A recovery meeting based on Buddhist principles. The hour long meeting consists of group meditation, reading from the Recovery Dharma text and sharing.

Recovery Dharma is a Buddhist approach to recovery from addiction. It uses the practices and principles of Buddhism to guide members through the loss and loneliness of early recovery to a place of community, safety, and serenity. You do not have to be a Buddhist to participate in and benefit from this program. Nor do you have to believe in anything. (Many Buddhist are agnostic or atheist.) These practices and principles provide a practical way to recovery. Like many recovery programs, Recovery Dharma has a textbook and a set of readings. The book is simply called “Recovery Dharma.” During recovery meetings, we read The Practice, a set of beliefs that guide us through the program; The Four Noble Truths, the Buddha’s teachings concerning addiction; and the Eight Fold Path, the practices and principles that lead to recovery. Each meeting ends with a reading called the Dedication of Merit, which posits that “As we have learned from practice, great pain does not erase goodness, but in fact informs it.” Each Recovery Dharma meeting also begins with a 10 to 20 minute guided, group meditation. We learn the basics of coming back to the breath when our minds wander. We also meditate on what are called the “Heart Practices”: Metta (Lovingkindness), Equanimity, and Forgiveness (both of others and the self). Then follows reading as a group from the textbook, and finally discussion and checking in. The format is familiar to anyone who has attended a recovery meeting of any kind.

Through Recovery Dharma, we hope that you create a daily meditation practice and decide to incorporate these Buddhist principles and practices into your life.

This is an outside meeting, not affiliated with Recovery Café Lexington. It meets at 1109 Versailles Rd., Suite 250, Lexington, KY 40508.