on patience

"Being angry and wanting to be peaceful all of a sudden doesn't usually work. If we're about to blow up, the best thing to do is just sit there, settle, breathe. The best technique may well be patience." - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

I have been contemplating the paramita of patience all week, as the facebook page for Parenting as Path attests. Patience (or ahem, a lack of patience) is a daily theme for me, felt more keenly with the care of young children. The teachings on patience in the buddhist tradition are rich, and often focus on the quality of forbearance, which I don't find necessarily useful. It is a word that has such negative connotations, with more than a hint of martyrdom. I prefer to see it as acceptance, radical acceptance, as teacher Tara Brach describes it. Being present to what is occurring, and instead of trying to manipulate, change or escape it, to relax, let go and open.

It can be so hard to do this with our children, particularly when they are pushing our buttons, not doing what we want them to do, or testing boundaries. Who knew that simply attempting to get a young toddler ready to go outside to play could be such a stressful experience at times?! Or getting your child ready for school, or to do their homework, to go to bed, or to be integrity with their curfew? So many things can trigger our impatience, but I have found that fundamentally, impatience has to do with an unwillingness to just be there, leaning into what is happening in the present moment, no matter how uncomfortable it is. When I am impatient with others, it is almost always because rather than opening to what is occurring, I am stuck in the past or projecting myself out into the future. How exhausting. No wonder I get snippy.

Cultivating patience with our children means that we notice when we are relating to them from the past or from the future rather than the now. We notice when we are speaking from anxiety and a sense of what should be happening, and then let it go and open to what is actually occurring. It means leaning into the discomfort, the fear, the aggression - leaning all the way until we can open to the still, tender spot that is always at the center of even these painful emotions. Cultivating patience also means nourishing ourselves so that we have the space to relate skillfully to others. Maybe this means going to bed earlier so you have more energy in the morning when things are more intense getting everyone ready for school. Or perhaps it means taking the time when your children are napping to rest yourself, or eat a nice snack, or watch an episode of a show you like. The other day, our schedule got really wonky and my children would not nap. My husband was working very late, so I knew I would not get any break until they were asleep that night. I was a bit at my wits end, as I can't get much done or relax when they are both up and grouchy from being overtired. I drew a bubble bath with some soothing lavender oil, and put them and myself into it. I let them splash and play while I also got to relax a bit. Then I let them help me make butterscotch pudding, which we ate together after our dinner. The kitchen and bathroom ended up being a total mess, but it was worth it. The bath and the pudding cheered all of us up and helped us enjoy the rest of the day together, although we were all very tired.

Part of being patient is being resourceful, creating space even in the most claustrophobic situation. That is why the recommendation for times when you are feeling impatient is to stop, get still, and just breathe. By bringing our minds back into our bodies in the present moment, we open to the vast space that is always available to us. It can be difficult to do this when we get caught up in impatience, feeling justified to keep pushing rather than stepping back. But the more we can just take a step back from our impatience, resynchronize our bodies and minds, the easier it will be to accomplish what needs to be done. I think another important aspect of this all is having confidence that you can do it - that you can actually let go, open and relax. That you can be patient. Sometimes, we get on such a roll with a habitual pattern that we begin to distrust we can do anything differently. I am here to tell you that you can! Every habitual pattern can be transformed. Every time we let go and relax, we are weakening the hold impatience has on us and our families.

opinions don't help our children

It is only with the heart that one can see
rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Sorry for my absence. 2012 has gotten off to a bit of a rocky start - some juicy challenges and opportunities have arisen, including attempting to purchase our first house, and these things have kept me busy. But the parenting path doesn't pause for obstacles, it just intensifies, doesn't it? There is so much I have been contemplating, so many things to write about. What has been on my mind this week though is opinions. Specifically, the opinions we harbor about our children. And how these get in the way of having a positive relationship with them.

"Is she a good baby?" This is a question we hear often, sometimes from the moment our child is born. The question is asked by strangers, friends, close family, in-laws. I always respond with "every baby is good." People take this response in different ways. Sometimes they laugh. Sometimes they say, hurriedly, "oh, of course!" And other times they explain further: "oh, I just meant does she sleep. I just meant, does he eat well. I just meant, does he do what you say." And so on. People respond to us when we say, no he/she is not sleeping much, not eating solids, not potty learned - "oh, that's bad. What are you doing to change that?" I guess what they really mean to say is, "is she easy? does she conform to your wants and needs, rather than to her own?"

The view we carry is that all beings are primordially, fundamentally good. Goodness is their, and our, essential nature. But even on a relative level, children and babies are good. The behavior we tend to label as "bad" is merely behavior that does not conform to how we think things should be in that moment. Maybe our child (or, ahem, our friend's child, or, even worse, our grandchild) is not sleeping as we think they should, is not eating as we think they should, is not speaking, playing, listening, interacting with others and on and on, as we think they should. On the flip side, when they behave as we think they should, we praise them for being good. "You ate all your dinner - what a good boy." "You didn't come into mommy's bed all night - what a good girl."

This habit of putting our opinions on our children, of labeling their behavior, does them and us no favors. It allows no space for growth and no space for compassion. It closes down connection between us, and creates in its stead disconnection and a feeling of being judged, of not being accepted. It also makes it harder for us to teach and guide our children to behaviors that are helpful for them. It is hard to see what would really help them learn when we are coming from a place of making them wrong or right.

An example of this is how we relate to our children's emotional outbursts. In the vajrayana buddhist tradition, emotions are considered to be energy. Emotions are neither good or bad - although they do have wisdom. Anger for instance - anger has the wisdom of clear seeing. We lose that clear seeing when we constrict the anger into aggression, when we add the story to the anger that we are right about something or someone. When we can open to the energy of anger, to its wisdom of clear seeing, and drop any story line we have attached to it, well then we can act skillfully, responding accurately to what we have seen with clarity and compassion.

Whether or not we are able to work with our emotions so that we can access their enlightened aspects and express their wisdom rather than their neurotic qualities - this all depends on how we relate to them. If we relate to our emotions in unskillful ways, then we behave in neurotic ways that harm ourselves and others. To behave skillfully begins with accepting whatever we are feeling without judgement. In order to teach our children to access the wisdom of their emotions, we also have to accept them (their emotions) without judgement. Then we have to take the additional step of accepting their behavior without judgement as well. Whoa - that sounds like I am giving them an excuse to behave in any way they want and do whatever they want, right? No, not at all. Our job as parents is to help our children relate to their energy in a skillful, compassionate way. In order to do that, we need to drop our opinions about it.

We tend to label behavior as being "good" or "bad". Can you try to see your children's behavior as just behavior? As energy expressing itself? Sometimes the energy is brittle, tight, and unhappy. Sometimes the energy is joyful and free flowing. Sometimes it is loud and overwhelming. Sometimes it is sharp, and wants to jab at us and the world. Sometimes it is quiet and soft, and needs warmth and gentle nurturing. It is all just energy. It isn't personal, though it can feel that way, and we often respond out of that personal sense of hurt or displeasure, embarrassment or resentment. When we can see their behavior as energy expressing itself, then we can respond to it cleanly. We can provide boundaries so the energy does not harm them or others. We can teach them how to self-regulate when they are upset. We can notice when we make a bigger deal over something than is helpful. We can notice when our expectations of what should happen are getting in the way of accepting what is. We can cultivate gentleness. We can stop telling ourselves and them that something is wrong, we can open to what is right. We can accept that whatever is happening is already a passing dream, changing and impermanent. Once we make sure they and others are safe, we can also practice just sitting with their energy.

Sometimes, when our children's energy is very wild and chaotic, like in a tantrum, it can be very hard to just sit with it. It is scary for them and for us. We have a tendency to just want to make it stop - and who can blame us? It isn't pleasant to be around a tantruming toddler. Sometimes both my toddlers tantrum at the same time, and well, part of me just wants to teleport the hell out of there. But when I notice my own discomfort with their emotions, I can relax and just open to them, hold them, just be with the raging until it passes. The calmer and gentler I can be with them, the more quickly they tend to calm down. The more I acknowledge what they are feeling, rather than try to convince them they are feeling something else, or that they shouldn't be feeling that way, the more they are able to just release it and move on.

We have to model this ourselves. When your own energy of anger gets sparked, how to do you relate to it? What do you do? What do your children see? If we have the tendency to yell at our children, we cannot expect them to speak gently to us. If we hold onto our emotions, stuff them down, judge them - our children will eventually do the same.

Notice when you label your children. Notice when you label yourself and your own emotions and behavior. Through cultivating mindful body, speech and mind around and with our children, they will learn to work with their own emotions. They still will not always do what we would like them to, or behave in the way they "ought to", but neither will we. It is part of the joy and pain of being in this human body - we make mistakes. If we can embrace those mistakes with acceptance and love, we will all flourish.

this is what we practice for

I have been waiting for my body to miscarry. I learned last Thursday that the baby didn't have a heartbeat, but my body wasn't ready yet to let go. Finally, yesterday, the process began, accelerating this morning, until the little being passed out of my body.

The waiting was an experience of consciously bringing myself back to the present moment, over and over. And when the process finally began, it was the conscious letting go, the noticing when I was resisting the process, and opening back up, just like in birth. This is what we practice for, with the little stuff. With letting go of our agenda of getting something done, or being right in an argument, or wanting our living room to be clean, or a person to like us, or our child to behave a certain way. With the letting go of our little hopes and fears in daily life with our children and in the world - so that when we are faced with the big stuff, with the letting go of a child, a loved one, a big dream, our own life itself - we can do it without suffering. Or if we do suffer, we can work with that, rather than being totally overwhelmed and stuck in our grief. We can face the moment, we can notice what we are feeling, and we can accept it. All of it.

It doesn't mean we don't grieve. It doesn't mean we aren't angry or sad or afraid. It means we accept all of that, fully. Once we do that, we can also accept that those emotions change, just as this moment is constantly changing, changing, ending, beginning. Never static, never still. That is the flow of life and death. It is in constant movement. This is what we are practicing for. To let that movement flow through us, and not resist it. If we resist it, we will get knocked down and pulled under.

So today I am trying to put all my years of practice to the big test of letting go of this brief little life. Of being present to my other children, who need me very much to be with them, and not distant or distracted. Practicing diving into the flow of life.

this takes practice

"For the warrior, rather than getting away from the constraints of ordinary life, letting go is going further into your life. You understand that your life, as it is, contains the means to unconditionally cheer you up."
- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Letting go continues to be the theme of my practice. Letting go of my grasping to things as I wish them to be, and all the suffering that story entails. Practicing mindfulness means letting go again and again of our dream of the past and fantasy of the future, coming back to the present moment. Practicing mindfulness means letting go of our agenda to protect and enhance our own little self. It means being aware when we are holding on tight. When we are pushing our own projections onto things as they are. When we are closing up, rather than opening, just a little bit.

This takes practice. We can't just wake up one morning and say, "today, I am going to let go of this false sense of self and all the busy projects it has, and just be present." I mean, we have to start somewhere. Usually, we start by noticing how not letting go creates vast suffering for ourselves and others. How much harder it makes our lives. How much more hassled we feel by ordinary existence. And so yes, at some level, we do decide that we at least need to let go, that we would like to begin to let go, just a little bit. Dip our toes into the waters of things as they really are. But if we don't view letting go as a practice, as a daily, sometimes moment to moment work, then we are setting ourselves up to fail.

So, we need to hold the view that letting go is part of our fundamental practice of mindfulness. We have to set the intention to be aware of what we are up to in our daily lives. And we need to be gentle with ourselves, and hold ourselves in loving kindness when we notice we are hanging on tight. We can have compassion for that very human need to not let go. And if we can, it is helpful to have some form of meditation practice, no matter how brief it is, where we can just sit quietly, even for a few minutes, and work with our minds. Focus on our breath, notice when our mind is not on the breath, and gently bring it back. That is all. Really. The more we do that, the more we can let go of the thoughts that our minds wander off on, and bring it with deliberateness and gentleness back to the breath, the more we can let go in our daily lives when we have everything else going on.

So when, for instance, my18 month old and his three year old brother decide to pull all the new groceries out of their bags, even after being told many times not to, and pour their contents all over my apartment building's hallway, perhaps I won't totally lose my mind. Perhaps, instead of freaking out and feeling totally pissed off, I will be able to let go of being right, let go of my anger, my tiredness, and with firmness, pick them each up, bring them up the stairs to the apartment, sit them down at some crayons, and then go clean up the mess, without engaging in an internal or external tirade. I may, ahem, lose it for a moment, and raise my voice just a touch, or express some frustration, but I won't make an enormous deal over it, or scream or use it as evidence of how hard our daily life is or whatever. The letting go will allow the space for me to cheer up, as Chogyam Trungpa writes, and perhaps, just perhaps, laughter might occur, or at least some softening around what is, after all, just another bit of mess in a rather messy world.

It is so easy to feel overwhelmed and frustrated by the daily chaos of raising children. Any tools to help liberate ourselves from this sense of hassle and overwhelm are precious indeed. Letting go can feel like surrendering to groundlessness. And yes, ultimately, that is what we are doing. Letting go isn't sloppy though - it is occurring within enormous discipline and good heart. We can have confidence that each time we open and let go, we are building our courage, our resilience, our flexibility, and our good hearts. Wishing you all good luck this week in letting go with loving kindness and courage.

giving yourself space to be

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space. - Pema Chodron

So, I have just been terribly lax at blogging this summer. Something about the warm, open ended days has made me want to just do anything but write in any depth about any thing. My apologies about that. If given my choice, I would probably spend every day in the summer either lying on my back in the middle of a country meadow or just being at the beach, my feet submerged in water, while my husband fed me watermelon and my children played happily by themselves with the local flora and fauna. And I have actually had a couple of days this summer when such a scenario materialized, more or less. How lucky!

I have been contemplating my difficulty in giving myself and my family the space to just be, whether in the summer, fall, winter or spring. As a society and world, we seem hell bent on keeping ourselves as busy and productive as possible. It is one of the very disorienting things about being a new mother in fact - the sudden surrender of activity, or at least activity that outwardly manifests as such. Nursing or feeding your baby, changing diapers, comforting, bonding - it is actually incredibly demanding work, but much of it looks sedentary, still, and monotonous. Even amongst all this work, there is a lot of just sitting, just being there with your baby as he or she rests or feeds. And of course, with a newborn, you are usually confined to your home for the first few weeks, depending on different circumstances. A new baby forces us to take a long, deep in breath, perhaps for the first time in many years. As in sitting meditation, we can react with a hot, itchy boredom to this, or we can begin to relax, surrender to the present moment, and breathe in deeper, allowing ourselves to just be. In this space, our heart can be touched, deeper perhaps than it has ever been touched before. We can begin to really get to know that bottomless gentleness and love that it contains, as Ani Pema mentions above.

We can do this no matter how old our children are, no matter if we work outside our home or in it. We can find periods each day to breathe in, deeply, and ground ourselves fully in the now, before breathing back out into our busy lives. This can be an internal breath. A letting go of our constant inner activity, our planning, story telling, criticism, gossip, complaining and so on. We can notice our thoughts and let them go, leave ourselves alone for a bit. It can manifest as an external letting go as well. Letting go of a project, an agenda, an activity, even for a moment or two. It can be getting outside, as I often advise - just getting outside, even for a short time, no matter what the weather. You don't have to do anything in particular outdoors. Just open. If you have young children, let them guide you. They will lead you to many important discoveries - a large slug, inching its way along the wet grass. A collection of choke cherries lying on the sidewalk. An interesting crack in the sidewalk. A broken street lamp. A new stray cat on the street, who is so friendly she allows them to rub her tummy and follows us to the old church yard where we like to play. Try not to hurry them along. Linger with them. Allow yourselves the space to be open, curious, attentive to the magic of the world.

We experienced a forced in breath just the other day, because of Hurricane Irene. We lost power for about 24 hours, and were unable to do the laundry, or use the computer, or stay up late doing chores. Instead, we lit our candles, gave the boys each a flashlight, and spent hours playing together in a large tent made up of sheets on our bed, exploring the play of light and shadow. It was a lovely pause, a gift. We could have chosen to be hassled by it, and there was some anxiety about the food warming up in the fridge, but what was there to do other than put it all (along with our ice trays) in the cooler and then let the anxiety go, so we could be with our littles? Hassle was replaced with warmth and laughter. Space.

Give yourself some space to be today. Engage in some aimless wandering outside with your children, or by yourself. Leave yourself alone. You don't always need to be so busy. We are always so afraid of things falling apart without our constant interference. I will let you in on a secret - they fall apart anyway, no matter what we do. So relax. Let go. Let your heart be touched. In that soft, tender spot of stillness, great power exists.

[NOTE: blogger is giving me lots of trouble in terms of formatting, so I apologize for the appearance of the blog, and if this posts appears as one big block of text. I will eventually figure it out when I don't have two nursing toddlers on my lap as I type.]

easing back into things as they are

"Reality is always kinder than the story we tell about it."
 - Byron Katie


Well, I made it through two weeks by myself with the wee ones.  I sadly neglected the blog during that time, but I had to let a lot of things go, in order to really be in accordance with things as they are, rather than in constant conflict with reality.  Which meant that while my little ones got lots of adventures, and kisses and hugs, and stories and games and yummy food, they also got lots of ice cream, some late bedtimes, some videos and a very, very messy home base.  At two different points during my husband's absence, my entire living room was covered with clean laundry that the boys had taken from the laundry bag and strewn everywhere.  Laundry covered every inch of floor and every piece of furniture.  A few times I forgot to feed the cats.  I think a colony of ants may have taken up residence under the living room sofa.   In the meantime, we were at the playground or the firetruck museum or at a friend's house, playing in their pool.  


I had to surrender to a certain level of chaos in order to keep us all rested enough to be joyful in our days together.  I had to let go of my agenda again and again.  It was often funny and a little bit painful to notice how much I wanted to hold onto it, creating so much unnecessary stress and aggression.  Why exactly was I trying to rush my two toddlers out the door just now?  Where did we need to be so urgently?  Oh, at the firetruck museum?  Where we were meeting, um, nobody?  Which is open for the whole day?  Why now was I getting so very frustrated with them, and starting to get more and more tense, on the verge of shouting or tears?  How interesting.  Let's just let that go, shall we?  Breathe in and breathe out.  Connect to my feet on the ground, to my little ones' faces.  They are laughing getting their sandals on together.  Can I open to that sweet moment?  Nothing else has to actually happen right now.  Just this.


A wise teacher once told me that wanting things to be different than they are is inherently aggressive.  I have chewed that one over in my mind often over the intervening years.  It arises again and again with my children.  Noticing when I want things to be different.  It is a daily occurrence.  Noticing, and letting go.  Touching the emotion underneath - the sadness, the exhaustion maybe, maybe even some anger?  And always underneath it all, the fear.  The fear of space.  That is why I rush them out the door.  I somehow cannot rest with this space in the day, the lack of a place I must be, a thing I must accomplish, other than simply being with my children.  Being fully present with them.  All this open ended space, while they explore and grow and learn.  I have difficulty trusting it.  So I have to come back.  Come back to my breath.  Come back to them.  Back to gentleness and compassion for myself, for the children, for my partner.  Noticing the story I have been telling myself and believing in, instead of what actually is.  "Reality is always kinder than the story we tell about it."


Yes, it is.  Always so much kinder, gentler, nuanced and open than the tight little tale we weave and weave again.  So this is the path for me right now.  Noticing the story.  Dropping it.  Holding myself with gentleness so I can hold my little ones with loving kindness.  Welcoming my husband back from retreat.  Laughing at the clean laundry on the floor.  Admitting to my two year old that I am tired, and so I am going to just sit in my rocker for a bit and read a book if he really doesn't want to nap.  Not forcing him to, but just letting him know, gently, that I need to rest even if he doesn't, so I am going to, while still staying with him.  And the very next day, shouting at my little ones after a sleepless night when they knock over all the shrine bowls full of water onto my favorite baby pictures of them.  Then taking a breath, touching my tiredness fully, not making myself wrong for feeling it, or even for getting angry, but coming out and apologizing to them for expressing it so unskillfully, hugging them, and asking them not to do it again.  Up and down.  Back and forth.  On the path and off.  But still, always kinder, gentler than the story I tell about it.


Wishing you all gentleness and a full embrace of reality instead of the story this week.  It can be hard, even painful to let it go.  But I promise you, it really is so much kinder.

Yes, but...

[The essence of the path is saying] Hai! (Yes!) The difficulty is learning to say Hai! without adding “But, but...”

 - Eido Shimano Roshi

I was reading an old issue of Buddhadharma magazine the other day, and came across a wonderful teaching by Eido Shimano Roshi, as summarized above.  The entire essay is beautiful and to the point, but I found myself using the pith part, the "learning to say Hai! (Yes!) without adding "But, but...", turning it over and over in my mind, like a koan.  It was a potent little reminder to me, of how often I pretend to say yes to what is.  I so often add a little or big "but" to my acceptance of things as they are, to other people, to life.


So often when I say "yes" to my children, I add those "but"s.  Sometimes those "but"s are necessary.  "Yes, you may have ice cream, but first we eat our dinner."  "Yes, we may cross the street, but first you must hold my hand."  Sometimes though, it is about not fully giving myself over to them and to the present moment.  "Yes, mama will play with you, but..."  But, first I must do this, or only for a little bit, or this game, not that game, or ... just a thousand little addendum, rather than a clean, open, unequivocal "yes!"  How unfair to them.  How unfair to myself.  This putting of conditions on being with them fully, in the way they ask of me.


My husband is about to go away on retreat halfway across the country for two weeks.  I said "Yes!" to his going, and now I realize I also added some "but"s.  Not voiced, but deeply felt.  "But what about me and the children?" was definitely in there, somewhere.  It's like offering out my hand and then pulling it back, just a little - a small gesture, but definitely apparent and felt by others.


So I am practicing just saying "Yes".  "Yes" to how I am feeling in a particular moment (no internal adding on of "but I really don't want to feel this way".  "Yes" to a request from my children (no adding on of conditions or an internal "but I really would prefer to be sitting down resting right now") and a big "yes" to everything, everything, everything.  Noticing all the little ways I retreat, resent, hold back and won't let go.  Sometimes subtle, sometimes not so much.  It feels good to loosen the tight grasp of ego just a little bit, let go the hard hand that can clutch around the heart.


Just like trusting in basic goodness.  "Yes" we say, "but..."  Let's gently let go of the "but" and just say "yes" to all of it, every bit.  So much more space that way.


Roshi continues:

As you know, we all carry various kinds of emotional, psychological, and intellectual pride, which feeds our resistance, preventing us from simply saying “Hai” from the bottom of our hearts. Your practice may be accompanied by pain, drowsiness, scattered thoughts...and it is difficult maybe for you to simply say “Hai.” But as long as you came here for Zen practice, to improve your state of mind, and to be made less fearful, less irritated, more openhearted, less anxious, and to ultimately become better human beings, why don’t you start by saying, “Hai!”

Just a note:  with my husband away, posting will be light, so I will be reposting some of my older entries that people seem to find useful over the next couple of weeks.  Sending you all huge hugs and peace.

I found this article today and it helped me after several challenging days of trying to relate skillfully to transitions with my little ones, and falling flat on my face a few times.   Yes, that was me losing my mind over there with my two year old who was refusing to nap after tandem  nursing with his 16 month old brother for an hour.  Sigh.  Anyway, it was a good reminder to lighten up and let go, rather than bring things to a painful point.  Wishing you all playfulness!

just a reminder

Maybe more to myself than to anyone - this parenting business is challenging. It's hard.  It can be very lonely, especially in a culture that is anti-child and unsupportive of nurturing.  In a culture where many of us live far from family and close supports.  So be kind.  Be kind to yourself.  Hold yourself in the cradle of loving kindness.  Hold your children in it.  Hold your friends, your family, strangers.  But start with yourself.  You are basically good, sane, wise and compassionate.  It is your true nature, even if you doubt it.  Your good heart and mind are always there, underneath all the other stuff that makes you feel sad, lonely, resentful, angry, jealous and so on.  All that stuff is passing, changing, impermanent.  


Your good, brave heart is underneath it, beating, strong, calling, calling to you all the time.  Hold it in your hands and rock it, as gently as a newborn baby.  Be gentle to yourself.  Give yourself something you need, some space, some kindness, some love. Sending you all a huge hug.

judging or joy?

"When we feel squeezed, there's a tendency for mind to become small. We feel miserable, like a victim, like a pathetic, hopeless case. Yet believe it or not, at that moment of hassle or bewilderment or embarrassment, our minds could become bigger. Instead of taking what's occurred as a statement of personal weakness or someone else's power, instead of feeling we are stupid or someone else is unkind, we could drop all the complaints about ourselves and others. We could be there, feeling off guard, not knowing what to do, just hanging out there with the raw and tender energy of the moment. This is the place where we begin to learn the meaning behind the concepts and the words." - Pema Chodron


So, here I am, feeling off guard a lot lately.  Having children will do that to a person.  Particularly when said children are not behaving in a way that makes you feel or look very good.  Toddlers are not invested in making their parents comfortable or relaxed - they are made to explore, adventure, test boundaries, test their bodies, test the WORLD.  I have been facing my edge again and again lately, as the boys rampage through a play date or down the store aisle - being faced with the choice of reacting habitually (which can mean in my case, overreacting and freaking out) or to rest with my discomfort, my embarrassment, my bewilderment, my feeling stupid or like a bad mama.  Very rich stuff.  


When I can touch the latter and stay with it, I can usually react in a way that helps my children and the situation.  When I can't stay with those uncomfortable feelings, then I tend to shout or apologize unnecessarily to those around me or simply flee the whole situation with them.  Now, sometimes, fleeing with them is truly the sanest thing to do.  But even then, why can't I rest with what has just occurred?  Why do I instead engage in discursiveness with my little ones, lecturing them or myself aloud, when they really can't understand?  Why do I continue to water these little judging seeds, again and again?  I can feel myself retracing the groove of suffering, and yet, I somehow cannot refrain at times from digging it deeper.


It's been a bit since I've written here, because I have been very busy with the littles and with the early summer jam making and the daily chaos of living.  And I have been contemplating this habitual judging I do, that we all do, and how it hurts us.  It's tricky.  Judging ourselves, judging others - it's so habitual, that it can be hard to notice.  Being around other parents can be raw.  It is hard not to compare ourselves, especially if we are newer parents - are they doing it better?  Doing it worse?  I wouldn't do that - oh, I wish I had thought of that - oh, I wish I could do that!  Which leads to - I wish my children were like that - I wish my children weren't like that!  Insidious and harmful.


This parenting thing - well, there is no real "getting it right".  When we notice that we are judging ourselves, our children, or other parents, we can try and pause.  What is the judgment about, really?  For me, it is really about fear, fear that I am not really good.  It is about doubting my basic sanity.  Being basically good doesn't mean you don't mess up.  But it does mean not identifying with the mess - but instead moving through it, cleaning it up and coming back to your fundamental nature of awake compassion.  Easier said than done.  But we can do it, coming back again and again to fresh start, to the present moment that is full of possibilities and space.  Then our innate joy can peek out its head.  We can laugh at ourselves, at the situation. We can touch into some compassion for ourselves, for our children - for the other parents or children we are judging.


One thing I have definitely learned in parenting is that almost anything I judge another parent or child for doing, I will find myself or my own children doing at a future time, unexpectedly or even by design!  I have found the path of meditation to be similar - anything I have judged as wrong in a fellow practitioner - well, I have later discovered that I am guilty of the same thing, as my insight grows clearer!  These moments of finding ourselves out, catching ourselves, can be poignant and very fruitful.  They tenderize our hearts, helping us to open to others, leading us perhaps to lend the harried mother in the grocery store a helping hand rather than shooting her a dirty look.  They can lead us to sit down and give ourselves a break, rather than pushing ourselves through an overly difficult morning with our children while making ourselves wrong for getting mad.  We can have some kindness towards each other and this whole messy business of being human.  And the kindness can lead us to joy.


When I lived in NYC, I used to like to take the Staten Island Ferry out when I got really stressed and claustrophobic.  I would get on the ferry and ride it out into the water, watching Manhattan recede bit by bit, the harbor stretching out between us.  It created physical space for me, allowed me some breathing room and perspective.  When we find ourselves judging, just being willing to notice and touch our hearts by connecting to our breath can do the same thing.  It can create some much needed space, some clear water between our goodness and the shore of our discursive thoughts.  We can do this throughout our days.  And when all else fails - get outdoors if you can.  No matter what the weather.  I took my two littles into a pouring rainstorm last week because we were all going a bit mad indoors together.  The rain brought us laughter and ventilated our irritation.  I was able to stop judging my little ones for their exuberant energy indoors.  I was able to stop judging myself for somehow being a "bad" mama, not being able to get my toddlers to "behave".  I was able to laugh at the very idea of that.


Wishing you all joy this week and always.  Wishing you great love on this parenting path as you feel off guard, and approach your edge, again and again.

everybody's in trouble

"Everybody's in trouble. Everybody, every minute, is tortured, suffering a lot. We shouldn't just ignore them and save ourselves alone. That would be a tremendous crime. In fact, we can't just save ourselves, because our neighbors are moaning and groaning all over the place... We can't just try and go to sleep. The rest of the world is going to wake us up with their pain." -Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

This is a useful quote to contemplate when you are feeling stuck. Stuck in your own stuff, your own obstacles, unable to access a wider view. When we can raise our gaze from our own claustrophobic ruminations, it can be amazing what we see, heart breaking, shaking. It can definitely ventilate our own little situation. This quote came to my mind today when reading a terrible and terribly important article in the New York Times over the debacle of "care" in New York state's institutions for disabled children. I won't link to it, as it is a very triggering piece, containing descriptions of abuse and worse. But it is there if you would like to read it, on their front page. I read it this morning, and wept aloud, as my two little boys played at my feet.

There is so much suffering in the world. How do we not turn away? How do we not turn away when we can't even stay with our own suffering, or that of our children? How do we turn towards it, and stay with it? Because if we can do that, we can maybe, possibly, help someone else. Help our children. Help our family. Our neighbors, our friends, our enemies. Help those who we secretly might believe can't ever be helped. This is our task.

We can learn by helping our children. We can learn by staying with their suffering, holding them when they cry, acknowledge their hurts, large and small, instead of covering them up with the quick "you're ok, you're ok" as we shush and shush. What's that about? That "you're ok?" Is that what we want to hear when we are crying? Someone telling us that we are really alright, that it isn't a big deal?

I had a friend who very tragically lost her husband at a young age, in a very sudden, abrupt way. People tried to make her feel better. They tried to cheer her up, to distract her, to tell her it would be ok. But she wouldn't do it. She wasn't ok. She wasn't going to be ok for awhile. And even then, it would be a different sort of ok, not the kind people mean when they say it. She needed to grieve. She needed to really feel her hurt, her deep, wrenching pain, and to cry. Some friends could not abide it. Some friends dropped her, feeling she was indulging in it. I would go and visit and just sit with her while she cried and cried and cried. I didn't say very much. There wasn't much to say. I just sat, and tried to stay open, until the tears stopped. It wasn't easy. It was scary. Her grief reminded me that everything is impermanent. That none of us can escape pain.

We can breathe with our children, being present with them, noticing when we want to shush them or brush over their hurts, so that we can "get on" with our day. We can instead acknowledge that what is happening, right now, is our day. We can open to our own discomfort with their tears. Acknowledge our own fear, anxiety and old hurts that can be opened when witnessing their pain. We can practice tonglen, or maitri.

This willingness to stay with suffering takes bravery. And we can take this brave heart out into the larger world, and by doing so, our children will in turn trust their own bravery. Everybody is suffering. Everybody, everybody. We can't ignore their pain. As Chogyam Trungpa writes, their pain will wake us up. Once we are able to find the courage to peek out from our own stuckness, our own unwillingness to open, and begin to breathe in some fresh air and relief, we can somehow find a way to bring that same relief to others, in any way we can. It might be a very small way. That's ok. In fact, that is stupendous. Just finding the bravery to hold our children when we would prefer to stifle their tears - that is enormous. Or the bravery to smile at our neighbor. That is huge. Who knows where that step will lead? We are watering the seeds of bravery, compassion, opening. A smile can lead to total transformation.

These little, small seeds we water can grow into mighty trees. Trees that extend the shade of compassion and liberation to many, many beings. Let us practice not turning away. Let us work to stay, just stay, and open, to everybody. To their pain. That can be enough. To just sit there, open, and let their pain in.

stumbling along

"The path is personal experience, and one should take delight in those little things that go on in our lives, the obstacles, seductions, paranoias, depressions, and openness. All kinds of things happen, and that is the content of the journey, which is extremely powerful and important." - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

I just wanted to update a bit on my last post. Last night, after I posted it, my youngest proceeded to wake up every hour on the hour wanting to nurse back to sleep. When I finally asked my husband to please take him for a bit so I could get some rest, my little one screamed and struggled so violently for me in my husband's arms, that he vomited. When my husband put him down to clean him up, my babe ran down the hall to my bedroom and banged on the door screaming until I got up, picked him up, and nursed him back down. At 2:00 a.m.

So, was I happy and cheerful about this turn of events? No, I was not. Was I mindful? Well, I was exhausted. At first, I was not mindful. I was just overwhelmed with fatigue, and a bit of resentment mixed with tears. I cried for a good ten minutes along with my babe, and went onto Facebook and posted as my status update a simple "ugh". Because that is how I felt. I didn't feel at peace with what was happening. I felt utterly defeated by it.

And that is ok. I noticed. I noticed that I felt defeated. I noticed that I was spreading this feeling of defeat into the wider world through updating my Facebook page (hangs head in shame) and that I was having a hard time keeping the view of basic goodness. In the noticing, my tears turned from tears of frustration to tears of compassion, compassion for me, and for my poor little boy who just cannot sleep through the night, even at almost 15 months of age. And compassion for my older son, who was sleepily calling out to us, asking us to please "shhh", and for my husband, who had to get up early for a very hard day at work, and felt helpless in the face of our little one's distress. This compassion was like a soft blanket that held us all together in our discomfort, and helped us relax a bit, and finally, blessedly, go to sleep. Until the cat jumped on the bed and woke us up.

And that's how it goes. You stumble. You get back up. You walk. For years I used as my email signature the following quote by Rabbi Hillel:

"I get up, I walk, I fall down-
Meanwhile, I keep dancing"

That is Snow Lion. The willingness to keep dancing, to keep walking along the path, even when it is really, really hard to do so. To keep turning to gentleness, compassion, patience, and letting go when all you want to do is scream, tear your hair out and run away. This is bravery. This is enlightened warriorship. Wish me luck.

this is why it's called "path"

"Whatever our level of practice, there will always be obstacles. The Tibetan word for obstacle, parche, means “what cuts our progress.” In fact, sometimes the more we are engaged in practice, the greater the obstacles become. If we understand that obstacles are part of the spiritual path, we can learn from them. Obstacles can be messages. We need to wake up and look at what is going on. On a deeper, more profound level, we can include obstacles in our journey. This is a more challenging approach."
- Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

I apologize for falling silent here for a bit - I have been offline for a few weeks now, working with many obstacles. Spring has always been a charged time for me - a time of great blooming of karma. This spring has been no exception - so many challenges have been arising that I simply had to take a break and try to put things in order in the evenings when I would normally be blogging.

My children have been having major sleep disturbances, in that they are going through a period where they are refusing to sleep. They are going to sleep late, they are waking up at an ungodly hour, and are often refusing to nap - or napping with great difficulty and for very brief periods. I have tried to investigate the reasons for all this, and have finally thrown my hands up and told myself "this too shall pass." That is the good news about impermanence - the good things pass away, but so does the really crappy stuff. But I have definitely had some very dark moments in the last few weeks, when being completely sleep deprived, I have had to catch brief snatches of sleep whenever and wherever, and when that doesn't work, have resorted to yelling at my babies to "go to SLEEP!!!" Funny, but that didn't work.

Within all this sleep drama is also the fact that my mother is dying, and this has made my heart ache in ways that the lack of sleep seems to exacerbate. A hard time. And I have gotten very stuck. VERY stuck indeed. I have found myself in certain moments caught in an intense paranoia, believing my thoughts that this situation is very solid, very permanent, and not changing at all. This of course, has brought out my fear and aggression, and my babes had to deal with a very cranky, not nice mama at times. My patience flew out the window, and I felt totally unresourceful and isolated, very lonely and almost in despair.

So, what to do in these kinds of moments? Just breathe. Hah! But it's true. Find your breath. Touch your heart. Feel the tenderness, the fear. Breathe it in. Breathe out relief, breathe out space, breathe out comfort. Hold yourself in loving kindness. This has helped tremendously. Admitting to myself that I feel so stuck, so in despair, so at times, desperate for things to be different. Which of course, leads to aggression. But the acknowledging of it does the opposite - it creates space and gentleness.

Then what? Then go outside. Seriously. Get physical spacious sky over your heads. I did this, even though it has literally been pouring rain for the past TWO WEEKS. I took my little ones outside in their rain coats and boots and we stomped in puddles and splashed each other and played in the mud and rolled in the huge wet holes opening in the damp earth. We played in a sopping wet, empty playground, ending up covered in mud and exhilarated by the physical connection with earth and sky and water. It was great. It ventilated a claustrophobic household situation and helped us appreciate each other again. Or I should say, it helped me appreciate them again.

And there was of course, ice cream. Lots of ice cream for mama. And some for the little ones as well. It was that kind of a week.

What else? Remembering impermanence. That they will eventually sleep again. That I could relax a bit and let things go. I could surrender to them and their sleep pattern. When I was able to do that and not fight it like a crazy banshee, it changed, miraculously. It didn't get perfect, or even significantly better, but they have been sleeping ever so slightly more deeply, and napping ever so much better, and I have just accepted that my house and life are going to be in chaos while I nap whenever they do in order that I don't yell at everyone every minute of the day. Ahem.

There is an image in the Shambhala buddhist teachings of the Perky Snow Lion, bounding joyfully through the mountain highlands. The Snow Lion is joyful because it has complete confidence - he or she takes complete delight in the discipline of mindfulness, and has compassion for all beings - so much compassion, that the thought of others fills it with joy. The Snow Lion has a great sense of humor and curiosity. There is no stuckness - just big, bounding leaps and delight in things as they are. No doubt. I have been holding the image of the Snow Lion in my mind, and letting it guide me. No doubt. Confidence, humor, compassion, joy, mindfulness, discipline - these are the tools that are helping me through the day.

I have been falling on my face a lot lately, unlike the Snow Lion. But I keep picking myself back up and trying another leap. This is why it is called a path, and not an "accomplishment" or "wow, you did it!" It takes constant cultivation, and nurturing of our willingness to open. So, that's where I have been. Where I am. Trying to jump into openness instead of hunkering down in my stuckness, which, believe me, is no fun for me or my children.

opening our eyes

Becoming a bodhisattva is a matter of opening our hearts, and that can be as simple as opening our eyes.
-Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche


I have been practicing opening my eyes lately. It is so easy to keep them closed, or at least downcast. Even when with our children and closest loved ones. So easy to close our hearts up and just hide. It can seem easier, because other people, especially those who make the most demands on us, can seem so draining, so threatening even. So we close our eyes. And we suffer, and the world around us suffers too.

I have been sick again, and my children too. The temptation to just shut everyone out has been strong. When my children wake up again and again, demanding to be nursed when I am still sick- let's just say gentle surrender is not always my first response. And the daytime has been challenging as well, because I have lacked the energy to relate to them, so we have fallen into some not so great habits, like video watching, just to keep everyone relatively contained and allow mama to rest a bit. The challenge with these habits for me is once I am better, like today, the children still want to cling to them, no matter what distractions I offer or what boundaries I try and set. As always, I am finding gentleness to be the best tool, but sometimes it takes me a few attempts at manipulation or frustrated struggle to finally turn to it. Aggression is such a challenging habitual pattern to transform. Its roots are so deep, and have been cultivated so long. So I have to acknowledge that it is there, and cradle that anger, or just that frustration with things as they are, with great loving kindness. I continue to find that I need to be gentle with myself if I wish to be consistently gentle with my children and others.

My eldest was so frustrated today. He has been cooped up inside a bit too much due to illness, and the house is in chaos. He had several epic meltdowns. Finally, when it was dinner time, he insisted that he wanted to go outside, right that minute ("right now!" is currently his favorite phrase), to splash in the puddles in the rain. I was exhausted, trying to get dinner on the table, dealing with my younger son who has been feverish, and just at my limit. I noticed I was getting upset, getting impatient with him. I noticed that what I was saying to him and the way I was saying it was not working. It wasn't helping. And I noticed that I had my eyes closed. Literally. When I was responding to him, I was closing my eyes in frustration, placing plates on the table. So I stopped. I stopped what I was doing, and I opened my eyes. I looked at him.

He was standing at the door, crying, trying to open it. My heart opened. I remembered that he is small. I remembered that he has had a tough week. That he hasn't felt very well. That he has so many limitations due to his age and size, so many things he can't do, can't express, can't control. I didn't need to be so rigid. I told him that once he ate his dinner, quickly, we would go out in the rain before the sun went down, to splash in the puddles.

And we did. We ate dinner very quickly, and while daddy took my youngest, my eldest and I went for a fairly long walk in the rain, with much puddle splashing. It was cold and sleety as well as rainy out. But it was lovely. It made him so happy. We got to see the street lights go on - he pointed the first one out to me with great excitement, and together we made some wishes. He wished to meet Thomas the Tank Engine, and I wished for a baby sister for him and his brother (a mama can dream, no?!). We were able to rescue a worm from a deep puddle, and we splashed for blocks. We got to pass the firehouse and say goodnight to the engines, to the dark library, to the elderly man who we always see walking his dog in the morning. We were both quiet during the last part of our walk, just holding hands, walking and splashing together. Ordinary magic. All because I just opened my eyes, for a moment.

If we can open our eyes and our hearts to our children, our family and friends, then we can begin to practice opening them to the larger world as well. We can see where we don't have to be so rigid, that perhaps what we think we have to protect ourselves from isn't really threatening, and that maybe our "selves" don't exist in quite the way we think they do - so there isn't really anything to protect anyway. We don't need to be so afraid. We can help. We can help our children, and we can help others as well, outside of our family, our neighborhood, our community, our country. We can open our eyes, and really look at beings. What do they need? Why do they suffer? How can we help?

Surrendering to the present moment

Our life is completely full even though we might be completely bored. Boredom creates aloneness and sadness, which are also beautiful. Beauty in this sense is the total experience of things as they are. It is very realistic. - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

I feel that life is constantly offering us the opportunity to either open ourselves to what is, or to close the gates of our heart and mind tight against the present moment. My children are constantly pushing me to open wide to the world and the present moment, much wider maybe than I had ever planned on doing. I can either fight with the present moment, or I can relax into it, and find the beauty described by Chogyam Trungpa above. It can be so nuanced, the way we close ourselves off to what is actually going on, how much we can resist what is, because we are so afraid of ...of what exactly? Of space, and of boredom, which is what we seem to project onto our experience of simply being present. Whether in meditation or in our daily lives, we can become so afraid of boredom that we forget it is full of beauty.

For many months I have been eagerly awaiting the opening of a new library branch a mere three blocks from where we live, hoping that the librarian would offer a regular storytime for children. It was finally completed, and I trekked down one day with my two boys to check it out. The library was not yet open to the public but the kind librarian invited us in and gave us a tour of the facilities, which includes a lovely children's area. She was wonderful with my toddler, and he seemed excited to play with the toys and the books. And she informed me that yes, a weekly storytime for toddlers would be offered. I was thrilled, and left that day with much excitement and many promises to my toddler (who didn't want to leave) that we would return the following week for our first storytime.

The day and hour come, and we trek over once again, my toddler very excited. We enter the building and immediately, excitement turns into reluctance. I have to repeatedly coax him just to stay inside. We approach the story circle very slowly, very hesitantly. He backs off, and sits in the middle of the book aisle, refusing to budge. He is on the verge of tears. I continue to coax him, trying to entice him into the circle with the other children, who are happily interacting with one another and the librarian. He instead turns to the puzzle shelf, pulls out a puzzle and begins to point to it insistently, wanting to play with it. Story time begins, with the librarian singing with the children. I continue to try and push him verbally away from the puzzle, and into the cozy happy circle that I want to be in with him. I am beginning to feel the rising energy of frustration and the familiar tiredness that accompanies it. I begin to weave a mental storyline about my young son, about how cautious he is, and what a challenge it can be. How it worries me. How it must be bad, right?? And then I realize . . .that's just it, isn't it? I want to be in that circle. My son doesn't. Why isn't that ok with me? Why can't I just accept him for who he is in this moment? Why can't I accept what he wants to do? And so, I drop it. I drop my storyline, my frustration, my "but I want him to . . ." I stop trying to persuade him to join the others. I unzip the puzzle bag and take out the pieces, and hold my newborn as my eldest happily begins to play with the lovely new puzzle full of trains, trucks and airplanes - his favorite things! My energy returns and I can enjoy him, his baby brother, the sound of the other children singing, responding to the lovely story the librarian is reading. We are outside of the circle, but in our own cozy space.

Not that we must always surrender to our children's wishes - my son doesn't like to go to the doctor either, but obviously, he must do so, and I bring him to her willingly or no. But so often, we seem to hesitate or resist our children because we have a particular agenda for them that blinds us to what they actually need in that moment. When we are busy pursuing our agenda rather than just being with our children, friction occurs and drains us of energy. There is so much we would like to do, to busy ourselves with! And they would prefer to just sit there and read the same story a thousand times or watch that ant crawl up the leaf or do the same puzzle over and over again. We feel the subtle pull away from them, ignoring the incredible richness right there in front of us, that they continue to point out to us again and again. There is so much joy in surrendering to that fullness! Just as in meditation practice, the more we can relax into just being there, whether with our own minds or with our children, the more pure delight begins to inform our experience.

I continue to bring my son to story time, and he continues to prefer to play off to the side with a puzzle. Sometimes he will approach the circle and listen in, but for now he is happier outside of it. And I continue to accept that and delight in his individual exploration of the library. Eventually he will join the circle - or maybe he won't. As long as I continue to surrender to who he is and what he needs, it is all perfect.