Karl Paulnack

I came across a Facebook post that was so good, in lieu of writing my own words, I'm going to share what Karl Paulnack wrote. I hve no idea who Karl is. His bio says he's on the board of directors at a cancer resource center in Ithica, NY. He words say he's an old soul. Thanks, Ash Glenn, for sharing his words.

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One of the great things about interfaith practice is that sometimes, something is so obviously true because it emerges simultaneously in practices that are completely different. It’s easy to see truths when they emerge this way—they emerge as not merely belief, or ideology, or point of view, but a  genuine mechanical aspect of how reality actually works, something like “gravity”, where, believe in it or not, but you’re going to break some limbs, either way, when you walk out the third-floor window.

I want to write about a place where Alcoholics Anonymous, Buddhism and the teachings of the anti-religious Jew Jesus (not the American Christian Church that appropriated his name) intersect, and a great truth that they point to.

The great truth is that we move ourselves forward spiritually (and move our world forward) by doing small things, not large things, by having small goals, not big ones.

Great teachers always point us towards “do these small things” never towards “change the world.” If we do small things, we change the world, but almost accidentally, almost as a side-effect, never as a goal.

Jesus didn’t teach, for example, “get involved in politics; make sure your country is headed in the right direction; confront others who don’t believe the correct things.” That’s not what he taught. He taught, “care for the sick, feed the poor, welcome the stranger. Trust that God loves you and will take care of you, and take care of each other.” 

If the “Christians” in Congress focused on actually doing what Jesus said to do—to each other, with each other—Congress would accomplish in a month what it can’t do in a year. Instead, everyone is focused on the end game and no one cares about how they are treating others, how they are behaving, during the next ten minutes.

When someone with addiction comes into a recovery facility, we don’t say, “figure out who the good people are and who the bad people are, who is being successful in recovery and who is not. You want to figure out which group to be in.” 

We don’t say, “look five years down the road and think about where you want to be.” We don't say "look back and look at all you have lost."

No, remarkably, it’s very simple:   “Don’t drink, go to meetings, ask for help.” 

That’s what we tell people. That’s what produces the remarkable transformation in those who achieve recovery: don’t drink, go to meetings, ask for help. That’s it. We don’t even say “try to figure out who your higher power is”. That happens, sometimes, eventually, but no one starts there; that’s too complicated. 

The simple things are the transformational things. The spiritual life is about simple things, not big things.

Life involves suffering. The first sentence of one of my favorite books is “Life is hard.” It is a basic truth. How you engage the inevitable suffering that will at times accompany being alive determines where you go. Buddhism, for all of its complexities and teachings and lists of lists (the Theravadans can drive me batty) is unbelievable simple: 

SIT STILL. You? Sit still. Stop trying to get away. Stop trying to move away from pain, towards pleasure, away from blame, towards praise. Stop trying to escape your life!  Sit on your ass. Lean into your life. Breathe into your life. Stop running, and start showing up.

Buddhism is UNBELIEVABLY simple, from this perspective. It rather amazes me, actually, that people have found ways to make it as complicated as it is.

There is no great spiritual teacher or teaching that says, “go out and change the world.” No one says “end hunger”—they say instead, “feed the hungry.” (implication: one person at a time.) No one says “end suffering in the world” but rather, “open your heart to the person in front of you, and join their suffering.” 

Some of you will jump straight to the so-called “great commission”, Matthew 28, where Jesus says “go and make disciples of all the nations.” Not so fast. Look at this in context with me.

During his life together with his brothers, Jesus focused on very simple, right-here, right-now tasks. There is a throng of hungry people; let’s feed them. People need wine at a wedding; let’s fix that. There’s a leper over there; let’s heal them. Jesus and bros did not take any field trips, they did not rent a bus to drive into downtown Macedonia and save them. It was all local. All spiritual practice is local. All spiritual practice is ALWAYS local. (Go ahead, wrestle me; I’m ready.) All genuine spiritual practice is right here, right now, not out-there, some-day.

The context for the so-called commission is the post-crucifixion Jesus (the image or hallucination, or trauma reaction, depending on your belief, it doesn’t actually matter either way) appearing to the GROUP, after he has left them, as his last word to them, saying, “go do something with yourselves. This thing that we have shared, this thing we understand? Tell other people. Share this.” 

This is a smart thing for a leader to do with a group. When a married couple have had enough of sitting and staring into each other’s eyes and making cooing and gurgling sounds and using made-up lovey words for each other, when that starts to get nauseating, what do they do? They have a kid, they adopt a dog, they get cats. The make the group bigger. They find some outlet for their love beyond themselves.

Any legitimate spiritual practice (including marriage, including friendship, including support groups, including recovery) will follow a predictable path: I will find transformation, myself, and I will have a natural urge to offer this to others, to make sure others know about it. I will find an outlet for Love beyond myself.

This became bastardized in the Christian church, as did almost all of Jesus’ teachings, into forcible conversion using red-hot pincers and torture devices. That’s not it, friends. That missed the boat. (Do I actually need to explain this to you? Come on.) Evangelizing in the way the American church got hold of the stick is NOT AT ALL how this works in genuine spiritual practice. 

It is rather the way it works in AA: the person who has found relief from their addiction to alcohol naturally wants to share the ‘good news’ with the next person in the door, the way you want to tell your friends that the avocados you found at Wegmans today are the best you’ve ever seen. People seek spiritual practice already driven by their own tortures; they don’t need us adding extra.

(Useful hint: genuine "good news sharing", where you have found something wonderful that you want to share with someone else, never--NEVER--involves money. Never. Not ever.)

I don’t write my representatives lobbying for change. Maybe you think less of me for that. I appreciate and admire those of you who DO write, but honestly, I don’t believe I have any influence over my representatives, not even a little, and doubt I will have any impact on how they vote. 

But I have tremendous impact with someone with addiction if they ask me to hear their Fifth Step and I show up to that. I have impact with a cancer patient if I open myself to the way they are suffering. I cannot force another state to feed its school children lunch, but I can show up to places in my own neighborhood, with my body or my wallet or both, to make a difference here. I have a little control of what goes on in Ithaca; I don’t think I have any control over Alabama. That’s not something I would wish on myself.

Sphere of influence matters. There are many people working right now to change things in Gaza, or Louisiana, or our nation, and more power to you, but I’m going to ask: is that your sphere of influence? Are you positioned to get Gaza to listen to you and hear you out? If so, I’m impressed—go do it.

If not: is there some behavior towards your neighbor—your actual neighbor—or your colleague—the one right in front of you—that you can actually effect?

The way to achieve world peace is to become peaceful people.

That happens one person at a time, until we have included everyone. It is impossible to change yourself without changing the world, because we are interconnected, and you are a part of the world. 

If you change, the world will change. If you try to change the world? Neither will change. You are not engaged in any genuine spiritual practice, and it will matter neither to you nor the world. 

We do not change each other. We do not change the world. We do not change our country. 

We change ourselves.  Keep it simple. Start small.