I had two or three nights of controlled drinking, just to prove to myself that I could do it, then I celebrated.

I lost my driving license within a matter of months and lost it again almost as soon as I got it back. Then Tess and I finally separated and I was broken again. Our daughters were 14 and 15, Nicola and Katherine. I had become a decent father and I felt like my arms were empty. As though something that should have been there was gone.

I finally reached that point again when I knew I couldn’t stop drinking, after stopping and starting for about seven years. Ironically this made it possible to stop. As long as I thought I could stop any time I liked, I continued getting drunk. The friend I worked with at the Educational Guidance Centre (the job I moved onto when I left the open prison), Andy, was the same. We were well known for our one last piss ups, which were more or less nightly at this stage, and the trouble we got into. One of the administrators, who knew that we could do a good job, once described us as like two hairdressers who could cut anyone’s hair but their own.  But it wasn’t funny anymore and I was not in a fit state to work.

I got seriously beaten up. I began to wonder if in a deranged way I was setting myself up to die like my mother? If she had no choice and her fate was out of her hands then how could I believe that my fate was in my hands? I was drinking with tramps and I was physically in a bad way.

I had to have one of those tests where they put a camera down your throat to examine you inside. Andy came with me to the hospital. He had to stop off at the pub for a pint of Guinness on the way. I had orange. Then when I came around they wouldn’t give me the results until he came back to collect me. I had to sneak out, run down the pub and drag him away from the bar long enough for them to tell me that I had inflammation of the duodenal, a hiatus hernia and corrosion of the gullet.  ‘You must be in a lot of pain.’ the man said to me. I thought I probably was but I was so used to feeling like this that it didn’t mean anything.

‘You know I think this is serious’.  Andy said to me in one breath as we sat back in the pub and in the next. ‘What’s that Guinness like on top of the anaesthetic?’ We were away with the fairies.

I had another fight. This time I suddenly woke out of the drunken stupor I was in half way through the battle and defended myself with such ferocity that I left a man unconscious outside the pub. I had hit him with such force my hand was fractured by the blow. I was shocked when I woke up realising what I’d done. It was as though I had begun to live in a cartoon world where actions don’t have any real consequences. I stopped again. And again. And again. But I couldn’t stay stopped.

Then the final night of drinking began with a simple suggestion to have a couple of tins of beer and watch a video. A man who I had helped at the centre was putting me up. A man who honoured me for what I’d done for him and so many others. He was so shocked to see the state I was in. A couple of tins wouldn’t do any harm though.

By the time I was halfway though the first tin I could feel the bubbles rising into my head and the smiling flush returning to my face. My mind immediately went into gear working out that if I took my passport down to Biddy’s bar she’d lend me the cash I needed to get the quantity I wanted. I always drank by the gallon. I walked up the road drinking the second tin because I didn’t want there to be a gap between finishing that and getting another drink. I finished it just outside the bar and Biddy came across with the goodies. Thirty quid to quench my insatiable thirst.  ‘Whoa give me another ‘alf a pint’ I was roaring within a very short space of time. I don’t remember much after that. This was a song I sang because I’ve never drunk a half a pint in my life.

The following day I woke up vaguely remembering that I was thrown out of the house the night before by one of the other residents. I decided to ask this bloke what that was all about. I wasn’t going to have people taking liberties with me while I was drunk so if necessary I was ready to sort him out. Apparently one of the women in the house had opened the door to me in the middle of the night. I was leaning against the doorbell having been too drunk to find the key and I was urinating on the front door. My immediate thought was ‘Is that all?’  I was quite capable of far worse than that. Then the almost simultaneous thought of have I really sunk this low?  He told me that I could stay in the house another week if I could promise that I wouldn’t get drunk again. I searched myself honestly and I knew I couldn’t make this promise. I wanted to have another drink now. I was gagging for another drink now.

I have never had another drink since that moment. That was 18 years ago.

When I turned up at an AA meeting that day my attitude was different. I knew I needed help. Seeing this an old friend, Keith, responded. I couldn’t stay in the house I was in because there was too much going on. Those that didn’t drink were smoking huge quantities of something or other. I knew my conditions mattered so I took a more realistic approach. None of the big I am. If it were too hard I wouldn’t make it. Keith understood this and gave me a room in his flat.

Keith had been sober for over 15 years. He and I had both joined AA at the same time when we were in our early twenties. He had slipped after a few months but never again after that. We went back a long way and had shared much of our early recovery together. I told him that I thought that the absence of anything spiritual was a problem for me because I could no longer simply kneel and pray to God. It just didn’t work for me. So with his encouragement I wrote to a Buddhist retreat centre in Wales called Vajraloka.

I had never been to this retreat centre but a junkie who I’d met at another place called Padmaloka had recommended it too me. I was honest in my letter. I told them that I wanted to meditate but that I couldn’t do it. My mind couldn’t settle and I didn’t have the self-discipline to sit everyday. It was a long letter and I can’t remember the rest of what I said. Primarily I was asking if I could come and work for them in exchange for the opportunity to practice in better conditions. After some time I got a call from a lovely Irishman called Vajrachitta. He asked me how much I was drinking. I told him I had stopped a couple of weeks earlier. He was good humoured and simply said yes. He said they would be doing some building work in about 3 months and we set that as a date for my stay.

I was surprised by how straightforward it was. When I rang the Croydon Buddhist Centre to ask for the address the man I spoke to got quite impatient with me and told me it wasn’t possible to just go there like that. I would have to do what every one else does and just go along to classes. Fortunately I was used to ignoring advice like this. I knew I needed more than that.

I worked in the cinema yet again. Poor pay but a handy way to pay for food and rent and I went to a lot of AA meetings. In the evenings I seemed unable to stop myself watching coverage of the Gulf war on the TV. I remember seeing a poster with a picture of the Dalai Lama next to the Kuwaiti President. It said simply  ‘Guess who’s got the oil’. I was appalled at the slaughter and the language of ‘kicking ass’.  It made me wonder if I wasn’t the only one who was living in a cartoon world. Maybe people had lost the feeling for facts. This was not a film with actors in and it wasn’t a matter of kicking ass.  It was a massacre of real living people. They were blowing terrified human beings to pieces and we were watching it on telly.

When I arrived at Vajraloka it was mid winter and there was snowfall all around. The air was fresh and cold and the quietness was stunning. I smoked my last 6 cigarettes in the village down below. I couldn’t throw the packet away. It even crossed my mind to have one last piss up but I made it all the way.  ‘I’ll have an orange juice’ I said as I waited in the bar I was to be collected from. When my lift didn’t arrive I had another orange juice until he finally found me.

I was given a small room in a simple stone cottage, which must have been hundreds of years old. There was a stone table in the kitchen with stone or concrete benches either side. I loved the simplicity and the absence of wealth.

There was a large stove, which Vajrachitta cooked our food on. He was vegan but he said I could have whatever I liked. I said I would eat the same as everyone else. He was like a little leprechaun with ginger hair and a big manly jaw. I liked him.

All of the men were quiet. I don’t mean they didn’t speak but there was no chatting. This meant that the mind had less stuff to deal with. There was an openness about people, similar to the experience I had at Padmaloka. People quietly reflecting but not withdrawn.

There were two Order members from the Croydon centre. Sanghadeva who I had very little contact with and Satyaraja. The latter took me to one side early on and apologised to me for the manner in which he cold-shouldered me a few years earlier. It was a sincere apology and I had no difficulty accepting it. As we relaxed he admitted that he had been dreading my arrival. I was not surprised. We had both changed.

He had matured well and was a good Dharma teacher. Dharma, in this context, being whatever helps you to make progress to awakening. It was impossible to chat with him, which I sometimes wanted to but I did listen to him and others more so than I could have done before. They were a lot further down this road than I was so I was willing to be shown the way.

Vajrachitta was less eloquent but he was still a good communicator. He would give talks nervously, with grubby screwed up notes until he found his heart and began to show us his faith. The word for faith is Sraddha, he taught me, meaning that which arises when what is highest within us touches what is highest in the universe and awakens just enough to be drawn towards Enlightenment, toward the Buddha. Vajrachitta communicated this Dharma to me more effectively than some who are good with words. He was living his beliefs he wasn’t bluffing.

Nityajoti was leading the working retreat. He reminded me of one of those boy scouts who repair their bikes on Sunday with their dad. He had been an optician. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard. I thought ‘He’ll never keep that up for 2 months.’ with a bit of a smirk. He did keep it up. He once asked me if I would like to do the plumbing in the evening as a hobby after the days work. He wasn’t even joking. I told him I’d never been any good at it anyway. He got a plumber in to show him what to do and then he did it himself. He was a big man and he was building a place where thousands of people would come and find peace. He was an inspiration.

Sanghadeva said very little and just got on with it. Other Order members came and went. Moksyaraja with his saxophone and rebellious spirit. Chittadara the Fin with his friendly directness and Ratnabandhu the Doctor.

There were 5 men there who were not ordained. Steve who was a good man but couldn’t deal with the hours of work or the structure. A Glaswegian guy who’s name I can’t remember who worked like a soldier but got fed up with the rest of us who were simply doing our best. I think he particularly found my presence difficult. I remember him having a heated debate with Vajrachitta about homeless young people.  ‘Why can’t they just go home to their mums and dads?’  I couldn’t be bothered to argue with him but I was glad when he left.

Then there was Andrew, a philosophy graduate. Quite a young guy but he certainly pulled his weight. Jonathon, an architect with severe dyslexia, which didn’t just affect his reading skills, he had obviously had quite a difficult life. And then there was me. Extremely unfit, slow to settle down to the sheer hard work but at least I could swing a pickaxe as I went through my withdrawals with a vengeance.

I walked alone a lot, down to the river or up into the forest where there were said to be Trolls. I never saw any Trolls but I saw the trees and felt the beauty of the copper coloured bracken and pine, which formed a soft carpet beneath my feet. The lovely views of mountains on the other side of the valley and the tree lined path leading to Betys Gerfil Goch. Pheasants and sheep. Hundreds of sheep.

On these walks I allowed my self to weep my unwept tears of grief as I remembered things I wanted so much to forget. These were not painful tears and I did not want to stop them. How could I find the smile from within when it lay buried beneath the suffering of so many, many years?

I remember cold, wet days in muddy boots digging ditches in the rain. Jonathan suggested that we sing. ‘Nelly the Elephant.’ was the only song he knew. I could deal with everything else but this was asking a rather a lot. But I sang with him anyway.

For some strange reason all the trouble that I’d had with posture during meditation suddenly disappeared. Usually I would sit in pain and discomfort for 20 minutes then I’d get up eventually, as soon as the blood had begun to circulate again, and I would expect to find the sweeties. After all I’d done the good deed, which was hard work, so I was entitled to feel good. Now I was actually beginning to enjoy the meditations and I wasn’t all that worried about what went on. I just wanted to be still and to see things as they really are.

I was reading ‘The Survey of Buddhism.’  One of Sangharakshita’s, earliest books. I had bought this 5 years earlier but after looking up 5 words in the first paragraph or so I’d given up. This time I read it all. It was hard work but it was better than plumbing. The Four Noble Truths, the Five Spiritual Faculties, the Three Fold Way, I couldn’t get enough of it. I have always had a bit of a greedy side as you may have gathered so I was drinking Dharma.

In the evening we did Puja (worship) before going to bed. Making offerings to the Buddha and prostrating before the shrine. Some of the readings blew my mind with this almost constant internal  ‘yes’. I couldn’t find anything to argue with. They chose their teachings well.

On Sundays I would borrow the community car and drive thirty miles to an AA meeting in Wrexham. I didn’t hit it off too well with the locals. I think they found me a little aloof.

I had decided to practice Brahmacharya. This means no sexual activity. Preferably, not even mental activity. I don’t remember if I was asked to do this but I think the others were too. I couldn’t remember going much more than a day without at least masturbating since I was about 13. I was now 39. I lasted three weeks.

I had to go back to London for the weekend to see my father in Hospital. He was reaping the fruits of years of drinking and smoking and they wanted to amputate his leg. He had a blood clot. Ironically he had now been sober for several years after marrying a German Cockney woman who wouldn’t put up with his nonsense.

They tried to replace the clotted vein but after several operations his leg was about to start turning gangrenous so they wanted to remove it. He didn’t want that so he was insisting they let him die.

I suggested to him that if he learned to walk really well with an artificial limb he might be able to help other men in a similar predicament. Show them what could be done. I don’t know whether it was this or the pain, which changed his mind, but he agreed to let them save his life.

I had to hitch and to my surprise I got a lift from about 10 miles up the road all the way to London. It was a heck of a relief, after walking 10 miles with my thumb out I had decided to stop and meditate on a wall and just stuck out my thumb when I’d rested. The young woman in the car said to me ‘I can’t understand why I’ve stopped. I’ve never picked a man up before’. I remember thinking I wonder if she’s seen some sort of aura of spirituality about me, which attracted her?

We got on really well. She talked to me about breaking up with her boyfriend and not knowing what to do with her life. I gave her some tips about going back to college. She wasn’t interested in Buddhism. Then the discussion became really intimate. She told me she had had a few experiences with an older man and she was a bit unsure about the whole arena of sex and sexuality. She told me her tales of experimentation and I did my reassuring ‘well if you think that’s weird listen to this’. I honestly didn’t realise where this was leading until we were entering London 4 or 5 hours later. By then my mind was having one of those frantic debates ‘She fancies you. I can’t, I’m practising Brahmacharya. Well maybe this only applies while you’re inside Vajraloka? You could have the week end off’. Suddenly and without warning she swung the car into the driveway of a large public building near Bexley Heath. By this time I was ready to surrender and I did. There and then.

I told Vajrachitta about this when I got back. ‘I’ve got to learn how to say no.’ I said to him. The next time he was away he sent me a post card with a picture of a smiling vicar holding a devil in a cage. I still had a lot to learn.

To me Bhante, Sangharakshita’s teaching came as a breath of fresh air after reading so much flowery Eastern thought which had much more to do with feeling good and popular appeal than skilful application. He was challenging and uncompromising. His emphasis on creating the right conditions for practice for those who were not yet ready to become monks and nuns made complete sense to me for obvious reasons. Living together, working together and practising together in a world where the rest of society was moving in a diametrically opposite direction was essential for most people who wanted to make serious progress. Buddhism is a methodology for cultivating awareness. The main thrust of Western culture is towards distraction and stimulation. Buddhism seeks to free the mind from greed, hatred and delusion. Western society worships the gods of money, consumerism and the freedom to do whatever you like whenever you feel like it. The freedom offered by the Dharma is freedom from the suffering of self-centred craving.

‘Just as the ocean has but one taste, the taste of salt.

So my teaching has but one taste the taste of freedom.’

The Buddha.

For most people this challenge would involve more of a sacrifice. They might have to give up a luxurious lifestyle. I had no such problem. My addiction was obvious. The addiction to the familiar everyday attachments, which seem so harmless, is a much bigger problem than most people care to think seriously about. Fortunately I had nothing to lose, I’ve never been interested in a career anyway, my children were already young adults and I didn’t have a mortgage to pay.

The obstacle for me was myself. I wanted to Go For Refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha (the fellowship of those who tread the way) as a member of the Western Buddhist Order, but I wasn’t sure if I was good enough to even ask. Underneath my sometimes arrogant exterior I still felt like a snotty nosed kid with a grubby history and a guilty conscience. Maybe I needed to become a bit purer to be ready to Go For Refuge?

During the life of the Buddha there was a man called Angulimala. He was a notorious killer who wore a bracelet of fingers around his neck. He terrorised whole villages and there was fear wherever he went. One day the Buddha was walking into a forest where the villagers knew Angulimala was living. They appealed to him not to enter that forest fearing for his life. He was not afraid. When Angulimala saw this solitary monk he thought he would be easy prey. He could kill him with one blow. He followed the Buddha. Hiding in the bushes stalking his prey. Then he began to move in more quickly but the Buddha still seemed just as far ahead of him. He was running. The Buddha was walking mindfully. The sutra describes his steady gaze a plough shears distance in front of his feet. Not distracted by this or that. Puffing and panting Angulimala calls out ‘Stop’. The Buddha replies ‘I have stopped. Why don’t you stop?’ and keeps walking.  ‘Stop’ Angulimala says again. ‘I have stopped. Why don’t you stop?’   And again he continues to walk on. ‘Wait’ Angulimala says, too tired to run any more. ‘What is this? I say stop and you say you have stopped but you haven’t. You tell me to stop when I already have. What is the meaning of all this?’  The Buddha then turns and giving Angulimala his full attention, with what the sutra describes as his elephant gaze, he answers ‘I have stopped Angulimala. I have stopped harming living beings forever. Why don’t you stop?’ In response to this Angulimala falls at the Buddha’s feet begging to Go For Refuge. ‘Come monk’. Buddha replies.

Having thought I was about to hear a sentimental story the fact is I wanted to fall at his feet too in response to his words. Carrying the burden of my ignorance and foolishness with me. I asked for Ordination.

I can recall very little more from the last few weeks at Vajraloka. I sometimes think that peaceful times leave little to be said in their passing. I remember being sent with a sledgehammer to smash a rock from the side of the road, which was jutting out and damaging the wheels of the concrete mixers as they delivered their load. I stood on it swinging several blows and then another man took his turn while I rested. Having done this several times I turned and caught site of the stream behind me. It was as though there was nothing between my perception of the green moss and the green itself. It seemed to come out to me or I to it as if for a moment there was no duality. I was so struck that I tried to commit something to writing to remind me of this rare moment. Nothing special. Just a label to hang on this event.

I saw the green

Moss on the rocks and fallen branches

And around the base of a tree.

I saw the water spring over and under, around and about and between,

Following the green pathway.

Gently flowing.

It is here,

Here,

I saw the green.

When I tried to read it to the other men during our weekly reporting in I couldn’t speak. There were tears dripping onto the stone table in front of me and I was sobbing like a child each time I tried to open my mouth. Eventually I managed to say that I felt like I was grieving the loss of my own life. Because I was never really there. Not just the drinking but also all the other distraction through which I never really saw anything as fully as I did that day. I hadn’t seen a great new ideology. It wasn’t something, which had never been in view before. The truth isn’t a matter of seeing new things in old way, as the Zen masters say, it’s about seeing old things in new ways.