Mindfulness https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-024-02355-0 ORIGINAL PAPER The Twelve-Step Path? Mindfulness and Ethics in Buddhist Addiction Recovery Literature Catherine Hartmann1 Accepted: 12 April 2024 This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2024 Abstract Buddhist recovery manuals, a genre that has emerged in the last 30 years, aim to use Buddhist ideas and practices to address the challenges of addiction. These books draw on classical Buddhist thought and Twelve-Step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Both of these influences share the framework of a step-wise path of transformation from a state of maladaptive compulsion to a state of freedom. This article analyzes the paths laid out by these Buddhist recovery manuals and compares them to classical Buddhist and Twelve-Step paths. This comparison demonstrates that Buddhist recovery manuals creatively draw on classical Buddhism and Twelve-Step but also differ from them in important ways as they reimagine a path from addiction to recovery. This article documents the growing genre of Buddhist recovery manuals, thus expanding our understanding of Anglophone Buddhism and providing substance abuse professionals with a knowledge of the Buddhist recovery landscape. The article also argues that Buddhist recovery manuals differ from classical Buddhism by emphasizing meditation at the beginning of the path, rather than placing it after training in giving and ethical discipline. Buddhist recovery manuals, a genre that has emerged in the last 30 years, aim to use Buddhist ideas and practices to address the challenges of addiction. These books draw on classical Buddhist thought and Twelve-Step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Both of these influences share the framework of a step-wise path of transformation from a state of maladaptive compulsion to a state of freedom. This freedom is conceptualized differently—recovery from addiction or freedom from suffering—but the overarching structure of path remains. In responding to Buddhism and Twelve-Step, Buddhist recovery manuals largely adopt this notion of a step-by-step path, although they re-imagine the steps along the path in ways that shed new light on the shifting relationship between mindfulness and ethics in contemporary Anglophone Buddhism. This article analyzes the pathways laid out by these Buddhist recovery manuals and compares them to classical Buddhist and Twelve-Step pathways. How are these paths structured? What are key steps along the way, and how are they understood? What does this suggest about how Buddhism is being translated into contemporary Anglophone Catherine Hartmann Catherine.Hartmann@uwyo.edu 1 contexts? This comparison between classical Buddhist, Twelve-Step, and Buddhist recovery pathways argues that, even as Buddhist recovery manuals draw on classical Buddhism and on Twelve-Step, they often develop new understandings of the path that are distinct from either. Among other changes, they envision a different role for meditation and mindfulness and place them early in the path. By foregrounding meditation in this way, these books re-envision the relationship between ethics and meditation. Whereas classical Buddhist frameworks insist that ethical discipline (Pāli: sīla) precedes meditation, contemporary Buddhist recovery manuals largely posit that meditation leads to ethical discipline, right behavior, and freedom from addiction. This article will proceed by first introducing the growing genre of Buddhist recovery manuals. It will then present brief overviews of the two central influences on Buddhist recovery manuals—classical Buddhism and Twelve-Step— focusing on their accounts of the path. To facilitate analysis of Buddhist recovery manuals, it identifies five key steps on classical Buddhist accounts of the path. These will then be used to analyze the pathways of Buddhist recovery manuals. The article will end with conclusions that emerge from this comparison. It will devote particular attention to the shifting role of meditation and mindfulness between classical Buddhism and Buddhist recovery manuals, and reflect on University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA 13 Mindfulness what these findings suggest about the ethics of mindfulness, which is the focus of this themed journal volume. This article makes three contributions to the study of Buddhism, mindfulness, and ethics. First, it documents the growing genre of Buddhist recovery manuals. There is a growing interest in the encounter between Buddhism and the modern West (McMahan, 2008, 2023; Coleman, 2001; Prebish & Baumann, 2002; Gleig, 2019). But although Buddhist addiction recovery forms an important part of the landscape of contemporary Buddhism, very little has been written about it (exceptions include Gleig, 2019, p. 109 and 124; Prebish & Baumann, 2002, p. 225). Second, in doing so, this study will contribute to scholars’ understanding of the ongoing cultural development of Buddhism in the West and to substance abuse treatment professionals’ knowledge of this growing landscape. Third, it will argue that the relationship between meditation and ethics is being re-conceptualized as Buddhist ethical theory is being translated into new cultural contexts. Specifically, Buddhist recovery manuals differ from the classical Buddhist understanding of mindfulness and meditation as necessarily preceded by ethical training. Instead, meditation is practiced throughout the path, and enables ethical transformation. With these three contributions, this article hopes to speak to audiences in Buddhist Studies who may know little about Buddhism’s use in contemporary recovery movements, as well as to audiences in the study of substance use disorder treatment who may know little about the history of Buddhism. For the sake of scholars of Buddhism, it includes Sanskrit and Pāli terms and textual references. Similarly, for the sake of those studying substance use treatment disorder, who may be unfamiliar with the history of Buddhism, it includes references to secondary literature in Buddhist Studies where more information on these topics can be found. This article does not make judgements about which pathways are better or worse, nor to suggest that any pathway is more or less “Buddhist” than any other. The approach taken in this article is that of an intellectual historian—examining texts in order to trace how ideas develop and change over time—rather than the approach of a counselor, practitioner, substance abuse treatment expert, or medical professional. This article takes a historical approach, and reads contemporary Buddhist recovery manuals as primary sources for understanding newly emerging forms of Buddhism in the modern world. It interprets them as part of a long and rich history of people adapting Buddhist ideas and practices to fit new times and places, and to address new challenges. This contributes to our understanding of the role Buddhist recovery manuals play in contemporary addiction recovery. Given this historical rather than scientific approach, it will not try to assess the effectiveness of Buddhist recovery programs, will not provide recommendations for substance 13 abuse treatment professionals, and will not cite the growing body of research assessing mindfulness interventions for substance use disorder. However, this historical approach can enrich social scientists’ understanding of the history of ideas associated with mindfulness, thus enhancing research. It can also educate substance use treatment professionals about the growing landscape of Buddhist recovery, which may be helpful to those for whom traditional Twelve-Step does not work. What are Buddhist Recovery Manuals? This article focuses on twenty-one English-language books that can be classified as Buddhist recovery manuals. Because these books have not yet been studied, the term “Buddhist recovery manuals” is being introduced in this article. As such, it is worth explaining what each of the words in this category means, the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the method for finding the books considered. A brief overview of all the books, as well as descriptions of the Buddhist tradition they affiliate with, their affiliation with Twelve-Step, and their conception of the path, can be found on Table 1. Table 1 also briefly describes how these books imagine the path from addiction to recovery. For ease, we can think of them as forming five groups (see Table 1 for more specific descriptions of each book). First, some books structure themselves according to the 12 steps, while incorporating Buddhist concepts, personal reflections, and meditation instructions (Alexander, 2010; Laura, 2006; Griffin, 2018; Littlejohn, 2019; Rode, 2014; Jacobs-Stewart, 2010; Rainbeau, 2016; Anonymous, 2006). A second group of books outline a path based on the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path, rewritten to reflect addiction and sometimes incorporating steps from Twelve-Step (Levine, 2014; Anonymous, 2019; Mason-John & Groves, 2018). One must first understand the nature of suffering, then people’s habitual patterns of avoiding it. Only after that can one realize that there is hope and implement the steps of the Eightfold Path. The third group of books adopt entirely novel organizational structures and accounts of the path that differ both from classical Buddhist and traditional Twelve-Step models, though they often draw on resources from both traditions, as well (Clark, 2022; Ash, 1993; Webb, 2020). These accounts vary, and readers should consult Table 1 for more details, but in general the path proceeds by first having readers understand key ideas, integrating these ideas into their own mind, and then putting them into action in the real world. Let us start with the category of recovery manuals. The term manual indicates a book of instructions meant as guidance for people in recovery. Some of the books are meant to be the handbook for group meetings (Anonymous, 2019, Recovery Dharma General Buddhist Ordinary Recovery: Mindfulness, Addiction, And The Path Of Lifelong Sobriety Dead Set On Living: Making The Difficult But Beautiful Journey From Fucking Up To Waking Up Rebel Therapy: A Therapist Journey Through Addiction, Trauma and Nichiren Buddhism Meditate And End Addiction With Hungry Ghosts United Zen Does it Account of the Path/How the Book is Organized Identify with 12 Step? No, but Buddha, Dharma (Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path), Sangha has share meetings Yes Adopts 12-step path, integrated with meditation and Buddhist philosophy Spiritual No Not organized according to stepwise path; consists of interviews with scientists, writers, spiritual leaders interspersed with reflections by author Nichiren Not organized according to stepwise path; largely stream-of-consciousness-style personal reflection General Buddhist No, but has 12 steps in appendix No Buddhist Recovery Daily Practice Zen, Early Buddhism No The Zen Of Recovery Zen Yes Climbing The Mountain: The Complete Handbook Of Buddhist Recovery Nichiren No Refuge Recovery: A Buddhist Path To Recovering From Addiction General Buddhist No, but has share meetings Yes 12 Steps On Buddha’s Path: Bill, Buddha, “Cafeteria” Buddhist and We Eight Step Recovery Using The Buddha’s Triratna Teachings To Overcome Addiction One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the 12 Steps From Hungry Ghost To Being Human: Waking Up To This Life Not organized according to stepwise path, although it describes how the authors were in a state of despair and addiction, then sought out help at recovery societies, saw people happy in recovery, and resolved to follow their instructions in practicing meditation in fellowship with others in recovery. Consists of scripts for group meditation meetings. Thoughts, words, deeds. Begin with a meditation practice (19–21), which then emerges in speech, including taking refuge (47–52), before it can finally emerge in deeds such as generosity (64–67) and ethical conduct (67–79) Finger (understand background of Buddhism and 12 step), Pointing (reflections on struggling with issues in recovery), Moon (how to put principles in action) Physical, mental, emotional. Program of recovery grounded in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), neurological science, and chanting “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo,” the mantra of the Lotus Sutra. Includes instructions for group therapy meetings. Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path. Also includes personal recovery stories from participants, about half of whom say Twelve-Step did not work for them, and the other half of whom are Twelve-Step members. Adopts 12-step path, integrated with meditation and Buddhist philosophy Theravada/Vipassana Yes Blend of Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, and steps from 12 step: Accept suffering (1st Noble Truth); see how we create extra suffering (2nd Noble Truth); embrace impermanence to see how suffering can end (3rd Noble Truth); be willing to step on path of recovery (4th Noble Truth and 3rd step in 12 step); transform speech, actions, livelihood (steps 3–5 on Eightfold Path); place positive values at center of life (no clear analogue); make effort to stay on path (step 6 of Eightfold Path); help others by sharing benefits (step 12 of 12 step). Adopts 12-step path, integrated with meditation and Buddhist philosophy Thai Theravada No, but has share meetings Vow-based path. Vow (sajja), generosity (dāna), harmlessness (sīla, alternately rendered as ethical conduct), friendliness (metta), forgiveness (khama), meditation and mindfulness (bhavana and sati), and fellowship (kalyāṇa-mittatā) No Mindfulness Table 1 The paths of buddhist recovery manuals Title Buddhist Tradition 13 13 Table 1 (continued) Title Buddhist Tradition Enough!: A Buddhist Approach To Finding Release From Addictive Patterns General Buddhist / Tibetan The 12 Step Buddhist Mindful Recovery: The Spiritual Path To Healing From Addiction Zen, Tibetan Spiritual 9 Essays: Buddhism and the 12 Step Model of Recovery Basic Sobriety: Shambala Buddhism and the Twelve Steps The Twelve Steps as a Path to Enlightenment: How the Buddha Works the Steps Mindfulness and the 12 Steps: Living Recovery in the Present Moment The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction Zen Does it Account of the Path/How the Book is Organized Identify with 12 Step? No Not organized around stepwise path. Chapters organized by: understanding addiction, using meditation to change habits, using breathing exercises to stop craving, developing awareness and equanimity, identifying triggers, discerning when one’s mind is exaggerating pain, leaning to manage pain, forgiveness, tools for living the good life, and looking ahead to wisdom and happiness. Each step combines psychological perspectives on what is happening in the mind, as well as meditation exercises appropriate to each step Yes Adopts 12-step path, integrated with meditation and Buddhist philosophy No Not organized around stepwise path. Chapters organized by: seeing the magic in the ordinary, telling life stories, journaling, meditating, recreating in nature, loving, dreaming, working, transforming negative emotions, and living moment-by-moment. Each step is additionally paired with mindfulness prompts. Yes Adopts 12-step path, integrated with meditation and Buddhist philosophy Tibetan (Shambala) Yes Adopts 12-step path, integrated with meditation and Buddhist philosophy. Meditation is Step Zero (3). Tibetan Yes General Buddhist Yes Zen No Adopts 12-step path, integrated with meditation and Buddhist philosophy. Rewrites steps to eliminate references to Higher Power (ix). Adopts 12-step path, integrated with meditation and Buddhist philosophy. Also engages Christian mysticism. Not organized around stepwise path. Consists of reflections of the author on her own recovery, and makes connections to Zen practices and ideas. Mindfulness Mindfulness 2022; Webb, 2020; Levine, 2014; Cullen, 2022; MasonJohn & Groves, 2018; Rainbeau, 2016), and contain discussions of meeting formats and topics. Others are reflections on the author’s experience of recovery and the lessons they learned, so that their experiences will help potential readers (Alexander, 2010; Grosso & Peck, 2018; Tomat, 2018; Clark, 2022; Ash, 1993; Laura, 2006; Griffin, 2018; Rode, 2014; Anonymous, 2006; Jacobs-Stewart, 2010; Littlejohn, 2019; Burges, 2023). Still others are written by people who are not themselves in recovery, but provide advice to readers (Taylor, 2010; Bien & Bien, 2002). To be included, books had to offer direct instruction to readers who want to overcome substance use disorder. As such, Buddhist recovery memoirs (e.g. Garrigan, 2010; Catton, 2010; Lemig, 2013; Levine, 2004) which focus on the author’s experience rather than serving as practical manuals for recovery are not included. Insofar as these books are Buddhist recovery manuals, that these books offer guidance to individuals with substance use disorder or other addictive behaviors by incorporating Buddhist ideas and practices. This article deliberately adopts a broad definition of ‘Buddhist’ to reflect the fuzzy boundaries around the term’s use in English. People understand and use the term ‘Buddhist’ in many different ways, reflecting the diverse ways Buddhism has been adopted and translated into American contexts (McMahan, 2008, pp. 6–9; Kabat-Zinn, 2011), and so adopting a narrow definition might inadvertently exclude works that are part of the broad category of Buddhist recovery. To be included, books needed to have sustained, primary engagement with Buddhism as such, particular Buddhist sects (e.g. Zen), or practices historically grounded in Buddhist traditions, such as meditation or mindfulness. Recovery manuals that engaged with “spirituality” in a general sense but did not make meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism, or particular Buddhist sects the focus of the book (e.g. Rohr, 2011; Ewing, 2021) are also excluded. Finally, when an author had written multiple recovery workbooks and memoirs based on one central recovery manual (Griffin, 2010, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2020) only the central manual is considered (Griffin, 2018). Of the 21 books selected, 13 explicitly mention Buddhism in the title, three use terms like Zen or dharma that indicate Buddhist affiliation, four use generalized terms like meditation or mindfulness, and two use enlightenment or “waking up.” Most of the authors also insist that readers do not have to be Buddhist in order to benefit from the recovery teachings in the book. All, however, demonstrate significant engagement with ideas and practices historically derived from Buddhist traditions. This includes, most prominently, meditation and mindfulness. As part of their identification with Buddhism, almost all the books advocate for practices of meditation and mindfulness as the central practice undergirding recovery. This engagement with historically Buddhist ideas and practices under neutral labels like mindfulness reflects what scholars have called the “unbundling” of Buddhism (Gleig, 2019, pp. 176–208). In this unbundling, ostensibly Buddhist practices circulate outside the label of Buddhism. There are many different ways to define meditation and mindfulness (Gethin, 2011; McMahan, 2023), and to understand the relationship between the two in specific Buddhist traditions (Gethin, 1998, pp. 174–201), this article uses these key terms in a broad sense to account for their diverse usage in Buddhist recovery manuals. Meditation, in this context, refers to any practice of cultivating specific states of mind, such as calmness, insight, or focus. Mindfulness, a related and sometimes synonymous term, refers to practices of training the mind to pay attention to certain objects (e.g. feelings of pleasure or pain) or to the quality of mind that results from these practices. These books were identified by searches on websites such as Google and Amazon, where these books can easily be found on “Addiction and Recovery” lists. Websites such as the Buddhist Recovery Network (Buddhist Recovery Network, 2023), which aggregate resources for those interested in Buddhist recovery pathways, were also consulted. This body of literature is relatively new, with all books but one being published since 2002, and a new book and new edition of a book being published after this article was originally submitted for publication. It is likely that more books will continue to be published, and that this analysis will have to be updated to reflect this growing community. At present, very little research addresses the topic of Buddhist addiction recovery. While there is increasing research into mindfulness interventions for substance use disorder treatment (for systematic reviews in just the last six years, see Garland et al. 2018; Kadri et al., 2020; Kirlic et al., 2021; Korecki et al., 2020; McClintock et al. 2021; Rosenthal et al., 2021; Schwebel et al., 2020), and even Buddhist mindfulness’s convergence with Twelve-Step (Dermatis & Egelko, 2014), there is much less scholarship on Buddhist addiction recovery pathways. Wendy Dossett pioneered academic research on the subject with her article based on interviews with the leaders of Buddhist recovery communities or authors of prominent Buddhist recovery books, including One Breath at a Time, Recovery Dharma, the Fifth Precept Sangha (described in From Hungry Ghost to Being Human), Eight Step Recovery, as well as Buddhists leading Buddhism and recovery retreats at various dharma centers (Dossett, 2020). There have been some scattered studies of individual Buddhist recovery groups (LaBelle, 2022, on Recovery Dharma), brief references to Buddhist recovery communities (Wang & Stone, 2022), and general applications of Buddhist philosophy to addiction recovery 13 Mindfulness (Groves, 2014; Marlatt, 2002; Marlatt et al., 2011), but to my knowledge, no investigation has been conducted on the Buddhist recovery manuals examined in this article. The Framework of Path in Classical Buddhist Texts Buddhist traditions vary greatly, reflecting over 2500 years of development across diverse geographic regions and social contexts. This article will not attempt to treat the entire expanse of Buddhism. Instead, it will focus on classical Buddhism, which includes much of the shared tradition of Buddhism, and influential Buddhist scriptures and treatises. This category includes the roughly thousand-year period in South Asia after the systematization of the Pāli Canon in written form in the first century BCE (Gethin, 1998, p. 42) to the end of the first millennium. It thus avoids questions about what the historical Buddha himself taught, or what the earliest Buddhist communities thought, which some scholars have argued is quite different from later systematizations (Shulman, 2014). And it avoids some of the developments that happen after the introduction of esoteric forms of Buddhism, or developments in Buddhism that happen in China, Japan, or Tibet. In classical Buddhism, one nearly universal feature is the organizing framework of a path (Pāli: magga, Sanskrit: mārga) from suffering to freedom (Pāli: nibbāna, Sanskrit: nirvāṇa). “Freedom” is used in a deliberately loose sense here. Nibbāna/nirvāṇa literally translates to “blowing out,” and classically refers to extinguishing the fires of hatred, greed, and delusion (Gethin, 1998, p. 75), although different Buddhist traditions have understood these ideas differently at different times. The path for moving from suffering to freedom is outlined in the Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths consist of the Buddha’s recognition of the problem of suffering, diagnosis that this problem is caused by craving (and, more fundamentally, ignorance), assertion that the problem of suffering can be eliminated, and prescription for a course of treatment to eliminate suffering. This treatment, known as the Eightfold Path, consists of right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation (Gethin, 1998, p. 81). Following this path, the Buddha claims, leads from suffering to freedom. Path is also a central organizing framework for other texts across the Buddhist tradition (Buswell & Gimello, 1990; Eltshinger and Pecchia, 2020). Strikingly, while the notion of path is ubiquitous in Buddhist traditions, there are many different accounts of the path and the steps along it, as well as differing ideas of how people move along the path (Gethin, 2020). As P.J. Harter puts it, in Buddhist path literature, “uniformity is not the norm” (2017, p. 4). What is constant, then, is not the particular steps on the path, but the 13 very notion of Buddhist practice as constituting a path of “gradual, rigorous, and sustained transformation developed at the levels of both action and psychology” (Heim, 2020, p. 11). In each of these different accounts of the path, the text lays out a particular set of steps to be followed from some starting point to some goal point. At each stage, the person on the path performs a particular set of practices appropriate to that stage of the path. These practices work on the person, and on the set of desires and abilities they have at that stage, in order to move them to the next stage of the path, and eventually, to freedom. We should note as well that classical Buddhism generally maintains that this path necessarily involves multiple lifetimes (Gethin, 1998, p. 18), at least some of which are spent as a celibate monastic (Gethin, 1998, p. 85). While there are many Buddhist accounts of the path, for our purposes it will be useful to outline some of the key steps as a baseline for our comparison with Buddhist recovery manuals. This will be based on key steps identified in classical Indian Buddhist texts and frameworks. These frameworks include the Path of Purification (Pāli: visuddhimagga), a 5th century Theravada treatise (Buddhaghosa, 1991), How to Lead an Awakened Life (Sanskrit: bodhicaryāvatāra), a 8th Mahayana treatise (Santideva, 2008), popular narratives such as the Divine Stories (Sanskrit: divyāvadāna), the genre of “step-by-step talks” (Pāli: anupubbikathā), which outlines how Buddhist teachers should give talks to laypeople (Hallisey, 1995; Gethin, 1998, p. 83), and the framework of the “three bases of making merit” (Pāli: puññakiriyāvatthu). It is not necessary for those unfamiliar with Buddhist literature to understand the precise frameworks described here—instead it will suffice to say that each of these is highly important in classical Indian Buddhism. Each of these accounts of the path differs from others, but there are patterns and general themes. Five steps in particular occur multiple times across accounts: faith/devotion, giving, ethical discipline, meditation, and wisdom. These will then form the baseline for comparison with Buddhist recovery manuals. Faith/Devotion (Sanskrit: śraddhā, Pāli saddhā, prasāda). This term can be translated as faith, but also can be translated as devotion or esteem, and is held to be a crucial precondition to successfully advancing on the path. It can be understood in many ways (Rotman, 2009, pp. 29–30), but generally refers to a mental state that can encompass awe at the Buddha’s achievement, conviction that the Buddha did traverse the path, and a longing to follow in the steps of the Buddha (Patrul Rinpoche, 1998, pp. 171–176). Faith plays an important role in Buddhist traditions—for example, the stories in the Divine Stories frequently begin with people seeing the Buddha, a sight which generates Mindfulness faith and motivates action (Rotman, 2009, p. 3), and the Bodhicaryāvatāra begins with sevenfold praise and worship (Crosby & Skilton, 2008, pp. 9–10). Faith—or a positive mental outlook generally—is seen as necessary for people undertaking the long and difficult pathway to awakening (Gethin, 1998, pp. 165–169). While the use of the word faith to translate śraddhā has been debated in Buddhist studies scholarship (Gómez, 2004, pp. 277-279), scholars agree about the importance of śraddhā in understanding Buddhist accounts of transformation (Rotman, 2009; Gethin, 1998, pp. 165–169). Giving (Sanskrit: dāna). Giving or generosity refers to practices of offering food or money to Buddhist monks, practices which form the basis of most laypeople’s engagement with Buddhism. Giving is said to benefit givers by generating merit and good karma, which leads to good rebirths, and also serves the Buddhist community by supporting monastics who are further along the path (Gethin, 1998, pp. 101–103). More subtly, giving is practice in giving up, and so breaks down attachment to material goods and prepares people for the ethical discipline and mental control necessary later on the path. Giving to monks and nuns also paves the way for generosity in the broader sense of “all acts performed with a generous and giving spirit” (Gethin, 1998, p. 102). Initially, these actions may be performed for relatively selfish reasons, such as the desire to make merit for the sake of future rebirths, but it is hope that over time, one perfects the mental attitude of generosity to go along with the physical action. As such, while giving may seem to be a simple act, scholars have pointed out the ways it is foundational to the rest of the path (Buswell, 1992; Heim, 2004). Ethical Discipline (Sanskrit. śīla, Pāli sīla). Ethical discipline, which might also be translated as right conduct, morality, or virtue, can take multiple forms. Lay practitioners might take the five lay precepts, which involve injunctions against lying or killing, or the more demanding monastic vows, which involve hundreds of regulations governing food, clothing, and interactions with the opposite sex. Notably, as traditionally understood, the precepts and vows indicated by sīla are expressed in negative form–one vows to refrain from actions, rather than as calls to undertake particular positive actions (Garfield, 2021, p. 188). On a broader understanding of the term ethics, we can see that Buddhism praises positive virtues such as care and lovingkindness, but ethical discipline in the sense of sīla is about refraining from undertaking harmful actions. This kind of ethical discipline is considered an important stage of the path because it allows practitioners to gain control over their ordinary bodily desires and reactions, and to avoid the anguish that comes from doing something you regret. Ethical conduct thus settles both body and mind enough that, in future stages, practitioners can enter meditation practice (Gethin, 1998, pp. 169–174). Meditation. This includes Sanskrit terms dhyāna, bhāvanā, samādhi, and smṛti, all of which refer to practices of cultivating certain wholesome states of mind. There are many different kinds of meditation, but to give a general overview, meditators typically focus on a particular object, which might be a physical process like the breath, a shape or color, qualities of mind like equanimity, or philosophical ideas like impermanence (Gethin, 1998, pp. 177–179). Meditation practices occur relatively late in the path in the accounts above. It comes only after the practitioner has progressed through earlier steps and developed the bodily and mental qualities necessary for the difficult task of meditation. Without these qualities—as well as a qualified teacher supervising the practitioner—meditation would be pointless, or even dangerous. Buddhist texts warn that unprepared meditators can misidentify meditative states or even have terrifying psychotic breaks (Salguero, 2023). Most Buddhists throughout history would have seen it as strange and presumptuous for an untrained person to attempt meditation. In fact, as a great deal of scholarship by historians of Buddhism have shown, most Buddhists in history did not meditate (McMahan, 2008, pp. 183–188; McMahan and Braun, 2017, pp. 1–4; McMahan, 2023, pp. 5–6; Wilson, 2014, pp. 2–3), even in ostensibly meditation-focused traditions such as Zen (Williams, 2005, p. 3). It is only fairly recently that widespread lay meditation has been encouraged in Buddhist Asia (Braun, 2013), even as meditation is heavily emphasized in contemporary anglophone Buddhism (McMahan, 2008, pp. 183–214; Wilson, 2014). Wisdom. Wisdom is one of the final steps of the Buddhist path, described as prajñā in Sanskrit or pañña in Pāli. The former (prajñā) is the subject of the ninth chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, and the latter (pañña) is the last section of the Visuddhimagga. This wisdom is not merely discursive knowledge about Buddhist ideas, but direct and experiential insight into the nature of reality. To reach this stage of wisdom, the practitioner must not only have engaged in textual and philosophical study of the Buddhist ideas described in these texts, but also to have trained in meditation in order to have contemplated those ideas and made them real in the practitioner’s own experience. And in order to have developed the type of mind able to undertake such investigations, they must have cultivated generosity, ethical discipline, and the other steps along the path. Then, based on this direct and experiential wisdom, the practitioner can approach awakening, and attain freedom from suffering (Gethin, 1998, pp. 174–175). Philosophical inquiry, which supports the development of wisdom, also occurs late in the path. For instance, in step-by-step talks, an important early genre outlining how 13 Mindfulness monks should give talks to laypeople (Gethin, 1998, p. 83 and 164–165; Hallisey, 1995), the early steps of generosity and ethical discipline are presented in terms of their impact on karma, merit, and benefits to the practitioner, rather than on ideas about impermanence or non-self. This is because the audience, who may not have the time or interest for philosophical inquiry, can more easily understand the benefits of these steps in terms of what they know and value. Only later in the path—in the final step described by the step-by-step talks—are the Four Noble Truths and associated philosophical ideas introduced. This differs from most anglophone presentations of Buddhism, which tend to start with the Four Noble Truths, which are remembered as the Buddha’s first teaching after attaining awakening. Classical Buddhist texts certainly agree that the Four Noble Truths occur in the Buddha’s first teaching, but do not think that the Four Noble Truths are the first thing laypeople should learn about Buddhism. For classical Buddhism, knowledge of philosophical concepts such as the Four Noble Truths is not a precondition or motivation to start the path, but rather knowledge that is developed well into the practitioner’s journey along it, when the mind has stabilized enough to be able to truly understand them (Gethin, 1998, p. 83). This introduction to five key steps along the classical Buddhist path (faith, giving, ethical discipline, meditation, and wisdom) will serve as a basis for analysis in the rest of this paper. All of the Buddhist recovery manuals examined for this article draw on texts and ideas drawn from the Buddhist tradition outlined here, often through explicit quotes of the above texts. As such, these five key steps along the path will serve as a basis for comparing the new accounts of the path being developed in Buddhist recovery manuals. Path in Twelve-Step Mutual Aid Societies Just as path is a central organizing notion in classical Buddhism, path is also a useful concept for thinking about Twelve-Step recovery programs, which are the other major influence on Buddhist recovery manuals. Twelve-Step programs are mutual aid societies that aim to support people struggling with maladaptive compulsion in the form of substance or behavioral addictions. They are based on a set of principles and practices developed in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith to help alcoholics become free of these addictive behaviors with the support of others struggling with addiction. While these principles were first associated with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), they have since been adapted for use by various other groups, such as Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, and other related organizations. These 12 steps constitute a path from addiction to recovery—albeit recovery understood as an ongoing process 13 rather than a simple endpoint—that we can see as roughly analogous to classical Buddhist paths. Indeed, compatibility between Buddhism and Twelve-Step was noted as early as the 1940s, and is referenced explicitly in the 1940s pamphlet “Spiritual Milestones in Alcoholics Anonymous,” which states, “The Buddhist philosophy, as exemplified by these eight points [the Eightfold Path], could be literally adopted by AA as a substitute for or addition to the Twelve Steps. Generosity, universal love and welfare of others rather than considerations of self are basic to Buddhism” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1940, p. 9). This compatibility resulted in increased interest in Buddhism and Twelve-Step around the 1960s, a phenomenon that is briefly mentioned in Ernst Kurtz’s study of the history of AA (Kurtz, 1979, p. 185 and 227). While Twelve-Step does not thematize the concept of path in the way that Buddhism does, the language of steps from one state to another suggests a path to be walked. Moreover, the term “path” does occur multiple times in the so-called “Big Book” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1986), in ways that suggest that analyzing Twelve-Step as a path is compatible with Twelve-Step’s understanding of itself. Twelve-Step has become one of the dominant forms of addiction recovery in anglophone contexts, with estimates of over 2,000,000 members across 120,000 fellowship groups (Alcoholics Anonymous, 2021), although the anonymity of the program makes it difficult to track membership precisely. Membership is free, and members promise to maintain the anonymity of other members. The name Twelve-Step refers to a progressive system of 12 steps that members work through in order to address their addictions. They are: 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Mindfulness 11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1986, pp. 59–60). These 12 steps outline a gradual path of transformation. Members begin by acknowledging their addiction has become unmanageable. They then turn to a Higher Power for healing and strength, take a moral inventory, make amends, and build a new life free from addiction. The program involves regular meetings where members share their experiences and work through the steps together. They may also meet one-on-one with a more-experienced sponsor who helps them work the steps. The goal is to have a “spiritual awakening” by completing the steps, and to maintain sobriety through ongoing spiritual and service work. The program is based on the principle that “only an addict can help another addict” and is free, anonymous, and open to anyone seeking to overcome their addiction (Alcoholics Anonymous, 2002, pp. 9–13). Twelve-Step uses the language of “God” as a reference to a Higher Power, but Alcoholics Anonymous emphasizes that this can be interpreted in many ways (Kurtz, 1979). “God” can refer to a lofty ideal like compassion, or as an acronym to signify the “group of drunks” that makes up the recovery community. The program welcomes people of any or no religious belief, and separates the spiritual program offered through Twelve-Step from religious approaches. Still, some critics argue that the program has religious or Christian overtones because of the God language. Several of the Buddhist recovery authors describe resistance to Christianity, God, or an external Higher Power as an obstacle in their own recovery (Rode, 2014; Webb, 2020; Burges, 2023, p. 22) or as a potential obstacle for others in recovery (MasonJohn & Groves, 2018; Griffin, 2018; Rainbeau, 2016; Littlejohn, 2019; Levine, 2014). Several authors also describe their initial struggle to understand how Buddhism could be compatible with the idea of a Higher Power and how they ultimately resolved the tension (Griffin, 2018; Laura, 2006, p. 16; Alexander, 2010; Ash, 1993; Burges, 2023, p. 134). Twelve-Step is the most widely used program of addiction recovery in English-speaking countries, and has been positively evaluated in systematic reviews (Kelly et al., 2020), but it has also faced various criticisms. These include the previously-mentioned religious overtones, perceived dominance of a white, male, and middle-class outlook that marginalizes people not belonging to those groups, stigmatizing language, treating a medical disorder as a moral issue, insistence on abstinence, and resistance to medicallyassisted treatment to opioid use disorder (see Greene, 2021 or Glaser, 2015 for brief overviews). As result, alternative recovery frameworks have emerged including Twelve-Step fellowships tailored to specific groups and completely different frameworks like the secular SMART recovery and the Christian-based S2L. The Buddhist recovery manuals discussed in this article all exist in a recovery landscape shaped by Twelve-Step, and as such they all show marks of its influence, whether they ultimately identify with or do not identify with TwelveStep. Nine of the Buddhist recovery manuals identify with Twelve-Step (Alexander, 2010; Ash, 1993; Laura, 2006; Griffin, 2018; Littlejohn, 2019; Buddhism and the Twelve Step Method, Rainbeau, 2016; Rode, 2014; Jacobs-Stewart, 2010). These books often argue for the fundamental compatibility of Twelve-Step with Buddhism. For instance, Basic Sobriety says that Buddhism and Twelve-Step go together like a “zipper” (Rainbeau, 2016, p. 12), and multiple books identify Bill W., the founder of Twelve-Step, as a Buddha or bodhisattva (Ash, 1993; Rode, 2014). For many of these authors, Buddhism complements and adds to recovery sought through Twelve-Step, but does not replace traditional Twelve-Step. For example, 12 Steps on Buddha’s Path states that, “It became clear to me that for my personal spiritual journey, I need both AA and the Dharma. AA alone does not fulfill all my spiritual needs, and Buddhism alone will not keep me sober” (Laura, 2006, p. 101). Likewise, The Zen of Recovery states that “Zen practice is not the place to air issues better dealt with in meetings, with sponsors, in stepwork or in therapy” (Ash, 1993, pp. 5–6). For both authors, Buddhism and Twelve-Step “intersect” (Ash, 1993, p. 6) in important ways, but each serves a function that the other does not. However, most authors are not dogmatic about TwelveStep being the only correct way to do recovery. For instance, some authors acknowledge that Twelve-Step will not work for everyone (Littlejohn, 2019, pp. 89–92), and another explicitly rewrites steps they do not like to eliminate language about a Higher Power or faith (Rode, 2014, p. 15). At times, authors dwell on aspects of Twelve-Step that they initially struggled with, such as faith in a Higher Power, and then provide Buddhist ways to make sense of these concepts by reframing higher power as Buddha nature, compassion, or the Buddhist community (Rainbeau, 2016; Laura, 2006, p. 16; Alexander, 2010; Ash, 1993). Twelve of the books do not identify with Twelve-Step. Some of these explicitly distance themselves from TwelveStep (Anonymous, 2019, 2022; Webb, 2020). They describe Twelve-Step’s perceived insistence on faith in an external Higher Power as a reason they wanted to start a separate recovery community (Webb, 2020, p. 1; Anonymous, 2022, 13 Mindfulness p. 92). Recovery Dharma separates itself from Twelve-Step by claiming that it works “Not step-by-step, but in a holistic way…” (Anonymous, 2019, p. xii). Other books that do not explicitly identify with Twelve-Step are neutral in their orientation in they say that the book may be useful to people either in Twelve-Step programs or outside of Twelve-Step programs (Taylor, 2010; Mason-John & Groves, 2018; Grosso & Peck, 2018; Levine, 2014; Bien & Bien, 2002). Still others do not mention Twelve-Step at all (Tomat, 2018; Clark, 2022; Cullen, 2022; Burges, 2023), although in at least some of these, there is mention of unspecified “recovery communities” (Burges, 2023, p. 3; Anonymous, 2022, p. 4). Possibly because of the pervasive influence of TwelveStep on the recovery landscape, even the books that do not identify with Twelve-Step still reproduce certain features associated with Twelve-Step programs. For example, From Hungry Ghost to Being Human describes “sit and share” “peer led” meetings (Cullen, 2022, p. 41) that seem analogous to peer-led Twelve-Step meetings, where members of the community discuss readings and share their stories (Hoffmann, 2006, pp. 674–677). Other Buddhist recovery manuals describe meetings that seem modeled on Twelve-Step meetings, and even offer scripts for running such meetings (Anonymous, 2019, 2022; Mason-John & Groves, 2018). Some of these books also describe “mentors” (Anonymous, 2022, p. 89; Anonymous, 2019, p. 14) that seem modeled on the Twelve-Step concept of sponsors. These sponsors are people who have progressed further in their recovery, and who help those who are newer in their recovery work the steps (Kurtz, 1979, p. 89). Recovery Dharma describes mentors thus: “After we have completed significant work on our Inquiries, established a meditation practice, and achieved renunciation from our addictive behaviors, we can then become mentors to help others on their path to liberation from addiction” (Anonymous, 2019, p. 14). It would require ethnographic work to assess how similar this is to the idea of Twelve-Step sponsors in practice, but there is at least a surface resemblance. Neither peer-led meetings nor mentorship has direct analogues in classical Buddhist communities, so this appears to be a case where even non-Twelve-Step affiliated Buddhist recovery communities draw on recognizable features of Twelve-Step. Tracing the Paths of Buddhist Recovery Manuals Now that we have introduced the genre of Buddhist recovery manuals as well as its two major bodies of influence, we can proceed to document how these books plot the path from addiction to recovery. These accounts are based on full readings of each book, as well as close attention to the order of chapters and to how authors describe the book’s 13 organization in the introduction. Space limitations prevent lengthy analysis of each of the twenty-one books, so for reader convenience, some of the most important aspects of these books are summarized in Table 1. From this table, we can see that the various books identify with different Buddhist traditions. Some work with a specific tradition or teacher, while others identify themselves with a generalized spirituality that draws on Buddhism, but also includes other contemplative or religious traditions. This eclecticism reflects the trend in American Buddhism away from traditional boundaries and more towards a “mix and match” approach (McMahan, 2008, p. 44). For example, Laura S., author of 12 Steps on Buddha’s Path describes her approach as a “cafeteria” Buddhist thus: “a little Zen as an appetizer, a little Tibetan as an entrée, some Vipassana for dessert” (Laura, 2006, p. 47). Other books are similar in drawing on disparate Buddhist and even non-Buddhist sources. The fourth group—which consists of a single book, From Hungry Ghost to Being Human—is vow-based (Cullen, 2022). It is used by the Fifth-Precept Sangha, so named because it emphasizes the fifth lay precept against taking intoxicants. This group takes its cues from the Thai monastery Wat Thamkrabok, which has become known for its herbal treatments of addiction and emphasis on the transformative power of the vow. Finally, some of the Buddhist recovery manuals show little to no “path” orientation (Grosso & Peck, 2018; Tomat, 2018; Anonymous, 2022; Bien & Bien, 2002; Taylor, 2010; Burges, 2023) in how the manual is organized. This does not mean that these manuals do not discuss the notion of path, but rather that they are organized differently. For example, Dead Set on Living consists of interviews with individual scientists, writers, and spiritual leaders mixed with personal reflection by the author (Grosso & Peck, 2018), and Meditate and End Addiction consists mostly of scripts for particular meditation exercises to be used by groups (Anonymous, 2022). In either case, one could read the book out of order without misunderstanding the overall aim. Within this category are also manuals that have a weak “path” orientation. For example, In The Zen Way of Recovery, the author reflects on her experience of recovery, and draws connections between her experience and Buddhist ideas she thinks may be helpful to others (Burges, 2023). These books do have an overall arc, with chapters that build on one another as the person moves from addiction to recovery, but the logic of steps along a path is not emphasized in the book. This categorization and overview of the use of path in this literature demonstrates the variety of approaches these authors have taken in using ideas from Buddhism and Twelve-Step to address the issue of addiction. Reading this literature, it becomes clear that there is no one way to apply Mindfulness Buddhist resources to addiction recovery. Instead, these authors creatively find ways to select elements from Buddhist traditions and apply them to new contexts and to new ends. Much more could be said about how these books conceptualize the path, and relate both to Buddhism and TwelveStep. For instance, how these books conceptualize the Buddha, how they conceptualize addiction, how they relate to the harm-reduction movement, their position on psychedelics, the amount and source of scriptural quotations, and the specific Buddhist ideas used. However, for the purposes of this article, we will move on to the central comparison of Buddhist recovery paths with classical Buddhist paths. Comparing the Steps of Buddhist Recovery Manuals to Classical Buddhist Models Now that we have described the paths of classical Buddhism, Twelve-Step, and Buddhist recovery manuals, we can proceed to comparison and analysis of particular steps along the path. We will use the five steps identified as key points in classical Buddhist models of the path as a basis, and analyze how the paths of Buddhist recovery manuals uphold or depart from these models. Where appropriate, comparisons with Twelve-Step will also be made. Faith and devotion. While faith is important both to classical Buddhist and Twelve-Step paths, Buddhist recovery manuals often express a complicated relationship with the idea of faith or of a higher power outside of oneself. Multiple books—both those that identify with Twelve-Step and those that do not—suggest that the reason the author turned to Buddhism is because they struggled with the notion of faith in a Higher Power, and found Buddhism to offer satisfying account of reality that did not involve a Higher Power. For the books that identify with Twelve-Step, the authors devote time to re-framing what they mean by faith and to integrating Higher Power with Buddhist ideas such as Buddha-nature or compassion (Rainbeau, 2016; Laura, 2006; Alexander, 2010; Ash, 1993). Alternatively, some authors choose to disregard parts of Twelve-Step they find unhelpful. For instance, the author of The Twelve Steps as a Path to Enlightenment chose to “rewrite steps to remove references to God or Higher Power” (Rode, 2014, p. ix). For the books that do not identify with Twelve-Step, they frequently say that it was their discomfort with the idea of higher power that led them to seek out a Buddhist pathway of recovery that is separate from Twelve-Step (Webb, 2020, p. 1). Buddhist recovery manuals’ general ambivalence towards faith also affects their conception of the Buddha. For the most part, the books surveyed tend to emphasize that the Buddha is a human being and not a god. For example, Refuge Recovery calls “Sid” a “radical psychologist” rather than a transcendent being (Levine, 2014, p. ix), and Enough states that “Buddha was a top psychologist” (Taylor, 2010, p. 15) rather than a religious leader. This reflects a broader trend in contemporary Buddhism to make Buddhism compatible with modern psychology and science (assumed to be the dominant paradigm for knowing reality), which does not require faith (McMahan, 2008, p. 52–57). To give an example of the line these books try to walk, Meditate and End Addiction states that “there is no need to believe anything on faith” (Anonymous, 2022, p. 92). But it also describes how the authorial “we” came to meditation practice as follows: “With nowhere else to go, and a tentative belief in the happiness we saw in our sponsors, and mentors, we resolved to try something new” (p. 4). In other words, the authors saw that people had found happiness in recovery, and seeing this happiness gave them some sense— whether we call that belief, faith, trust, or confidence—that this was a path worth following. The description of this belief as “tentative” seems deliberately chosen to mark this not as a blind faith, but as grounded in skepticism and empiricism. Likewise, 12 Steps on Buddha’s Path emphasizes that she was never “asked to believe anything about Alcoholics Anonymous on blind faith,” and that instead, as one practices, “the hope turns to confidence. We begin to develop faith—in ourselves, in others, in the workings of our Higher Power” (Laura, 2006, p. 38). The author wants to assure the reader that she was not asked–and they will not be asked–to believe things merely on blind faith. Giving. The role of giving in Buddhist recovery manuals necessarily shifts from classical Buddhist models of the path, where giving (dāna) to the monastic community is a foundational stage on the path. Whereas classical Buddhism assumes a large population of monastics to be supported by lay donations, contemporary anglophone Buddhists mostly live in social contexts without large monastic communities, and tend to de-emphasize monasticism generally (McMahan, 2008, pp. 6–9). As such, discourses around giving to monks and nuns must be reframed in order to speak to their intended readers. Giving is rarely framed as a discrete step in Buddhist recovery manuals. The sole exception is From Hungry Ghost to Being Human, which frames generosity as a necessary precursor to later steps. It claims, “Generosity gives rise to ethical living, to kindness, to the ability to forgive and to fellowship; and it supports our meditation practice” (Cullen, 2022, p. 33), suggesting that without a foundation of generosity, meditation practice will not be possible. From Hungry Ghost to Being Human expands generosity from its classical grounding in donations to monks, and instead embraces the larger sense of generosity, writing that “generosity of heart and mind expressed in our thoughts, our words and our actions” (33). In this way, From Hungry Ghost to 13 Mindfulness Being Human retains the classical Buddhist notion of generosity as an early, foundational step in the path even as it broadens the definition of giving for those living in a social context without a large community of monks. While most of the Buddhist recovery manuals do not identify giving as a discrete step on the path, almost all of them emphasize the importance of generosity to the path of recovery. Different books connect the idea of generosity with a variety of Buddhist ideas. Often, it is framed as the antidote to egotistical behavior or self-centered fear that can perpetuate addictive patterns (Burges, 2023, p. 108). For example, Recovery Dharma states, “Selfishness, or self-centeredness, is one of the ways we justify and cling to our addictive behaviors. Generosity comes from the awareness that we’re holding on too tightly to our selfishness in a given moment” (Anonymous, 2023, p. 20). Other books discuss generosity within the context of the six perfections to be mastered on the bodhisattva path (Anonymous, 2006, p. 42; Littlejohn, 2019, p. 79), and still others discuss it in the context of the five precepts lay Buddhists are expected to follow. For example, Eight Step Recovery writes “Abstain from taking the non-given; practice generosity” and elaborates that “We can act generously through giving gifts, time, attention, or encouragement – opening our hands and offering kindness and generosity” (Mason-John & Groves, 2018, pp. 127–128). Traditionally, the second precept is framed in negative terms–vowing to refrain from taking that which is not given (“The Five Precepts,” 2013), but Eight Step Recovery expands on that classical Buddhist understanding and adds a positive account of the virtue to be cultivated in the second precept: generosity. Recovery manuals, particularly those that identify with Twelve-Step, also connect the idea of generosity with the notion of service as described in Twelve-Step literature. Service, along with recovery and unity, is one of the “three legacies” of Twelve-Step (Kurtz, 1979, p. 134), and is particularly associated with the twelfth step, where members promise to carry the message of Twelve-Step, both through living in accordance with the steps and through direct aid to others still struggling with addiction (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1986, p. 60). Multiple books connect generosity with service, and read service to the recovery community as a form of service (Anonymous, 2006, 2019; Levine, 2014; Laura, 2006; Cullen, 2022; Burges, 2023; Taylor, 2010). For example, Refuge Recovery states that “As we set aside some of our time and energy to show others the path of recovery, we too benefit from that act of generosity” (Levine, 2014, p. 65). To be in service to others is thus the epitome of generosity. The relative placement of generosity and service marks a point of slight difference between classical Buddhist accounts of the path and the Twelve Steps. While classical 13 Buddhist accounts of path place generosity as an important early step, one that generates capacity for later steps, in Twelve-Step, service emerges at the end of the path. For Twelve-Step, service to others can only emerge at the end of the path, because at the outset, the person is living a life that is unmanageable. Only once the person regains sanity—as it is described in Twelve-Step—through working the steps can they be of real use to others. For classical Buddhism, generosity is a practice for making someone attuned to others, while for Twelve-Step, service is a practice emerges when one can be attuned to others. However, we should not overstate this difference, as Twelve-Step emphasizes being of service to others at all points in the path, and classical Buddhism also emphasizes generosity at all points in the path. Moreover, both see performing generosity and performing service as part of a positive feedback loop whereby one gets better at generosity/service by practicing it. A few Buddhist recovery pathways, such as From Hungry Ghost to Being Human, adopt the general framework of generosity being an early and foundational step on the path, while the majority think of generosity and service as something that emerges at the end of the path (Cullen, 2022). For example, in 9 Essays, it states, “In Steps One through Five we address our own most urgent, life-threatening situation. If our lives are not ransomed from our addictions, anything else is meaningless. And yet, if we go no further than this in our recovery, we are living only half a life. It is in Steps Six through Twelve that we are reintegrated into the human community and are prepared to be of service” (Anonymous, 2006, p. 41). At the outset of the path, the person struggling with addiction is so wrapped up in their addiction that they cannot even help themselves, much less others. Only after the hard work of recovery can they be of service to others. Elsewhere, 12 Steps on Buddha’s Path states, “When we’ve made the decision to try to have humility, in the sense of accurate self-perception, it is inevitable that we turn away from our own navel and work the twelfth step, doing service to help other alcoholics” (Laura, 2006, p. 37). Note the causal order here–once the person has transformed how they see themselves (through the work of the steps), then they can turn away from selfish navel-gazing and towards service. Likewise, The 12-Step Buddhist states that “after we are well established in our program, we resolutely turn to helping others” (Littlejohn, 2019, p. 115). Once again, the emphasis is on establishing a program, so that one can later help others effectively. In this way, we can see Buddhist recovery manuals drawing both on classical Buddhist accounts of the path and on traditional Twelve-step recovery pathways. Ethical Discipline. Buddhist recovery manuals are deeply concerned about ethical or moral behavior in the sense of not harming others (I use “ethical” and “moral” Mindfulness interchangeably). Authors often describe a moment of clarity when they saw the harms they did to others while in active addiction as the central motivating factor for pursuing recovery (Griffin, 2018; Rainbeau, 2016). In recovery, these authors seek the freedom to act in ways that align with their moral values, rather than being trapped in negative behaviors. As such, most authors of Buddhist recovery manuals describe the path of recovery as necessarily involving ethical training. For example, in 9 Essays, the author writes that, “In Buddhism, morality (or ethics, as it is usually translated) is one of the three foundations of practice, the other two being meditation and wisdom. It is impossible to practice the other two successfully when an ethical basis to one’s life has not been established” (Anonymous, 2006, p. 17). Echoing this same sentiment, Refuge Recovery argues that “without ethical conduct,” trying to develop true understanding and intention “is like trying to row a boat across a river without untying it from the dock” (Levine, 2014, pp. 47–48). Developing ethical behavior, then, is crucial for the path to recovery. However, for most of the Buddhist recovery manuals, ethical behavior is woven throughout the path, rather than being identified as a discrete step. One notable exception here is Vince Cullen’s From Hungry Ghost to Being Human, which sees vow as the first step on the path to recovery. In particular, it emphasizes the fifth lay precept (the group calls itself “Fifth Precept Sangha”, which involves a vow to abstain from intoxicants. For From Hungry Ghost to Being Human, vow, or “sajja” (the Thai form of Pāli sacca, often translated as truth) is “the core element of the treatment of addictions” (Cullen, 2022, p. 6) and “the starting point for recovery” (p. 14). This emphasis on vow–and on taking one ethical vow in particular–is unique among the Buddhist recovery manuals considered here, even as they all emphasize ethical behavior. Twelve-Step also deeply cares about morality and ethics. In the steps, we find references to “moral inventory,” “wrongs,” “defects of character,” “shortcomings,” “persons we had harmed,” and “amends” in steps four through ten (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1986, pp. 59–60). Indeed, one of the aspects of Twelve-Step that sets it apart from other forms of addiction treatment is the notion that addiction is in some way a moral problem or spiritual malady that requires moral and spiritual healing (Parsons, 2022). Those struggling with addiction cannot simply will away their addictions; they must do a deeper inventory of their moral and spiritual lives. In this way, ethical living is at the core of Twelve-Step. However, Twelve-Step’s conception of ethics differs from that of classical Buddhist paths in that it is not grounded in specific vows, and is indeed skeptical that vow-taking or rule-following is at all useful in ethical development. The Big Book expresses doubt that a mere “code of morals” is sufficient to address issues of addiction, writing that “if a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago…We could wish to be moral,… but the needed power wasn’t there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1986, pp. 44–45). In other words, people suffering from addiction simply cannot uphold a moral code—much though they desire to—until they learn to trust and rely on a higher power. As such, instead of requiring members to take specific vows to participate in Twelve-Step, all that is required is a sincere desire to stop drinking (or engaging in whatever addictive pattern). Ethical behavior is then held to emerge from deepening understanding and spirituality, rather than to be a precondition for continuing along the path as it is in classical Buddhist models. By contrast, many Buddhist recovery manuals draw on classical Buddhist concepts of vows and precepts as useful guides for developing ethical behavior. For instance, Recovery Dharma states, “We commit to the Five Precepts as our basic ethical system” and goes on to describe the “intentions” those desiring recovery “should continually reflect on” (Anonymous, 2023, p. 29). Discussions of the five precepts–vows against killing, taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, lying, and taking intoxicants–occur in multiple books (Mason-John & Groves, 2018; Alexander, 2010; Griffin, 2018; Cullen, 2022; Rainbeau, 2016). Other books focus on the Eightfold path of right view, right intention, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration (translated variously) as a guide to ethical behavior (Taylor, 2010; Bien & Bien, 2002; Alexander, 2010; Anonymous, 2006, 2022; Rode, 2014; Jacobs-Stewart, 2010; Laura, 2006; Clark, 2022; Griffin, 2018; Cullen, 2022). Often, books frame their discussion of ethics around these different areas of concern, and reflect on how they are connected to recovery. However, one element from classical Buddhist paths that is often left out are discussions of the hundreds of other rules for Buddhist monks and nuns (vinaya). Instead, Buddhist recovery books address recovery within the context of lay life. Some books make connections between these Buddhist ideas about ethics and Twelve-Step ideas. For example, one section in Mindfulness and the 12 Steps is entitled “The Eightfold Path as a Moral Inventory” (Jacobs-Stewart, 2010, p. 53), and The 12-Step Buddhist points out that the vows coincide nicely with the steps in that they give us a code of ethics that helps us conduct our lives with integrity” (Littlejohn, 2019, p. 231). In this way, Buddhist recovery manuals can sometimes push back against Twelve-Step ambivalence to moral codes, and can see such codes are 13 Mindfulness useful for developing habits of positive ethical action as one engages in recovery practice. However, even the Buddhist recovery manuals that adopt the five precepts or eightfold paths as guides to ethical behavior show some ambivalence about fixed sets of rules. They often deliberately distinguish concepts like the five precepts or eightfold path from the 10 Commandments of Judaism and Christianity. For example, Mindfulness and the 12 Steps introduces the Eightfold path as “not, in the traditional Judeo-Christian sense, a set of commandments instructing us in right or wrong” (Jacobs-Stewart, 2010, p. 53). One Breath at a Time likewise draws a contrast with Christianity by saying that the precepts “are taught as ‘trainings,’ not Commandments” (Griffin, 2018, p. 109), 9 Essays calls the precepts “a far cry from a commandment-based moral teaching” (Anonymous, 2006, p. 18), and Mindful Recovery claims that “It would be a mistake to understand [“Right” actions in the Eightfold Path] primarily as right in the moral sense, as Westerners raised on the Ten Commandments are liable to do” (Bien & Bien, 2002, pp. 7–8). Commandments, these books seem to imply, are draconian or otherwise undesirable, but that the precepts/Eightfold path are a call to “pay careful attention to our actions to see how closely they adhere to our professed intention” (Ibid, 18). They are an opportunity for self-reflection and growing self-awareness, rather than something handed down from on high. In addition, Buddhist recovery manuals often frame ethics not only as a matter of not doing harmful actions (as we had seen in the classical Buddhist account of sīla), but of adopting positive virtues. For example, as we have already seen in the case of generosity, Eight Step Recovery explains the five precepts in both “a negative and a positive form – what to avoid doing and what to put into practice” (MasonJohn & Groves, 2018, pp. 126–127). Thus the first precept, to refrain from taking life, which had traditionally been expressed in solely negative terms (“The Five Precepts,” 2013) is given a positive form: “With deeds of loving-kindness, I purify my body” (Mason-John & Groves, 2018, p. 127). Ordinary Recovery likewise includes the cultivation of the positive virtue of compassion in his account of the first precept (Alexander, 2010, p. 66). Other Buddhist recovery manuals are skeptical about any sort of moralizing or judgmental approaches, and try to avoid black-and-white thinking. For instance, The Zen of Recovery outlines an idea of ethics not as following a set of precepts or guidelines. Instead it argues that, “Our newfound sense of internal morality must become automatic and intuitive, guiding all our thoughts and actions. Personally, I regard anything that causes me to become unmindful and presents the possibility of a return to my active disease as immoral. Likewise, I regard anything that anchors me in the 13 present moment and presents the opportunity to help others as moral” (Ash, 1993, p. 73). Ethics here is guided by internal intuition grounded in present moment awareness, rather than a set of external rules. The author contrasts this vision of ethics with “the morality we’ve been burdened with all these years” (73), which he thinks has been unhelpful and judgmental. Echoing this sentiment is Ordinary Recovery, which although it affiliates with Twelve-Step, criticizes the “wrong/right, sick/well, bad/good” framework of TwelveStep as “injurious” and “judgmental” (Alexander, 2010, p. 43), something he attributes to the fact that the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions “were written several decades ago and reflect the trends and tempers and prejudices of their milieu” (p. 43). For both authors, Buddhism represents a way out of the rigid or judgmental mindsets that they feel have hindered their recovery. What is more, Buddhism represents a way to critique Twelve-Step approaches they feel are unhelpful, even as both authors identify as part of it. Similarly, some books actively seek to avoid distinctions between good and bad, and appeal to the classical Buddhist notion of actions as being either skillful or unskillful (Gethin, 1998, p. 101) as a way of escaping what they perceive as the crushing judgement experienced by those struggling with addiction. For instance, Dead Set on Living argues that “the moral grid is not good and bad or right and wrong–it’s what’s skillful or unskillful” (Grosso & Peck, 2018, p. 136). In the same vein, 12 Steps on Buddha’s Path claims that “All the world’s religions have codes of behavior and judge actions as being “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad,” or “moral” or “immoral.” These terms are extremely judgmental and don’t acknowledge the effects of karma. In contrast, Buddhism describes actions that cause dukkha as unskillful and those that promote happiness as skillful” (Laura, 2006, p. 73). For these authors, what makes Buddhism uniquely well-suited to recovery contexts is that they sidestep inflexible moral judgements. This discomfort with rules and commandments aligns a feature of contemporary anglophone Buddhism that scholar David McMahan has called the “Romantic Themes in Buddhist Modernism.” These include a rejection of “the voice of society with its conventions and rules” as well as “external authority” (McMahan, 2008, pp. 81–85). Romantic strains within contemporary Buddhism privilege individual autonomy over rigid social expectations, and reject black-and-white moralizing about right and wrong. Discussions of ethics in Buddhist recovery manuals thus draw on a number of different ideas. Many draw on classical Buddhism’s vow or precept-based conceptions of ethical discipline, others draw on contemporary anglophone Buddhism’s romantic skepticism of fixed rules, and others criticize Twelve-Step as being judgmental. Still others exist somewhere on a spectrum between these positions. We can Mindfulness see, then, some of the diversity of ways Buddhist recovery manuals have understood ethics in the context of recovery. Meditation. In the Buddhist addiction recovery manuals, one of the overall themes is the emphasis on meditation, early and often. This emphasis can be seen in titles such as Meditate and End Addiction, Mindfulness and the 12 Steps; Mindful Recovery, Ordinary Recovery: Mindfulness, Addiction, and the Path of Lifelong Sobriety, or One Breath at a Time, each of which refer to meditation, qualities of mindfulness believed to result from meditation, or the common technique of counting breaths in meditation. Several books mention that the first thing you do should be to start meditating. For example, Basic Sobriety has a chapter called “Step Zero” that instructs readers to take up a meditation practice “as quickly as you can” (Rainbeau, 2016, p. 3). The book, which is structured according to the 12 steps, acknowledges that the Big Book mentions meditation at step eleven, but tells readers not to wait. Refuge Recovery likewise tells readers, “We encourage you to begin with the practice of meditation right away. Meditation is going to be the most important tool in supporting our renunciation” (Levine, 2014, p. xiii). Both of these examples—and many more that could have been cited—demonstrate that, for Buddhist recovery manuals, meditation is the central practice that is thought to sustain and develop recovery. The eleventh step in traditional Twelve-Step programs describes meditation as an important practice for those in recovery to deepen their spiritual practice and gain wisdom. The step reads “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1986, p. 59). The Big Book does not explicitly define what it means by meditation, but the way the term is used suggests a period of reflection on one’s actions or on higher power that might be bookended by prayer. This can take place at the end of the day (p. 87), or in the morning (p. 87, 134, 164), and is meant to strengthen recovery by grounding it in deeply felt spirituality. It is notable that this meditation is described towards the end of the steps, at step eleven. The early steps have more to do with admitting powerlessness and handing over one’s will to higher power, which involves some degree of faith, but this type of faith is characterized as child-like rather than mature. It is enough to get one on the path, but by the time one has worked the steps through step eleven, that faith must be deepened and matured through meditation and reflection (pp. 85–88). In this respect, Buddhist recovery pathways diverge from both classical Buddhist accounts of the path and from classical Twelve-Step formulations that place meditation as a relatively late step in the path, while aligning with contemporary anglophone Buddhism’s emphasis on meditation early in the path. While classical Buddhist accounts of the path emphasize the importance of meditation in attaining enlightenment, it is reserved for the very few who have spent sufficient time training in generosity and ethical discipline, believed to be necessary precursors to serious meditation practice (Gethin, 1998, pp. 82–83). By contrast, anglophone Buddhism tends to center meditation as a foundational practice that can and should be practiced by all people (McMahan, 2008, pp. 183–188; McMahan and Braun, 2017, pp. 1–4; McMahan, 2023, pp. 5–6; Wilson, 2014, pp. 2–3). This transformation from meditation for the elite few to meditation for the masses is a complex story (Braun, 2013), but an important factor is figures like Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, who aimed to translate meditation to Western contexts and make it accessible to more people (Kabat-Zinn, 1990, 1994, 2011; Braun, 2017, pp. 173–197). It is worth noting that some have raised meditation as a possible source of danger for those who attempt it without proper training and supervision. Some have reported severe adverse reactions to meditation on the part of practitioners (see Baer, 2019; Baer, 2021; Britton, 2021; Compson, 2018; Treleaven, 2018; and Sharma et al., 2022; as well as Anālayo, 2021 for a response). Those struggling with addiction—and the mental health comorbidities that often accompany it—might likewise experience adverse effects. A few of the Buddhist recovery manuals discuss trauma and how it can affect meditation (Anonymous, 2023, p. 10–13), and give guidance on how people experiencing difficulties during meditation can “tap the breaks” (p. 150), but these references to potential adverse events are fairly rare in the rest of the books examined for this article. Wisdom. The goal of developing wisdom suffuses Buddhist recovery manuals, and most of them draw on classical Buddhist definitions of wisdom (Pāli paññā, Sanskrit prajñā) to indicate deep insight into reality grounded in right view and meditative experience (Gethin, 1998, p. 84; Garfield, 2021, p. 128–130). Eight Step Recovery, for instance, claims that the development of wisdom (along with compassion) is the main characteristic of Awakening. It continues, “Wisdom is seeing the nature of reality. It is understanding on a deep level that everything changes and is interconnected. The natural emotional counterpart of this is compassion” (Mason-John & Groves, 2018, p. 187). Wisdom, then, is closely tied with recovery, for to truly recover, people need to be able to see reality as it is. The inability to do so is, many of these books claim, what causes and perpetuates negative patterns of addictive behavior. For example, 9 Essays writes about the “hole” inside all of us, and explains that “It’s ultimate cause is ignorance of the nature of reality; and ultimately it is wisdom that can end it. This is wisdom in the sense of a knowing that is deeper than mere knowledge. It is direct experience that has been thoroughly digested 13 Mindfulness until it has become an automatic response of the mind” (Anonymous, 2006, p. 6). Both of these books emphasize the depth of wisdom in order to separate the wisdom they seek from mere conceptual or surface-level knowledge. This wisdom is said to arise from meditation practice, which as we have already discussed, takes a central place in Buddhist recovery pathways. Refuge Recovery states that “We develop wisdom through practicing formal mindfulness meditation. This leads to seeing clearly” (Levine, 2014, p. 77). Here again, we see the wisdom associated with seeing reality as it really is. Similarly, Recovery Dharma writes that “The Buddha taught that by living ethically, practicing meditation, and developing wisdom and compassion, we can end the suffering we create by resisting, running from, and misunderstanding reality” (Anonymous, 2023, p. 16). Meditation is not the only factor leading to wisdom–ethical behavior is also required–but it is a major catalyst for the cultivation of wisdom. But how does meditation lead to wisdom? For many Buddhist recovery manuals, meditation is a way of getting back in contact with one’s innate wisdom, believed to be already present, but obscured by negative habits of mind. We find multiple references to “prajna/wisdom/our original mind” (Burges, 2023, p. 134), “inner wisdom” (Grosso & Peck, 2018, p. 99), “reaching the wisdom within” (Bien & Bien, 2002, p. 67), or intuitive wisdom (Ash, 1993, p. 40). Wisdom is thus not to be found in external sources, but rather already present within oneself. Reading about philosophical explanations or other people’s experiences can help to point to this inner wisdom, but multiple books suggest that they are like a “finger pointing at the moon” (Ash, 1993, pp. 1–2) in that they can point people in the right direction, but they should take care not to confuse verbal or external representations of wisdom for actual wisdom. In developing this innatist model of wisdom–the notion that it is already present within you–Buddhist recovery manuals draw on Chan/Zen notions of Buddha nature (Gethin, 1998, p. 252), but also align with what scholars have termed the Romantic sensibilities of contemporary anglophone Buddhism, which tends to emphasize feeling, intuition, and the individual over external sources of authority (McMahan, 2008, pp. 81–86). Even as Buddhist recovery manuals caution against overreliance on philosophical ideas and concepts, they are generally eager to dive into them. Almost all the Buddhist recovery manuals studied contain detailed discussions of Buddhist concepts, including discussions of non-self, emptiness, the two truths, three marks, four immeasurables, five aggregates, six realms of rebirth, seven virtues, the twelve-fold chain of dependent origination, and more. Several books even contain additional appendices with further explanation of these concepts (Rode, 2014), glossaries of key concepts (Littlejohn, 2019; Clark, 2022; Laura, 2006), 13 or recommendations of resources where people can read more (Alexander, 2010). By outlining the Buddha’s teachings in these ways, these books hope to provide “practical dharma teachings” that “help…to navigate everyday life without the use of drugs or alcohol or other self-destructive behaviors” (Burges, 2023, p. 5). These concepts can help break people out of their fixed way of seeing the world, and introduce newer, healthier ways of seeing. This robust interest in philosophical concepts reflects a broad trend within contemporary anglophone Buddhism of emphasizing the rational and philosophical qualities of Buddhism (McMahan, 2008, p. 5). Often, these philosophical concepts are supported with ideas drawn from the field of psychology, which authors assert as fundamentally compatible with Buddhist ideas. Multiple books contain descriptions of neurons and the brain (Webb, 2020), psychological research (Littlejohn, 2019), or cognitive behavioral therapy (Taylor, 2010; Webb, 2020). Multiple books either contain interviews with or quotations from psychologists (Grosso & Peck, 2018; Burges, 2023), tout themselves as having been written by people trained in psychology (Littlejohn, 2019; Taylor, 2010; Bien & Bien, 2002; Mason-John & Groves, 2018; Jacobs-Stewart, 2010), or even call the Buddha a psychologist (Levine, 2014; Taylor, 2010). As noted by scholars of modern Buddhism, claims that Buddhist ideas are supported by psychological science are a hallmark of much contemporary anglophone Buddhism, and reflects the authority and prestige associated with empirical science in the modern world (McMahan, 2008, pp. 52–57). In this emphasis on philosophical concepts and wisdom, Buddhist recovery manuals differ from Twelve-Step. Twelve-Step literature does not thematize wisdom, but although wisdom is mentioned in the famous “serenity prayer,” (“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” Pittman, 1999, p. 3 and 254). Here, wisdom evokes prudence and good judgement with regard to worldly matters rather than penetrating insight into the nature of reality. If anything, the Big Book expresses repeated skepticism towards knowledge (“surely this was the answer—self-knowledge. But it was not,” Alcoholics Anonymous, 1986, p. 7) and philosophy (“such codes and philosophies did not save us,” p. 45), as useless selfdeception. This extends to Twelve-Step practice as well—in meetings, the slogan “keep it simple, stupid” is used frequently enough to have a well-known acronym (Pittman, 1999, p. 221). This phrase cautions members against overcomplicating recovery or attempting to over-intellectualize. Instead of engaging in conceptual analysis, Twelve-Step spends much more time on personal stories. Twelve-Step meetings often consist of members sharing their stories. Mindfulness Twelve-Step claims that by resisting philosophical speculation and instead sharing these personal stories, the program maintains a pragmatic focus. (This, we might note, recalls the Buddha’s alleged refusal to answer certain of his followers’ questions on the grounds that they were pointless speculation, Gethin, 1998, pp. 66–68). It is certainly implied and understood that working the steps will help people to be wise, but the cultivation of wisdom as such is not a central focus. In this emphasis on philosophical analysis, too, the Buddhist recovery books differ from classical Buddhist accounts of the path. Classical Buddhist pathways place the cultivation of wisdom (and the philosophical inquiry that supports it) for the late stages of the path, after the practitioner has cultivated the necessary prerequisites of generosity and ethical discipline (Gethin, 1998, pp. 82–83). This is why, for instance, step-by-step talks place their discussion of the Four Noble Truths at the end of the talk (Gethin, 1998, p. 83 and 164–165; Hallisey, 1995), and why historically most Buddhist laypeople have focused on ritual and merit-making, and not engaged with advanced philosophical concepts (McMahan, 2008, p. 37). By contrast, Buddhist recovery books see engagement with Buddhist concepts such as non-self or emptiness as useful for people in recovery at all stages of the path. Indeed, it can sometimes feel as though this analysis is intended to persuade and motivate people to enter the path, on the promise that Buddhism has the conceptual tools to help people understand themselves and effect lasting change. Buddhist recovery manuals often recognize that this initial exposure to Buddhist philosophical concepts will deepen as one spends time practicing and gains experience in recovery. As 12 Steps on Buddha’s Path puts it, “When I began to investigate Buddhism, I thought I could thoroughly study the Four Noble Truths and master the teachings of the Buddha. I was wrong in both cases. For me, the process has been something like nurturing an orchid seedpod, which takes seven years to bloom” (Laura, 2006, p. xvi). In statements like these, we can see that Buddhist recovery manuals often agree with the classical tradition that the Buddha’s teachings require a long time and much preparatory work to fully understand, but they also think it is worthwhile to introduce these teachings even to relative novices in recovery. Conclusions There is much more work that ought to be done to analyze the emerging genre of Buddhist recovery manuals, to do justice to the individual books within it, and to understand how these systems function in the lives of real people. Nevertheless, it is possible to draw some preliminary conclusions related to the three goals outlined at the beginning of the article. First, this article has introduced the genre of Buddhist recovery manuals, and documented some common themes, as well as explored some of the internal diversity of this category. It compared the recovery pathways outlined in those books to classical Buddhist accounts of the path, as well as to Twelve-Step. At many points, Buddhist recovery pathways align with classical Buddhist pathways, including on the importance of generosity, ethical discipline, and the goal of cultivating wisdom. However, Buddhist recovery pathways differ from classical Buddhist accounts of the path in that they sometimes have an ambivalent relationship to faith, that monasticism is not part of the assumed social context, and that they emphasize meditation at the outset of the path rather than towards the end of the path. Similarly, Buddhist recovery pathways align with key ideas important in Twelve Step, including on structures associated with Twelve-step like meetings and peer-support community, on viewing addiction as a spiritual malady requiring deep reevaluation of how one sees the world, and on being of service. However, they–or at least some Buddhist recovery manuals–also diverge from some aspects of Twelve-Step, including on issues of faith in a Higher Power, interest in philosophical concepts, and interest in precept-based models of ethics. These are broad statements about trends in Buddhist recovery manuals, and within the group of twentyone books, there are certainly exceptions to these claims. But all of the books are creatively drawing from multiple sources of influence in order to find conceptual and communal resources for addressing the serious question of how to escape addiction. Future research would build on this textual examination to study the practice landscapes of Buddhist recovery programs, including qualitative research grounded in the voices of people who have participated in Buddhist recovery. Why did meditation and mindfulness become emphasized in certain parts of the addiction recovery community? What are the reasons people are drawn to these approaches, and how to they experience them? Further research would also help to expand our understanding of how Buddhist recovery communities exist within the landscape of anglophone Buddhism generally. At present, Buddhist-influenced recovery programs are scarcely mentioned in the scholarly literature on American Buddhism. However, many of the books this article explores are best-sellers, and Buddhist recovery programs have attracted thousands of participants. It is possible that the norms of anonymity in Twelve-Step, in addition to the social stigma associated with addiction, have allowed these programs to escape notice. Second, in introducing this Buddhist recovery manuals, this article aimed to expand our understanding of 13 Mindfulness contemporary Anglophone Buddhism, and of the ongoing translation of Buddhism to new times and places. My analysis of this literature underscores trends identified by David McMahan, and other scholars of modern American Buddhism. Buddhist recovery manuals demonstrate features already noted by these authors, including an emphasis on meditation, a desire to psychologize and demythologize Buddhism, eclectic mixing and matching of different Buddhist traditions, dominance of white authors, and overlooking of Asian American Buddhists. However, the Buddhist recovery books studied here also complicate certain traits identified with Buddhist modernism. For example, one common characterization of Buddhist modernism is that it is “individualistic” in the sense of focusing on the individual person as meditator, and downplaying emphasis on sangha, or the community of Buddhist practitioners (Brown, 2021). Most of the Buddhist recovery manuals, by contrast, emphasize the necessity of practicing and meditating with others—often in a way that replicates the centrality of meetings in Twelve-Step programs. Individuals are encouraged to cultivate relationships with others in recovery, whether in the Twelve-Step language of sponsor, or under the Buddhist language of kalyāṇa-mitta or “wise friend” (Anonymous, 2023, p. 54). This emphasis on community practice and support resonates with some of the trends Ann Gleig (2019) has identified in “postmodern” Buddhism, but deserves further attention. These books also challenge the notion of American convert Buddhism as being a phenomenon of the educated, comfortable classes. These books are often written from, and aim to speak to, people who have experienced extreme hardship as result of their addictions and aim to carry that message to those underserved people. However, on the whole these books do not discuss the broad social or structural dynamics that lead to addiction, or make recovery difficult, particularly for people from marginalized backgrounds. As such, many of these books talk about generosity or service, but rarely in the form of advocacy for broader social change. Addicts help other addicts, but rarely address the social factors that make addiction so prevalent, dangerous, and stigmatized in society. The goal is to get the individual to fit into society, rather than to change society at a structural level. These books thus both undermine the image of comfortable armchair Buddhists, but also raises questions about potentially re-inscribing class differences or ignoring the societal causes of addiction. A notable and recent exception here the second edition of Recovery Dharma, published summer 2023. The second edition adds discussions of “race-based trauma” (Anonymous, 2023, p. 11) and a dedication honoring “the communities of Black, Indigenous, and people of color, recognizing systematic oppression and marginalization that these communities 13 may have experienced in the world and in recovery spaces” (i) that were not present in the first edition from 2019. The second edition was published after this article was originally submitted for peer review. Its publication demonstrates that the landscape of Buddhist recovery manuals is very much still developing, and that some of the conclusions of articles like this may have to be revised as these changes continue. Third, in light of the theme of this special journal issue, it is useful to highlight the relationship between mindfulness and ethics in Buddhist recovery literature. These claims are based on trends noticed within the 21 books studied for this article, and so do not hold true for each manual. Overall, Buddhist recovery manuals tend to de-emphasize faith and emphasize meditation and philosophical understanding for people at all stages of the path. In so doing, Buddhist recovery manuals shift classical Buddhist understandings of the path, in which faith is necessary for entering the path, and there is a long period of training in generosity and ethical discipline before the practitioner is ready for meditation. Rather than seeing ethical discipline–in the sense of following a set of precepts restricting behavior–as a necessary precursor to meditation and philosophical understanding, Buddhist recovery books often see meditation and philosophical understanding itself as ethically transformative. People in recovery are urged to meditate, and to observe the workings of their own mind, a process that allows them to see reality as it truly is. The understanding said to emerge from meditation is believed to be ethically transformative—for once one understands how reality truly is, one will naturally treat others better—rather than needing ethical discipline in order to gain wisdom and understanding. Likewise, people are encouraged to understand the cause of their addiction—ignorance as to the nature of reality—so that they can remove the cause of the addiction and ultimately be of service to others. Participants aim to change their ideas and mental states, which then allows for a change in external behaviors. Finally, by analyzing these books in terms of the concept of path, this article has attempted to place the practices of meditation and mindfulness in Buddhist recovery literature in a broader context, both in terms of the history of Buddhism and in terms of the books’ own understandings of the path. There is currently growing interest on the impact of meditation and mindfulness on substance use disorder treatment. However, as the scientific study of meditation advances, we should take care not to identify a particular practice (e.g. setting and counting the breath) and study it in isolation. Meditation is always practiced in a social context–for certain reasons, with certain background understandings, and with certain expectations of results. The “same” action of sitting and focusing on the breath takes on different meanings, and has different effects, when Mindfulness practiced in different contexts. To understand meditation, as well as its potential role in recovery, we must take the context in which meditation is practiced seriously. As such, to quote David McMahan, “To understand contemplative practices in a comprehensive way, therefore, scientific study of meditation must work hand in hand with philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, and scholars of religion who can help articulate these contexts” (McMahan, 2017, pp. 43–44). 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