Day One

I have heard people say "My sobriety date is..." and then they give the date when they last stopped drinking.  But the first day of not drinking is hardly sobriety.  It is your "dry" date.  Sobriety takes a lot of work from that day onward.  It is a bit like someone saying they became a Christian on the day they were baptized.  Baptism does not make a Christian in practice.  It makes a member.  It is entrance into membership.  Becoming a Christian takes a lot of work that many baptized people don't do.  Thus the hypocrisy.  One day of meditation does not make one a buddhist.  It might make one a practitioner of meditation, but becoming a buddhist takes a lot of work besides the sitting.  So I ask myself, "Am I a monk?"  No, not yet.