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Recovery Dharma: How to Use Buddhist Practices and Principles to Heal the Suffering of Addiction EPUB



In the Buddhist tradition, "dharma" means "truth" or "the way things are". This book describes a way to free ourselves from the suffering of addiction using Buddhist practices and principles.



Our book is based on the idea that every one of us is our own guide in recovery from addiction, with the help and understanding of our wise friends and sangha (community). We believe that’s what the dharma teaches us.



Buddha knew that all human beings, to one degree or another, struggle with craving - the powerful - sometimes blinding - desire to change our thoughts, feelings, and circumstances.



Those of us who experience addiction have been more driven to use substances or behaviors to do this, but the underlying craving is the same. And even though Buddha didn’t talk specifically about addiction, he understood the obsessive nature of the human mind. He understood our attachment to pleasure, aversion to pain, and the extreme lengths we can sometimes go to, chasing what we want to feel and running away from the feelings we fear. And he found a solution.



Recovery Dharma will lead you to recovery from addiction to substances like alcohol, drugs, and also from what we refer to as "process addictions". We can also become addicted to gambling, sex, technology, work, codependency, shopping, food, media, self-harm, lying, stealing, and obsessive worrying. This is a path to freedom from any repetitive and habitual behavior that causes suffering.



Recovery dharma is a peer-led movement and a community that is unified by the potential in each of us to recover and find freedom from the suffering of addiction. We approach recovery from a place of individual and collective empowerment, and we support each other as we walk this path of recovery together.



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