Al Kukhul

One of the first meditation techniques we teach beginners is, in addition to awareness of posture, focus on the breath. For obvious reasons, breathing is strongly associated with the very occurrence of life, and the word “spirit” comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath. "Spirit" has thus evolved to denote that which separates a living body from a corpse, and has attained a number of meanings, including the ultimate, unified, non-dual awareness or life force that combines or transcending all individuals.

The Arabic term for “spirit” is kukhul. Al-kukhul (“the spirit”), however, generally refers to alcohol or ethanol, also known as grain alcohol. Ethanol is a flammable, colorless liquid that has been used by humans since prehistory as an intoxicant. Dried residues on 9000-year-old pottery found in northern China imply the use of alcoholic beverages among Neolithic peoples. Its isolation as a relatively pure compound was first achieved by Islamic alchemists who developed the art of distillation during the Abbasid caliphate.

As a drug, al-kukhul is known to have a depressing effect that decreases the responses of the central nervous system. It has been shown to increase the growth of the bacteria responsible for pneumonia, meningitis and urinary tract infections, contradicting the common misconception that drinking alcohol can kill off a budding infection. However, several studies have shown that regular consumption of moderate amounts of alcohol lowers the incidence of coronary heart disease and raises the level of the “good cholesterol.”

In the human body, alcohol is first oxidized to acetaldehyde, and then to acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is more toxic than alcohol, and has been linked to cirrhosis of the liver and some forms of cancer. The body can quickly detoxify some acetaldehyde by reaction with glutathione and similar biomolecules. When acetaldehyde is produced beyond the capacity of the body's glutathione supply to detoxify it, it accumulates in the bloodstream. The headache and nausea associated with a hangover stem from a combination of dehydration and acetaldehyde poisoning.

People tend to conform to social expectations, and a common belief in most societies is that alcohol causes a loss of inhibition. However, in those societies in which people don’t believe that alcohol disinhibits, intoxication virtually never leads to unacceptable behaviors. If people in a society generally believe that intoxication leads to aggression, sexual activity or rowdy behavior, they tend to act that way when intoxicated. If the society teaches that intoxication leads to relaxation and tranquil behavior, it virtually always leads to those outcomes.

Interestingly, expectancies can operate in the absence of actual consumption of alcohol. Research has shown that men tend to become physically more sexually aroused when they think they have been drinking alcohol, even when they haven’t. Women report feeling more sexually aroused when they falsely believe the beverages they have been consuming contain alcohol, although a measure of their physiological arousal shows that they are actually becoming less aroused. Men tend to become more aggressive in laboratory studies in which they are drinking only tonic water but believe that it contains alcohol. They also become relatively less aggressive when they think they are drinking only tonic water, but are actually drinking tonic containing alcohol.

For many, many years, from the mid 1970s to just a little over two and a half years ago, I was a heavy drinker. My college years were characterized by binge drinking, refraining from alcohol while studying during the week, but weekends spent intoxicated. My career years were characterized by chronic drinking, anywhere from two to six drinks a night, with the occasional binge thrown in, and I paid the price for it in legal problems, inappropriate social behaviors, missed work days and weight gain.

Many religions, most notably Islam, the Church of Latter-day Saints, some schools of Buddhism, and some Protestant sects of Christianity, forbid or discourage the consumption of alcoholic beverages for various reasons. Zen Buddhism does not explicitly forbid alcohol consumption, but Bodhidharma (440-528), the “Great Sage of India” and the first patriarch of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism said “Self nature is inconceivably wondrous. In the intrinsically pure dharma, not allowing the mind to become dark is called the precept of refraining from using intoxicants.” Zen subsequently recognized a broader edict (The Fifth Grave Precept) stating, “Proceed clearly. Do not cloud the mind.”

Although consumption of alcohol was considered an unwholesome act to the Mahayana Buddhists, selling it to others was considered a much greater wrongdoing, especially for bodhisattvas. A bodhisattva vows to help others bring forth clear wisdom; therefore to act in any way that may bring about confusion in living beings’ minds is contrary to the bodhisattva’s fundamental intention. Consequently, there are a number of Zen teachers and followers who drink to excess, rationalizing that the precept only applies to providing intoxicants to others. They obviously are missing the point. Not only are they caught in the trap of the duality of self and others, but it’s also another example of bending the intention of the precepts to one’s own personal desires.

Alcohol clouds the mind, as do recreational drugs. However, there are many other ways we cloud our minds. John Daido Loori states “How we understand ourselves – all of our ideas based on the dualism of self and others – can be considered intoxicants. They cause the greatest darkness.” Reb Anderson takes it even further, noting “At the conventional level, the precept of no intoxicants is understood as encouraging us to control our behavior by not using addictive substances to manipulate our state of being. Ironically, using individual effort to try to control our behavior is itself a violation of the ultimate meaning of the precept, because it is akin to manipulating our experience.”

I take from these teachings that the spontaneous individual choice whether or not to consume alcohol or other intoxicants reflects the state of our practice. To consume intoxicants to change or alter one’s reality is a violation of the precept. To resist a glass of wine despite one’s desire for it is also a violation of the precept. To drink because one is thirsty, to refrain because of lack of desire is to live in accordance with the precept.

In the first few years of my practice, my drinking continued as it had before. I quickly learned. however, that trying to meditate after even a single drink was like trying to swim the English Channel with an anchor tied around my neck – it simply wasn’t possible – and I merely adjusted my drinking schedule to fit my sitting schedule. However, the sitting increased my awareness of the harm that drinking was doing to myself and to my relations with those around me, and in August 2003, I began refraining altogether.

It was one of the easiest things in the world for me to do, and didn’t need the assistance of support groups or the encouragement of my Zen teachers (they were actually somewhat skeptical of my intentions, perhaps because it challenged their own habits). When I refrained, whether I was out with friends, at a dinner or whatever, it was merely because I didn’t want to cloud the mind – once I had made up my mind, it would have taken far more will power to make myself imbibe than to refrain. I very quickly lost all desire for alcohol.

After about a year of total abstinence, I now allow myself an occasional drink when the occasion calls for it – like when friends bring a bottle of wine over to my house (it would be rude to my guests not to appreciate their present). I might occasionally savor a glass of brandy or whiskey for the way it stings the tongue and warms the belly. And what’s not to like about a cold bottle of beer on a hot summer day? But more often than not, my first reaction, my gut-level response, is to refrain and seek a bottle of cool, clear water instead.

As Bodhidharma said, self-nature is inconceivably wondrous, and any willed effort to change, alter or dilute that self-nature is a defamation of the dharma.