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.

new year aspirations

Bodhichitta is essentially a quality of warmth, an experience of our connection with all beings and with all things. It's said traditionally that it's expressed as a wish or an aspiration, initially expressed as a strong longing or wish that nobody suffer, and that we could in some way in the course of our lifetime, as much as possible, help to alleviate suffering in the world. - Pema Chodron

One more day left in 2011, and to be honest, I am happy to see the back of this year and ready to greet the new one. In these last days of the dying year, my mind turns to aspirations. Not resolutions - I've written about that trap before. When we make resolutions, we are often setting ourselves up to fail, to repeat the constant cycle of aggression and suffering rather than cultivating seeds of gentleness and compassion. Aspirations are powerful because they are more open ended - we are not so much attached to a particularly specific result, but to a slower, more encompassing transformation in our lives or patterns. Our personal patterns and the patterns of our family.

What are your aspirations for yourself and your family in the coming year? For your parenting path? The fundamental aspiration of bodhichitta, as Pema Chodron describes above, is to cultivate our fundamental warmth and connection with all things, and prevent and alleviate suffering. This aspiration seems a powerful one to continue to return to on the parenting path, so that even at our most stuck, our most habitual, our most overwhelmed, we can breathe, touch our hearts, and return to some kind of gentleness. The gentleness has to begin with ourselves. We cannot be consistently gentle and compassionate with our children, our partners, our friends, strangers, unless we can be so with our own basically good selves.

My own aspirations for the new year are gentleness, compassion, understanding, and mind of no complaint. The last one has to do with continued mindfulness of speech, whether spoken or written, and refraining from complaint and negativity. On a more subtle level, I have the aspiration to continue to work with my thoughts, noticing when they are complaining or negative thoughts, and holding those thoughts with gentleness and compassion, rather than pushing them away or justifying them. I feel that by continuing to return to these aspirations, I will be nurturing the seeds of basic goodness in my family.

What are your aspirations? Whatever they may be, I wish you all a beautiful year to come, full of joy and sweetness.

gentleness during this season

During this time of year, it can be easy to put our children into situations where they are set up to fail. Where there is too much stimulation, too much going on, too much forced affection, too many expectations. Because of our own hope and fear in family and friendly gatherings, we can meet our children with a lack of understanding and compassion when they act out or do not conform with how we or others think they should be behaving during these times.

An important part of mindfulness during this season is to continue to cultivate gentleness and understanding towards our children. We can look at our schedule and see where things need to be dropped in favor of providing some quiet time for our family. We can provide some extra nurturing to ourselves and our children to bolster everyone for interactions with groups of family and friends. We can stay aware of our own expectations - are we projecting lots of hope and fear onto a situation? Are we being influenced by how others may be viewing our children, rather than viewing them from a place of basic goodness, compassion, and awareness of what their experience of the gathering, the gift, the person actually is?

Rather than reacting with disappointment and aggression when our children do not act as we think they should during this time, can we continue to cultivate gentleness, by acknowledging our own fear or sadness around what has occurred and out of that soft spot, helping our children by reassuring them, cuddling them, acknowledging their difficulty, their discomfort, and letting them know it is ok to feel what they are feeling?

My own family will be attending a Christmas gathering where I know my children will be overstimulated and will most likely, not be at their best. I am laying the ground this week by continuing to find spaces for us to pause and reconnect with the ground of goodness, to join our bodies and minds in the same place, to be gentle, gentle and again, gentle. There are lots of opportunities during the holiday times to really work skillfully with what is, to be aware of the story line we are creating around situations, and to cultivate our appreciation and compassion. This may actually be the greatest gift of this time!
Wishing everyone a mindful and peaceful season.

cultivating appreciation

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving here in the United States, I find it useful to consciously take on the daily practice of cultivating appreciation. Appreciation, while it encompasses and encourages gratitude, is a bit deeper than just being thankful. It includes deep respect and sacredness. Appreciation nurtures trust in the basic goodness and brilliance of the world and its beings. To water the seeds of appreciation in our daily life brings great joy to our time with children. When we are able to model appreciation and reverence for our tasks, our environment, our family, our neighbors, even our burdens - our children witness basic goodness and dignity in action.

The teacher Gaylon Ferguson writes in his book Natural Wakefulness: Discovering the Wisdom We Were Born With

"The atmosphere surrounding meditation is warm and welcoming. We are cultivating appreciation, friendliness, a sense of gratitude for what we already have and are. This undercuts the speed and restlessness of materialism of all sorts."

To begin cultivating appreciation in our daily life with children, we can work with mindfulness to create a similar atmosphere of warmth, welcoming and understanding. We can work with our habitual pattern of judging our experience and things as "good" or "bad", "for us" or "against us". Using mindfulness, we can notice when we are engaged in negative speech (whether internal or external), and then make the choice to change our speech. We can treat ourselves with gentleness and acceptance, which will naturally extend out to others. Rather than looking in the mirror and greeting ourselves with a negative commentary of our flaws, we can smile and appreciate that we have a human body. Even if we are ill or disabled, there is something that our body does well, that works within it - our minds, our hearts, the blood flowing, our hair growing - something.

It can be easy this time of year to focus on what we don't have, on what we want to have, instead of taking a breath and the time to acknowledge everything we do possess. We can notice throughout our days when we are focusing on what is wrong - what is broken, who is misbehaving, when the weather isn't cooperating, the heat won't go on - we can always find a lot! Try to notice if you are dwelling on these obstacles, telling yourself or others stories about them, instead of just relating to them, cleanly. Then try to consciously notice what is working in your world! If we can pause and drop our projections and labeling, we will actually find, no matter how dire our circumstances are, that there is at least a little bit of magic and beauty and flow in our days, if we can only make ourselves available to it. Can we drop our resentment about the weather enough to notice the delight our children take in the rain falling down? Can we drop our scolding of a recalcitrant child long enough to see the fear or discomfort that caused the misbehavior? Can we notice the hawk circling overhead as we wait for the tow truck next to our broken down car? You get the idea.

So, in these days leading up to United States Thanksgiving, I am trying to pause each day, many times a day, and just honor my children, my physical space, animals, trees, my body, the food I am eating, the people I am passing - and just open to their wonder and sacredness. Sometimes, appreciation is as simple as bowing and acknowledging that this is how things are right now, and that this will also change. As simple as tasting our tears as they fall and savoring their salty warmth, another indication that yes, we are still alive, and that being alive is an extraordinary fluke, a gift, no matter how painful at times. We can appreciate how no matter how bad our day or week or year may be, the good earth is holding us up, the good sky is encompassing us, the sun is shining or the rain or snow are falling, nourishing many beings. The air is flowing through our lungs, in and out, in and out. All these little, interconnected, incredibly vast things that actively sustain us as we move through our days. And in every acknowledgement, we can bow to our children for being their brilliant, shining selves, whether smiling or screaming. Wishing you many days of appreciation and joy.

wonderful reminders

I often find myself returning to the amazing dharma book "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach. Ms. Brach is a compassionate, insightful and wonderful teacher - I really can't recommend the book enough. I was looking at some old interviews with her the other day about her book, and came across this wonderful teaching, which I am reprinting in full, because it is just so good :). This is her response to a question about working with depression and anxiety, or other painful emotions. These gateways she discusses are powerful tools to use in our daily life and practice, and gifts we could give with great love to our children. Enjoy:

We suffer because we have forgotten who we are and our identity has become confined to the sense of a separate, usually deficient self. All difficult emotions-fear and anger, shame and depression-arise out of this trance of what I call false self.

I’ve found that whenever I am really suffering, on some level I am believing and feeling that “something is wrong with me.” Over the years I’ve been drawn to three primary gateways for awakening from this trance. In the Buddhist tradition they are referred to as the three refuges:

One (called “sangha”) is loving relationship-both live contact with loved ones and also meditation on the love that’s in my life. In the moments of remembering love, there is an opening out of the sense of separate self. For me, reflecting on love has included prayer to the beloved, to what I experience as the loving awareness that is my source. When I feel separate and stuck, that loving presence might seem like it’s apart from me and “out there.” But by reaching out in longing and prayer, I’m carried home to the loving presence that is intrinsic to my Being.

A second gateway (“dharma” or truth) is taking refuge in the present moment. The training of meditation is a gift as it has helped me to pause, wake up out of thoughts and contact my moment to moment experience. When I am no longer running away or resisting what is happening inside me, I reconnect with the space and compassion that has room for whatever is going on.

A third gateway (“buddha” or “buddha nature”) is turning towards awareness itself. Most of the time we are paying attention to the foreground of experience-to our thoughts, feelings and sensations. What we are missing out on is the background of experience, the formless dimension of Being itself. By asking questions like “What is aware right now?” or “What is knowing these sounds?” or “Who am I?” we begin to intuit our own presence or Beingness. The signs of this presence are space, stillness and silence.

For myself and so many I’ve worked with, becoming familiar with this formless dimension of who we are makes it possible to open with love to the changing expressions of life within and around us. It allows us to make peace with living and dying, and to live our moments fully.

Wishing everyone connection with your own Beingness today and every day. Much love to you all - you are all Buddhas!

painful reminders

We can stop looking for some idealized moment when everything is simple and secure. This second of experience, which could be painful or pleasurable, is our working basis. What makes all the difference is how we relate to it.
- Pema Chodron

I had the painful reminder today that when I lose my temper with my little ones, it is so very, very rarely about what they are or are not doing. Instead, it is most often the result of me carrying the past and/or the future into the present moment. My worries, my story lines, my fears, my hopes. I am caught up in all that when suddenly, one of my children acts out or does something that is upsetting. Or like today, when my eldest got a pricker in his finger and refused to let me help him in any way, but instead screamed in pain, complaining that it hurt him, for five entire blocks, then in front of our apartment house, then up the stairs as I carried him to our apartment, both fighting me from touching him, but refusing to go up the stairs himself.

I shouted. I told him "to walk up those stairs." I told him, "no, we are not going to just stand outside here and scream." I said, "I am very frustrated right now, because I want to help you and you won't let me." I suppose I could have said all of the above gently, but I did not. I was angry. I was angry because I have been having one of the worst months I have had in years and years, a month full of obstacles and threats. Challenges and setbacks. I was angry because I was looking forward to going to the library storytime with my little ones, which we have not been able to do for quite some time due to several of the aforementioned obstacles and setbacks. I was angry because on the last three outings I have taken my children on, they have either gotten hurt or had a huge tantrum that forced us to leave said outing often almost as soon as we had gotten there. I was angry because I am worried about where we are going to live. I was angry because I am worried about getting food on our table. I was angry because my mother is dying. And so on. It had nothing to do with my poor little boy and his very uncomfortable finger.

And it is at times like these, when I totally lose it, that I just can fall so easily into despair. It is so easy to use an outburst like this as evidence of what a failure I am as a mother. But instead, I can use a time like this to be more gentle, kinder to myself. Pema Chodron says:

Openness actually starts to emerge when you see how you close down. You see how you close down, how you yell at someone, and you begin to have some compassion.

If we can see how we shut down and yell, then we can begin to understand how others can yell too, or how they can hurt us or others. It comes from their own suffering, just as those moments when we do it comes from our suffering. So again, we are presented with the choice - close or open? Touch that tender, broken heart of our's or pretend it isn't tender at all, and wrap ourselves in duality and aggression? In being right?

So, I began again. I apologized to my son for shouting. I got a bowl of warm water, and had his little brother splash in it. This helped my eldest relax enough to try putting his hand in it. We were home again, stuck inside on a beautiful day, story time a lost event, but he was calm again, and the pricker floated out, as I knew it would. His younger brother, who had been very upset at having to leave the library, played happily with some blocks. I got some support online from caring friends, who have been there, in that same kind of painful, raw moment. Things changed. I had to let go. Let go of my worries. Of my story line. Of my hopes for the day. Of my little one letting me help him, even. The letting go was the opening up.

I haven't been writing here often because of all the obstacles my family is facing currently, but you are all in my thoughts. I hope you and your little ones are able to relax into whatever moment is arising, and let go again.

cultivating joy

The Buddha said that we are never separated from enlightenment. Even at the times we feel most stuck, we are never alienated from the awakened state. - Pema Chodron

I have been working the last couple of weeks to cultivate joy, in these last dying days of summer. This is a choice I have to make on a daily basis - what to cultivate and what to reject. It can be so much easier to cultivate resentment, dissatisfaction, inattention, mindless indulgence in entertainment and so on. Whatever we put our attention on each moment is the seed we are watering in our hearts and minds. What do we choose to grow? Especially while raising up our children?

At those times when we feel most stuck in our habitual patterns, our environments, our relationships - we can choose to open our hearts to our basic goodness. When we are feeling most stuck, we can remember that who we are is awake and sane. Even when we are feeling totally crazy and overwhelmed. We can turn our minds outward, to the open sky above, a sunbeam in the dusty corner, a smile on our child's face, a beautiful dandelion struggling up through the concrete. What nurtures your goodness? What reminds you of your true nature? For me, in these last few days, it has meant turning my back on the chaos in my apartment and driving with my little ones out to a local farm to celebrate the fall harvest, pick apples, and enjoy the sheep and chickens. It has meant baking my mother's apple pie, even though it makes my heart ache knowing she can no longer bake it herself. It has meant staying in and cleaning my kitchen from top to bottom because the chaos was dampening my spirits and making me cranky with my children. It has meant bringing some straw home from the farm for the neighbor's bunny, left each day in a hard metal cage with no soft floor. It made the children feel better to see him snuggled in the hay.

What can you do today to remind you of your true, joyous nature? To remind your children of their own? To water the seeds of goodness?

you deserve love

"Treat yourself as your own beloved child." - Pema Chodron


I wrote a letter the other day to my mother, who is slowly, slowly dying.  She has a very hard time speaking now, so we can't really talk on the phone.  I have been wanting to write her a letter for quite awhile, before it is too late to tell her that I love her, that I am grateful for the nurturing she gave me, which now runs like a thread to my own little ones.


There is also a thread of neurosis that runs through to them, from my own mother and father, and their parents, and their parents, and on and on down the line to the very beginning, wherever that may be.  It's up to me to continue weaving the thread of compassion and nurture, and cut that of neurosis, again and again as my children grow.  It's very hard some days.  Other days, it is easier.  I am calmer.  Clearer. More present.  I can see when the  taut thread of aggression, shame or resentment begins to peak out.  And on the hard days, the thread seems to slip from my mouth, and there I am, centuries of habitual patterns pouring out onto my wee ones' heads.


Then I need to regroup, think "fresh start" and begin again.  Come back onto the path.  Regret, remediate and renew my aspiration to transform.  Notice I don't say "to do better". I think this whole "doing better" business just hurts us.  It seems to reaffirm our doubts about ourselves - that we are somehow messed up, flawed, damaged, need improvement.  It's not that we need to improve - we need to uncover.  We need to stop believing the stories we tell ourselves.  We need to see through our confused thoughts and rest in the basic goodness, sanity, joy and wisdom of our true natures.  We need to believe, really believe that basic goodness is who we are.  All that other...stuff...it's temporary confusion.  Like the clouds in front of the sun on a rainy day.  The fresh wind of insight or compassion blows - and there is the sun again, brilliant and strong.


When I really get stuck in "needing to do better" or too tangled in that thread of neurosis, I need to rock myself in the cradle of loving kindness.  I need to treat myself, as Ani Pema says above, as my "own beloved child". It is so hard to be patient, kind, loving when we are unable to be any of that with our own, dear selves.  One of things I wrote in the letter to my mother was that I have always had a very hard time loving myself.  And I thanked her for loving me, despite the many challenges I presented her with, despite the many times I must have been really, truly hard to love without reservations.  We all deserve that kind of love.  Most of the time, we look to others to give us that all encompassing, compassionate, non-judging love.  We look to lovers, to parents, to teachers, to friends, even, sadly, to our own children.  No one else can give it to us.  We need to give it to ourselves.


I am still learning how to do that.  It starts, I have found, with gentleness.  With compassion.  With forgiveness.  With knowing that falling off of the path is as much a part of it as walking it straight and strong.  The important part is getting back on.  The important part is knowing that every other human being has felt and thought and probably done all those things you think only you are bad enough to have felt, thought or done.  The important part is knowing that there is no such thing as a perfect mother or father.  That we all do the best we can in every moment.  That children are resilient.  That to aspire to transform that thread of neurosis is the first step to transforming it into nurture.  That just to notice that thread of neurosis is the first step to liberation.  That your basic birth right as a human being is goodness, joy and sanity.


My mother is unable to hold me in her own arms - not because I am too big, but because her's are too weak.  She is unable to tell me she loves me, because her mouth and throat muscles don't work anymore, or at least not very well.  So, I working on holding myself, rocking myself in kindness, whispering sweet words of love.  It seems that after I do that, it is even easier to do the same for my own children.  The thread of nurture seems to grow so much stronger, truer, lasting.  I can see it spool out, into their hearts, carrying centuries of compassion and gentleness.

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.

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.

what are you encouraging?

"Pay attention to your life. What environmental influences are you encouraging?" - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche


Sakyong Mipham is my teacher.  As with all great teachers, whenever I read a teaching by him or hear him speak, it is like what he is saying is meant just for me.  It always seems to be exactly what I need to hear, or something that has been crawling around in my brain trying to articulate itself into being, a vague unease scratching around, and then POW - he puts it into words for me to hear.


So it was when the above quote appeared on his Facebook page the other day (yes, all the Rinpoches seem to have their own Facebook pages, and to be honest, it is awesome.  I LOVE seeing the profound, true dharma mixed up with all the status updates about children and partners and parties and so on.  Very vajrayana, very tantric - the dharma is about this daily living stuff, not to be sequestered away in some untouchable place).  Anyway,  I saw this and it connected right to my heart.  I have been vaguely anxious about the day to day environment I am providing for my family.  About the influences that have crept in, or that I have been, perhaps, unable to discard from my previous life.  Mental influences, physical influences.  What we are spending time each day doing, what I am bringing into our physical space, or neglecting to take out of it.  I had been forgetting to ask myself "is this helpful?" and even worse, I had forgotten to stop and listen to the answer.  Ahem.


Screen-free week was a wonderful opportunity to step back and begin to unwind the tangled web of media that can, at times, dominate our home life to the detriment of our children.  But it is useful to go deeper.  To pay attention, as Rinpoche says.  What are we encouraging in our home?  What habits of mind, of speech, of relating?  We have to look at ourselves.  What seeds are we watering in our own minds and hearts, our own daily habits, that our children see and learn from?


What can we do to sow seeds of nurturing and goodness in our home?  Seeds that when they blossom, will help our children have confidence in their basic goodness?  What books?  What food?  What speech?  What kind of play?  What daily habits, both individual and familial?  These are useful questions to ask ourselves.  I have been trying to pause throughout the day when a particular habit makes itself known - is this working?  Does this encourage sanity or does it create anxiety?  Does this create compassion or aggression?  Togetherness or separateness?  Dignity or chaos?


I have some changes I need to make to our physical home and to our daily habits, some little, and some pretty big.  This is not an excuse to beat myself up or make myself wrong about my parenting - it is an opportunity to rediscover the basic ground again, the ground of goodness, and look for ways to keep connecting to that.  Always with gentleness.  It can actually be a relief to say out loud "this isn't working!".  That is a big, important first step.  Then we can take the necessary, gentle steps to bring things back into alignment.


That is the work that lies before me right now.  Weeding out the things that do not serve our wholeness, and creating fertile ground for sanity.  What environmental influences are you encouraging?  Pay attention to your life.  That's all there is to do, really.

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.

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.

showing our children goodness

This is a nice Waldorf perspective on how to impart the goodness of the world to our children, even in difficult times such as these.

sometimes you just get angry

"Whenever we’re challenged, there is opportunity to open to the difficulty and let the difficulty make us more compassionate, more wise. Or the opposite, which is that when things are difficult, the chances instead of it making us more afraid and therefore more vulnerable or more subject to being able to catch the anxiety in the atmosphere and spin off...and the tendency for aggression to escalate and violence to escalate under challenge is much greater."
- Pema Chodron

I get angry sometimes. I get angry because I get hooked by someone or something. I get hooked because I am human. The problem isn't necessarily in the getting hooked, although I am working on that as well (ha!). It is what I do once the hook is in - do I bite on and keep going, or do I relax, feel it, and then let it go?

I always thought of myself as the mama who never yelled. Or at least, that was my aspiration. My mother screamed constantly throughout my childhood. And it was awful. I vowed at a very early age to never do this with my own children. Ahem. But last week, I yelled not once, not twice, but a few times at my two year old. Now, my first instinct is to want to explain. Explain that we are all operating on very little sleep, with my toddler and often my 10 month old unwilling to nap and not going down to sleep at night very easily. And constantly waking up. Anyway, we are all very tired, and at times, extremely cranky with one another. My husband has been working late each day and on weekends, trying to finish some mandated reports he must do in his job as a social worker. So, it has been on my shoulders to care for the little ones all day and often all night, with no help until perhaps the rare Sunday. I am good and truly tired.

My toddler can be quite aggressive with his younger brother. This is what has been eliciting yells and, at times, shrieks from me - his constant harming of his little brother. When I am more rested, I can respond with gentleness and firmness, get resourceful, distract him, and so on. But when I am tired, and it is the hundredth time that day that he has made his little baby brother cry, and given him yet another welt, well, I have been losing it. And once I have lost it, I find I then become triggered by lesser things as well, like normal two year old mess making and mayhem. Because when I am tired, I begin to get caught by the content of my thoughts, by the stories I find I am whispering to myself, and have a harder time just dropping them. I have a harder time pausing when I see I am getting hooked, and just feeling the anger. So, I find myself yelling, and then instantly regretting it.

What I have had to do, in addition to the usual regret, remediate and refrain tool, is try and really, really accept my anger. I wrote before about bowing to our pain, to our lineage of dysfunction - but we also have to bow to our own anger. Anger is, ultimately, just energy. If we can work with it as such, it begins to lose its power over us. Anger becomes a problem when instead of simply feeling its energy and letting it flow through and dissolve, we either suppress it or act it out - therefore harming others. In both cases, we are solidifying the energy, rather than just letting it arise and cease. The first step to working with it as energy is to acknowledge it. To not suppress it and to not reject it. But to just admit that it is there, working in us. Again, it helps to use our awareness to notice we are angry, and to feel where that anger lives, physically.

Once we have noticed it and acknowledged it, we can bow to it. Bowing to me in this sense means accepting it, "I see you anger. I am angry." Keeping it to "I am angry" is potent. I think it is more helpful to keep it to that, and not spin out into "he made me angry" or "this makes me angry", which solidifies it. Then, bow. What does that mean? You could really, truly bow. Or you could close your eyes, and just breathe. Respect your anger. For me, when I bow to my anger, I often find something else underneath it, hiding under the anger. In addition to my physical tiredness this past week, I was sad about the death of a close friend. And I had been worrying about several other matters. I find so often with my children that although their action is the trigger, there are so many causes and conditions leading up to that incident that have so very little to do with what just happened in the moment. When we are caught by our anger, our world gets so tight and narrowed, and we lose all sense of vastness. Just feeling our anger, accepting it, can create the gap where we can touch back into the spaciousness of basic goodness.

Sometimes bowing to our anger is not enough. Sometimes we need to leave the room. Sometimes we need to take our little ones outside. Sometimes we need to call a friend on the phone and cry. Sometimes we need to have ice cream for dinner and go to bed with our baby at 5:00 in the afternoon. But that is, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, "taking care of our anger". Sometimes we need to do that. It is a practice of compassion, taking care of our anger.

What changed the pattern last week for me was bowing to it, and taking care of it. And taking better care of me - going to bed earlier, eating better, making sure we got out of the house every day. Talking to another mother who had been in the trenches a few years earlier also helped. And accepting that I get angry sometimes. And sometimes, even though I really don't want to, I am going to yell. And then I will move forward from there. I will keep working on coming back to the present moment, working skillfully as I can with the energy of anger. Touching into my basic goodness and the basic goodness of my children. As Suzuki Roshi said,
"Everything is perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement."

mindful resolutions

Blogging is lighter than usual due to the winter festivities. As the new year of 2011 is almost upon us, I found this article today worth reading. Many of us torment ourselves in true samsaric fashion this time of year with making resolutions to do things better in some way. I guess I just want to chime in with the gentle reminder that things as they are, including you, are already basically good. I think to hold in your mindstream certain aspirations can be helpful, but only when embraced with gentleness and confidence in your own buddha nature. Even when we haven't showered in a week, haven't cleaned up the detritus from the holiday presents, are eating sugar cookies for breakfast and our children are still naked at noon, we are still basically OK, and so are they. Mindfulness is a process, a series of many steps, backwards and forwards and this way and that. It isn't anything we can wrap up in a shiny bow and point out to others. It is a slow, gentle wearing away of habitual patterns and learning how to open again and again and then again.

In other words, no quick fix. And it is perfectly perfect in that way. So when writing a list of resolutions, be easy on yourselves. Aspiring for more mindfulness, more compassion, more gentleness - very useful. And you are already perfect buddha mama and perfect buddha daddy. And it goes without saying of course, that your little or big ones are perfect buddhas as well.

protect them from fear, expose them to cold

This is what a wise dharma friend who works in Chinese medicine once told me when I was worrying about bringing my then newborn son outside on a snowy day. As a November baby, I had lots of opportunities to expose him to the cold of an upstate New York winter while still at a tender age. And I have had countless opportunities to expose him to my own fears.

The path of parenthood is littered with fear and neurosis at times. New fears spring up daily, as the world can seem a very threatening place when caring for such vulnerable beings. And then there are the old fears, some buried very deep indeed, resurrected from our own childhoods and adolescence by seeing our children experience phenomena and other beings, with everything that can entail.

We can't protect our children from the world. What we can do is nurture in them both confidence in and curiosity about themselves and other beings and the world they live in. When we voice our fears to them or in front of them, that can cloud their own seeing. I don't mean we refrain from warning them not to touch a hot stove or not run into the street or not to drink and drive. But we can keep those warnings direct and pithy, and take action around them, rather than projecting the possibility of catastrophes or unnecessarily elaborating on imaginary dangers. Mindfulness of speech is our skillful means in this practice. We need to start with our own inner dialogues as parents, noticing when we are engaged in fearful or anxious thinking and gently letting it go.

We can encourage our children to explore the world and the people in it while holding them in our awareness. "Give the cow a wide meadow" is a common teaching for beginning meditators - it is a reminder to not be too tight with our meditation practice, which can lead to claustrophobia and difficulty in sitting. The same can happen with our parenting; when we notice things are too tight and we all are feeling overly anxious, we can give our children a wide meadow to explore in, while making sure the boundaries that surround it are secure. Protecting our children from our discursive, fearful thought patterns is a powerful way to secure those boundaries for them, so they experience the world with greater sanity and clarity.

Chogyam Trungpa taught that the world is basically good, and fundamentally trustworthy. This can be hard to have faith in at times, when so many dangers seem to surround us. But the more we can perceive things with clarity, unclouded by our projections, we can discern what will harm and what will nurture. We can bring the well wrapped baby out for a winter walk, or teach our teenager how to drive safely. We can do these things simply, without internal or external fretting and doubts. I think the more we do this, the more the goodness of the world will be revealed and our trust in it will increase. And perhaps we will learn to trust ourselves more as well.

sangha part 2

"Finally, we take refuge in the sangha, the people who are on the path with us. Those who are in the sangha are warriors, because they are trying to overcome samsara. Members of the sangha support one another and care for one another. They are not perfect, but they inspire us because they are people who want to deepen their practice of mindfulness, awareness and compassion...We realize that there are other people around who are going through the same thing. That gives us a feeling of encouragement."- Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

It was lovely to read the comments that some of you left when I asked for some companionship a couple of weeks ago. It was so encouraging. So often on the path of parenting and of awakening one can feel a bit lonely. Lonesome. Alone. A bit like, "does anyone else go through this???" Which is why it is so important to connect to other parents who are also walking, running, stumbling, dancing, wailing along this crooked path. Particularly in this age and culture when we often do not have the proximity or support of blood relations in raising our children up. It becomes absolutely necessary once you have a child to seek others out, even if previously you were the last person to do so. Having a child forces one to exit any self-imposed seclusion - you have to begin to extend outward into the world, because that is what your child naturally needs and wants to do. In order for our children to thrive, their world needs to expand ever outwards, and that necessitates that our world expands as well.

I have always found it wonderful how children of a certain age and temperament will say "hello" to almost anyone and anything. They do not make distinctions. I have exchanged beautiful smiles and laughter with many a baby only to look up at a scowling mama or daddy - lol! Chogyam Trungpa once said that the dharmic person says "Hello" in a crowded elevator, even if he or she is the only person to do so and gets no reply. Babies are true buddhas, aren't they? They don't need anyone to tell them to connect!

However, in terms of who we surround ourselves and our families with on an intimate level, I think we can make some necessary distinctions. The Buddha taught extensively on the importance of good companions on the spiritual path - going so far as to say that having admirable companions was "the whole of the spiritual path". I think we often become aware with our children that who they are close friends with is very important. It is also important for us as mindful parents to be conscious of the people we gather with, to make sure that their friendship is nourishing to us and our families, that it encourages us rather than depletes us or discourages us.

This doesn't mean we close our hearts to other beings, or don't befriend people who are suffering, or don't say "hello" to everyone. I think it means that we are mindful of who we choose to invite into our private spaces, who we choose to share our struggles with, who we ask for advice, who we hire to nurture our children. I think it can also help us begin to discern when we need to set a compassionate boundary with our families when they question or undermine our parenting choices.

What I look for in a parenting friend is kindness, gentleness towards their children and others, some sense of integrity to their word, open hearts - if they demonstrate basic sanity in how they manifest in the world. Or if they are trying to be sane in how they manifest in the world.

Ultimately, we can view the entire world of beings as our sangha, and relate to them all as our teachers, treating them with friendliness and compassion. But on the relative level, the more I surround myself with friends who are working with some sense of awareness, some sense of mindfulness in the world and in their parenting, the more encouraged I feel on my own path. The world we live in is often dedicated to eradicating mindfulness and compassion. Let us build and strengthen our community of family and friends so that basic goodness and the magic born from awareness are what our children are surrounded by.

appreciating ourselves

"A great deal of the chaos in the world occurs because people don't appreciate themselves."
— Chögyam Trungpa (Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior)

I was watching my toddler today play with a group of slightly older children at a local indoor play space. As mentioned before in this space, he is cautious by nature and can become slightly overwhelmed in groups of children. This sometimes translates into him being bulldozed by other little ones - they take his toys right out of his hands or push him aside, and instead of taking the toys back or protesting, he shrinks a bit, steps away or clings to me. I don't want him to be aggressive towards other children, and I want him to share willingly, but I also really want him to appreciate himself and his own right to be there, to be here, on this good earth. I believe that if this is cultivated in him, he will be able to feel confident and gentle towards others at the same time, without the need to shrink. How can I help nurture that in him and his brother?

It is so hard at times to appreciate our own good hearts and minds. Probably because we don't often view our hearts and minds as being particularly good. Instead, we tend to view ourselves as being terribly flawed, or unlovable, or a mess, or maybe unkind, or ... you fill in the blank. It can depend on the day, who we are with, how much external circumstances live up to our expectations of how our lives should look. It can be very hard to see ourselves as basically good, sane beings if we have just yelled at our child or put our foot in our mouth, or made some kind of normal, human mistake. This isn't a new topic for me, but I think it can be useful to return to it, as I know in my own daily life, I am so often lacking in loving kindness for myself. And when I am lacking in loving kindness towards myself, it becomes very difficult to feel it towards others. That's the funny thing we begin to see more and more as we practice mindfulness and awareness in our daily lives. It is very difficult to open from a place of aggression towards oneself. It is very difficult to consider the basic goodness of others if we don't think it is in ourselves. So if we really want to appreciate our children in all their uniqueness, quirkiness, crankiness, brilliance, beauty and energy, and really want our children to appreciate all of that in themselves, then we need to appreciate our own messy humanness.

What does appreciating oneself mean? How do we begin to truly trust in our own basic wakefulness and compassion? For me, meditation has been the space where I have been able to see my own naked heart and rest with it, no matter what. The more I have been able to rest with it in all its moods and thoughts about the past and future, its little and big desires, its little and big mistakes- the more I am able to feel kindness towards myself. By seeing how truly human I am, I am somehow able to see how human everybody else is too, and slowly, slowly, begin to love and appreciate myself and others more and more. It is so tender, this being human. It is such a precious experience, even in the chaos and the suffering. We can begin to appreciate all of that, the more we work with not judging what arises within ourselves or outside of ourselves. Just staying with what is happening, and letting go of what arises again and again.

Another potent practice has been loving kindness or metta contemplation practice. This is a practice where you send loving kindness to yourself. Once you have worked with sending loving kindness to yourself, then you begin to send it to other beings. First you send loving kindness to someone who has helped you, who you respect. Then you work with sending loving kindness to someone you love, then to a person you feel neutral about (like the mailman or a grocery clerk) and then to a person you actively dislike. Eventually, you extend this loving kindness aspiration out to all beings throughout time and space.

There are many traditional phrases you can use during metta practice, but I like to use the following, as adapted from Sharon Salzberg's book, "Loving Kindness":

May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be free from danger.
May I live a happy life.

Again, always begin with yourself. After a few minutes of wishing yourself genuine happiness, you can bring someone who has helped you to mind who you respect. Then it is lovely to bring your children to mind and wish that they be happy, healthy, free from danger and so on. And then the neutral party, and then the person you struggle with. If you are pressed for time, it can be as simple as when you wake up or are going to sleep to just say to yourself "May I be happy. May so and so be happy. May my children be happy." etc. Or just start with "May I be happy." You can work with that throughout your day. You are strapping yourself into your seatbelt in the car: "May I be happy". You reach for a snack from the fridge: "May I be healthy". You are changing a diaper: "May I be free from danger." Just bring it to mind whenever you notice where your mind is. Whenever you notice where your mind is, space occurs. You can choose what to put into that opening.

This is a simple but very powerful practice. The more you work with it, the more you can notice. Is it hard to wish yourself happiness? Is there a tightness around it? Irritation? Sadness? Just keep noticing and come back to "May I be happy".

We deserve to be here, on this beautiful earth. Basic goodness is our birthright, our inheritance when we come into being. Being human is a precious experience. The more we cultivate appreciation for ourselves in all of our humanness, mistakes and all, the more our children will see their own goodness, and appreciate their right to be here too.