true practice

"You think that you can only establish true practice after you attain enlightenment, but it is not so. True practice is established in delusion, in frustration. If you make some mistake, that is where to establish your practice. There is no other place for you to establish your practice." - Suzuki Roshi


I've always been a good student. One of those pupils who listens attentively, studies assiduously, tries very hard to "get it right". When entering into my sangha, I paid close attention to the forms the practice took, the proper way to open a shrine, light the candles, sit on one's cushion, ring the gong and so on. These forms exist for a reason - they help to create a strong container for the mind to practice in. Strong forms are conducive to deeper meditation. Strong forms create a wide corral for our minds to roam in and then settle. Strong forms can also rub away at the ego like fine sand paper, smoothing out all the quirky ways we like to exert our "selves" into any situation. When related to with an attitude of openness and curiosity, they can really show us where we get stuck, where our hang ups are, what triggers us - in other words, they can be a wonderful antidote to ego.

We have been taking our boys to a famous zendo the last couple of months. They run a very established and wonderful dharma program for children and teens, and after years of wanting to attend, we have succeeded finally in showing up, dragging reluctant, sleepy, children out of bed at a very early hour on a Sunday in order to travel an hour and half into the mountains to participate. The boys enjoy it. Except when they don't. This past weekend was the Buddha's Birthday, and they participated in a wonderful puppet show relating the story of "Sticky Hair" and (in this case) "Princess Five Weapons". The children performed it for the sangha, after first participating in the beginning portion of the celebratory practice, where they offered flowers and water to the Buddha with the full sangha present.

I would like to report that the boys all behaved appropriately in the zendo, that they "followed the forms": standing still behind their cushions, being respectful of the space, joyfully making their offerings, excitedly performing the play. That would have been easy, right? What actually happened was, yes, my eldest behaved appropriately while in the zendo. My younger two sat on the meditation cushions at various times, rolled around on them a bit, poked eachother, pulled some sibling hair, reluctantly offered flowers, and proclaimed at various moments in a loud whisper, that they were BORED. Towards the end of what was a genuinely beautiful ceremony, my youngest pulled me out of the shrine room on the verge of tears, cranky and hungry.

Prior to the play performance, there were several run throughs. All three of my boys at one point or another during the next two hours of run throughs (yes, that is a LOT for small kids), QUIT THE SHOW. As a former actress, I had to fight my urge to admonish them that one DOES NOT SIMPLY QUIT THE SHOW DURING THE FINAL DRESS. My three year old demanded rice crackers for going onstage. My eldest broke down because his 7 year old brother had gum and he did not. My 7 year old was upset when one of the puppets he had been rehearsing with was given to another boy without a role. Much frustration was experienced by all.

They weren't the only children having a roller coaster of a day. When it was finally time for the puppet show to be performed, all my boys rallied, although my three year old insisted I move his puppet for him, rice crackers or no. Not all of the other children did, though. A couple sat out, their individual disappointments not salved. The show went on. The sangha was delighted. The children all smiles (I think). It was all perfectly imperfect.

Isn't that all it ever is, though? Perfectly imperfect? We might have illusions of perfection before having children. We certainly have an easier time performing a task for instance, cleaning a room, completing a thought, sitting in the proper way on our meditation cushion and respecting the forms of a zendo. Children quickly show us how it's all been a bit of a charade though. When have things truly gone completely to plan? We clean the floor and discover the scratch in the veneer. Empty the sink of dishes and catch sight of the chipped plate. Paint the room and see where water has made a small, corrosive pocket. Get the job and discover our manager is unkind, the tasks unreasonable, the coworker a bit weird. Sit silently in zendo and accidentally allow a loud fart to escape. Trip over our feet during walking meditation. Children, because of their energy, authenticity, chaos, show us immediately how silly the entire enterprise of "getting things right" is.

So how do we react to the inevitable mistake? Do we find ourselves getting really uptight? Letting the frustration build and control us? Do we feel shame? Do we rebel? Do we laugh and move on? Do we make it into our practice, as Suzuki Roshi admonishes us to? The zendo is a kind place. The forms are very very strong there. Which is why the chaotic energy of children can be welcomed into it on the Buddha's birthday and allowed to play. Which is why we can notice when our back stiffens and our fingers wag at a child poking his brother. Which is why we can notice tears coming to our eyes when our three year old pulls us out, and sit, and breathe and open to what lies beneath those tears - a longing. A longing not for perfection, but for touching space. That is the irony of tight forms - they create a vast space. But only if we relax within them. Only if we can let go and accept things as they are. Sitting on a hard wooden bench, a wiggly, nursing toddler in my lap, watching the sangha complete their prostrations and chants, I let go. There was the space. There was the practice. There was the perfectly imperfect. All of it. The wiggling kids, the yawning parents, the contained sangha, the wooden Buddhas, bathed in water spooned gently over them by small, sticky hands. All of it. All of it.

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.

what is your story?

“The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.”
-Sharon Salzberg

If you can pay attention to your mind during the day, to where you are placing it, to the thoughts running in and out, you will discover something. You will discover your story. It is the thought you turn to again and again when you are feeling hassled by things, when your back is up against the wall. You probably turn to it even when you are feeling pretty good about everything, happy even. In those cases, it is usually a kind of nagging little fear that will raise its head. When you are really stressed out, or trying to get something done, your children out the door, the dinner ready, whatever - going forward with your agenda - and it is not happening easily - the eggs fall out of the fridge and break on the floor, your youngest poops his pants as you are getting him in the car seat, you get the phone call saying you haven't gotten the job- your story might even slip right out of your mouth, verbalized for all to hear. What do you say to them, to yourself?

With the last months being so stressful for us, full of so much heartbreak, I have found my story slipping out. It came out this morning in the seemingly simple task of getting my three year old and my 20 month old out the door to the library. I can't even remember the series of events that made this outing seem akin to climbing the Himalayas barefooted, but after yet another delay caused by some act of typical toddler behavior or potty learning adventure I said, aloud, "I just can't catch a break."

It is the same sentence I said aloud to my husband in the days after learning about my miscarriage, as I tried to prepare for my three year old's party, and a dozen eggs slid from their perch in the fridge and broke all over the newly mopped floor minutes before guests began arriving. "I just can't catch a break."

It is a sentence I have been repeating to myself for what seems like all of my life. "I can't catch a break, I can't catch a break, I just can't catch a break!" With meditation practice, I finally noticed it, finally really heard what I have been spending years telling myself. When I was home with my parents last month briefly, I heard the same sentence and its variations uttered many times by my father. I doubt he has ever really, truly noticed this story flying from his lips with such regularity.

We all have our particular story. Often, it is a story we first heard from our own parents, or perhaps it was given to us by another authority figure or maybe we came up with it all by ourselves. In any case, it doesn't serve us. It isn't true. It is a story, just that, and since we have been writing it, we can also rewrite it.

It depends, as Ms. Salzberg says, on where we place our attention. When we hear ourselves telling our particular story to ourselves or to others, we can stop. We can notice what is going on with our bodies, our breath. What are we feeling? Where are we? What is actually happening in this particular moment? Things as they are do not conspire against us, although that may be how we feel. Things just are, true, variable, moving, changing, vivid. If we drop the story, we may actually really see, really perceive what is actually happening in any given situation, what the phenomena is truly communicating to us. The world is not for or against us. Things and beings are all dancing, shifting, arising and ceasing in an enormous interconnected dance. What are we choosing to tell ourselves about it? It is important where we put our minds and what words we choose - the story we tell. Can we recognize it as a story? Or do we call it the truth?

When we sit in meditation practice, we notice the tricks we play on ourselves, the wild tales we tell that keep us hooked, deceived, yo-yoing up and down. The more we sit and just let those stories go, not feeding them, not pushing them away, just letting them flow through and continually dropping them, dropping them, dropping them, the more space we create and the more we can laugh. Laugh at what we have been telling ourselves for so long.

Byron Katie has a powerful book of her work entitled "What Would You Be Without Your Story?" It is full of dialogues between her and different students, all with a powerful story that they have spent many years placing their minds on, again and again, with great emotion and intent. In the simple conversations with her, these stories fall apart, get flipped on their heads, and the people become so much freer. They no longer believe them.

This is what I am working on this week. Noticing my story. Catching when I am telling it to myself or others. Dropping it. Touching it. Asking myself, "Is this really true?" And placing my mind again on the present moment. I don't want to give this story to my children. I would rather they tell themselves the vivid truth of basic goodness, again and again, rather than this lie of "I can't catch a break."

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!

when you are sad, be sad

I haven't written here in several weeks. As I have mentioned in this space previously, the last couple of months have seen my family facing a series of obstacles that have arisen around our living situation, our livelihood, and our health. Things at times have been quite difficult, seemingly very immovable and unworkable, but somehow, we have found our way through. A bright spot in all of this was that after many months of trying, we discovered I was pregnant with a much wanted third baby. Because of all of the challenges we were experiencing, this third pregnancy felt like much more of a leap into groundlessness than our previous ones. But leap we did, as we all do when we open our hearts to life.
This past week, at almost 10 weeks along, I went in for an ultrasound my OB wanted in order to determine gestational age. During the exam, the technician told me that she couldn't find any fetal heartbeat.

We often think that enlightenment experiences are blissful, beautiful, gold tinged occasions that occur in a flowery meadow or on a mountain top or in a sacred meditation hall. We don't often think of them as occurring in a cold, clinical examination room with an ultrasound machine and an uncomfortable technician holding a latex gloved wand in her hand. But when we are faced with the stark fact of impermanence, of the reality of death and loss, we often experience an opening. Our usual torrent of habitual thought can be stopped, at least for a moment, and we can experience a kind of clarity and calm, when things as they are reveal themselves, naked, and completely vast. That is what happened when I heard "I can't find a heartbeat". It only lasted for a moment.

Immediately after that brief opening, the pain came. The sadness of losing a baby. The heartbreak of it, of watching all the aspirations, all the dreams pinned to the new life I carried so briefly. It is always so painful to have to let go of such hopes. To accept loss and the reality of the first noble truth - that life is full of suffering, and we suffer because of our constant desire to make permanent that which is inherently not.

Any loss we experience has been and will be experienced by countless other sentient beings. The nurse who took my vitals that morning told me of her own miscarriage when she was 17 weeks along with her first pregnancy. So many other women I know have had miscarriages, many more than one. I have friends who have lost children shortly after their birth, or years later. My own loss seemed so small when compared to all of those others. My heart is opening, breaking for so many other women and children.


"When Marpa's young son died, he cried so sadly that his disciples flocked around him and asked, "Master, didn't you say that the world is only an illusion? Why are you crying so brokenheartedly just because your son has died?"
Marpa answered them, "Yes, everything is illusionary, but the death of a child is the greatest illusion of them all."

At times like this one, it can seem important to find a reason, an answer to why this happened in order to prevent it from happening again, I suppose. But like all blossoming of karma, there are so many causes and conditions that lead to this, that it is impossible to tease out the what and why of it. We can surmise, guess, and so on, but to try and pinpoint, try and build some ground from what is inherently groundless, only causes further pain and is illusory at best. All my husband and I can do that is really useful is to keep touching our sadness, to just be sad when it arises. To not avoid it or cover it up, or elaborate upon it. To just be sad.

And to be happy when that comes as well. My eldest son turned three the day after we got the news of our loss, and we went forward with a nice birthday party for him, with guests and cake and balloons, all as he requested. And we allowed ourselves to be present to his joy and the joy of his brother during the festivities. We are exerting ourselves in cultivating appreciation - appreciation of what we have, of our two little boys and the goodness they weave each day into our lives. And when reminded of the vastness of loss, the knowledge that all beings lose those they love, both born and unborn, we are touching our tender, broken hearts, and sending our love out to everyone.

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.

being who we are

[The] complete teaching of Buddhism is how to re-discover who we are. That is a straightforward principle, but we are continuously distracted from coming to our natural state, our natural being. Throughout our day everything pulls us away from natural mindfulness, from being on the spot. We're either too scared or too embarrassed or too proud, or just too crazy, to be who we are. - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

I am trying to write here more often, but I was at my parents' house over the long weekend, and there is just so much going on there with my mother's illness and the family dynamics that it is impossible to even go online for a moment, let alone be at all eloquent or useful. So, here I am, back in my own little chaotic nest, getting us unpacked and trying to keep my little ones happy on a day when it is pouring rain. These three things saved us this morning from tantrums: 1) the construction of a small city out of all available cardboard boxes; 2) the making of ribbon sticks; and 3) a wet, wet walk in the rain, where we got completely soaked from jumping in every available puddle. We also made the happy discovery that the apples from the sadly neglected apple trees on the street behind us are actually tasty, and so, pockets brimming with ones gleaned from the wet ground, we made our way home and into nap time.

There were still tears, as my little ones didn't sleep well at my folks and the long car ride yesterday put them in a bit of cranky mood. But, I was able to go with the flow, even with the detritus of our journey all over the house and some unhappy felines making demands after our absence. I'm tired, certainly. My toddlers are both nursing much more than I would prefer. The house is a mess. Loads of laundry to get done. Our bedroom ceiling is leaking from all the rain, and I have no idea when the landlord will relate to it. There is still the emotional residue of my visit back to my family. But...it is all ok. I have been able to keep coming back to the present moment today. I have been able to keep letting go of my various agendum without any fuss. I have been able to surrender to the fact that my 18 month old has fallen down, once again, and is crying, once again. I have been able to pick him up, hug him, comfort him until he feels alright, put him back down, and keep making that cardboard garage my 2 year old is asking me to make. I have been able to just be myself today, and to just let my children be themselves. Funny how often I don't allow either to happen.

The quote above from Sakyong Mipham is from a longer talk, here. It is a fabulous talk about how to meditate, and I reread it every year, sometimes several times a year. Different things jump out at me each time I read it, and this time, it was the following line:

When we're talking about being mindful and living in a mindful way, we're talking about the practice of spontaneity.

Spontaneity for me has been the key to being happy with my children, and keeping them connected to their own goodness. And it is really, really hard to be spontaneous when I am obsessing over the past or thinking about the future. There is no space for spontaneity to emerge because I am so entirely disconnected from what is actually happening, right in front of my very eyes. It's funny how resentful we can get when other beings, our children included, pull us out of our dreams of the past and the future with their very real needs happening in the now. But if we let go of those imaginings, how much richer and happier we become. The world is so much more alive when we are actually fully there to experience it.

This is what I am working on today. It is what I am always working on. Being who I am, right here, right now. It can be so difficult, can't it? Wishing us all luck in being ourselves today, fully, completely, lovingly.

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.]

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.

if you can practice when distracted, you are well trained

This is another very powerful lojong slogan. It has been coming to mind often lately, as I have been, well, distracted. There have been a multitude of stresses and phenomena that have been pulling at my mind - trying to take it away from the present moment, often successfully.

I have said this many times before here, but it is all in the noticing. As soon as we notice we are distracted, as soon as we notice our mind has been pulled into the past or strayed into the future, we are back. We can only notice in the present moment. We notice, and we are right here, right now, once again. And then we notice if we are judging ourselves for having been lost in the fantasy of past or future. And we are back once again, and gentle once more.

We went to my parents' house for my youngest son's first birthday. We really went up to see my mother, who is slowly dying from multi-symptomatic Parkinson's disease. She has gotten much worse, and we hadn't been in awhile, so it was necessary to go as soon as we could, which coincided with my little love's turning one.

It was a long, hard car ride. My littlest screamed for the last two hours. We were exhausted when we arrived, but felt rejuvenated when we noticed (in the berry bush by my parents' back door), seven (yes, seven!) red cardinals. Their feathers were so vivid against the bare branches covered in snow. It brought us immediately into the now, and perked up our drooping spirits.

I have written before about the chaos in my mother's house due to her illness and the karma of the situation, and it is only getting worse as she gets sicker. So, it was hard. Then, our first night there, I became very ill with a stomach bug. The next day was my son's birthday, but we were unable to celebrate it as I spent the entire day in bed. My husband was left to care for our two little ones, my mother and my father. I was better the next day, but then he was struck with the bug. Then my father became ill, both our boys, and my mother, who ended up having to go to the ER to be rehydrated by IV. It was just a crazy, crazy visit. I had to really generate a lot of energy in order to care for everyone while still sick myself and arrange for more professional care for my mother - new aides to come at night (as we were too sick to feed her and get her to bed), calling doctors, getting the ok to bring her to the ER, arranging for aftercare. Calling social workers, health care agencies and siblings. Dealing with the family neurosis, heightened in these stressful circumstances. Working with my own guilt for getting everyone sick, especially my mother. Feeling disappointed and sad that my little one's first birthday was getting lost and forgotten in all of this life stuff happening. And feeling angry that my mom is dying. Talk about distraction.

Phenomena kept arising, and I kept being presented with the choice to really abide with it and let go of my desires or fight it, push it away, deflect it or try like hell to change it. Every time I chose the latter, the suffering level in the house increased tenfold. When I was able to let go and just be with the constantly changing reality, things were workable. They weren't easy, but they were workable and I could create some sanity. There was some breathing room.

When I resisted things as they are, I felt absolutely crazy and miserable. And what helped me keep coming back to the present moment and working with the circumstances with some level of equanimity and clarity were those beautiful cardinals. My parents' house is surrounded by bushes and bird feeders, which my father fills daily. The house has many windows as well. And there were so many moments each day when I was truly on the verge of losing my mind entirely when I would look out a window and there would be a flaming red cardinal looking back at me from his branch. Each time, it called me back to the now.

The great teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has a beautiful practice at his retreat centers. There is a large meditation gong, really huge, that can be heard, when rung, throughout the grounds and buildings. Throughout the day, every day, this gong is rung once, at various random times. Everyone who hears this gong stops for a moment, no matter what they are doing, and just reconnects to their breath and body. To the present moment. And then they proceed on. We don't need a giant gong to do this in our own lives. We can use whatever we have in our immediate environments to bring us back, no matter what is going on. Perhaps we live on a busy street and car horns often sound. What a wonderful mindfulness bell! Or perhaps crows haunt the parking lot of your workplace - when you notice one of their raucous cries - come back. Your baby crying. Your neighbor's telephone ringing. Your teen's Wii game. The glow of a neon sign. The flicker of a room light. Let these ordinary things bring you back. They are beautiful reminders, always available to us.

Having a well trained mind doesn't mean we don't get crazy or carried away. But it does mean we come back.

When reading about this slogan, I found a teaching by Judy Lief, who presented the following daily practice:

In your practice and during your daily activities, pay particular attention to the points at which you lose your mindfulness. In terms of bodhichitta practice, pay particular attention to the points at which you lose your openness or kindness. Notice the process of losing it and coming back.

This seemed useful for my daily life with children. This is why working with the raw, vivid, messy material of our daily life is so powerful. This is the richest mud for the lotus blossom of awakened heart to blossom in. Wishing you gentleness and good luck with your practice today and always.

raising mindful children

"People often ask me how children, even infants of four months, can be brought up in a buddhist way. But at this point there doesn’t seem to be a buddhist way to bring up children. It’s more a question of bringing the parents up to a more buddhist approach. That is, the infants bring the parents up to some kind of attitude of responsibility." - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

How do we raise compassionate children, confident in their own basic goodness? Children who cultivate mindfulness in their lives as youngsters and adults? Who reject the false promises of a materialistic, consumer, "me" focused culture?

As with all things on this crooked, precious path - it must begin with us. A flower cannot grow in rocky soil, or at least not flourish there. It is we who provide the foundational soil for our children, and who are responsible for cultivating and tending it. Our children learn from watching us. How do we talk to them? How do we talk to others in front of them? To ourselves? What do we spend our time on when they are with us? Are we present with them, allowing ourselves to be pulled into their games and projects, (or at least holding them in our awareness), or are we constantly moving away from them, checking email, making phone calls, turning on the tv, keeping ourselves busy with our own projects? Keeping ourselves distant from the present moment and things as they are?

Do we speak kindly to our partners? Do we apologize when we have made a mistake? Are we resentful with them when they ask us for more than we feel capable of in the moment? When we wake up in the morning, are we on the "me" plan, as my teacher Sakyong Mipham asks? Or do we make a conscious effort to turn our minds outward, to others?

And finally, do we practice at all? Do we make the time in our busy days, no matter how brief, to meditate, pray, practice formal contemplation? I often am asked about teaching young children meditation. In my own buddhist tradition, our teachers recommend waiting until a child is 8 years old before teaching formal meditation to them. Prior to that, the most important teaching is for them to witness their parents practicing. And even more important, I think, is that this practice occurs not just on the cushion, but in our lives as well. If we aren't becoming kinder, then something isn't working, no matter how long we find to sit on the cushion each day. Practice softens us, opens our hearts and stabilizes our minds. That softening and opening translates into our everyday life, as long as we remember to continue practicing off the cushion as well - to continually bring our minds back to the present moment whenever we catch ourselves not here, not now. To consciously let go and open when all we want to do is defend ourselves and retreat.

In my own daily life, I make a very brief time each morning to sit and practice. Sometimes this means just having my children ring the meditation gong, getting settled in my physical body and taking a few brief breaths, then getting up and going on with the day. Sometimes my little ones are settled enough that I can do some morning chants in my tradition and sit perhaps 10 minutes or so.

At breakfast and at dinner, we all hold hands as a family and take a few breaths together, looking into each other's eyes. Even my littlest, at just one, loves to imitate taking big breaths and smiling at us all. This is a very simple way to get us all grounded together in the same place, in our bodies. It is a quick way to synchronize body and mind.

We also have many images around our house of our teachers and the Buddha. We read stories from the Jataka Tales and some other buddhist books aimed at young children. But mostly, we just try to remember to keep practicing. To keep being present with our children and each other. To be mindful of our speech. To be mindful of where we are placing our attention, particularly in front of our children. To continue to cultivate loving kindness towards ourselves and other beings.

We don't always succeed. We are human. We make mistakes. We lose our mindfulness. We get angry. Our minds get stolen away by entertainment and technology, and by neurotic thoughts. And it is ok. We come back. Fresh start. And we keep coming back, walking the path. It is the most powerful thing to do, and eventually, it becomes the only thing to do. Choiceless. The path of parenting is a very rich, very powerful path to waking up if we let it do its work. If we let our lives, in all their mess and uncomfortableness, wake up our hearts instead of shutting them down, there will be no stopping us. No stopping us from having complete confidence in our basic goodness and the basic goodness of our children and the world. And then our children in turn will have that same unshakeable confidence and blossom outward instead of shrinking inward. It is a wonderful gift, to allow for our very ordinary human lives to be as magical as they really are. It is a wonderful gift, to turn our minds outward, ever outward to others, and in some way, wake all beings up to this same magic and joy.

doubting

"...even if we think that we're doing our best in life, we still feel that we haven't fully lived up to what we should be. We feel that we're not quite doing things right. We feel that our parents or others don't approve of us. There is that fundamental doubt, or fundamental fear, as to whether or not we can actually accomplish something."
- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Doubt. I just spent a weekend contemplating doubt - it was the subject of the retreat I participated in. Actually, windhorse was the subject of the retreat, but doubt was discussed as an obstacle to windhorse. Contemplating doubt is not new to me. I have always been haunted by it. After many years of practice, I have realized that all this doubt has ultimately been my lack of confidence in my basic goodness. Raising children has given this habitual doubt new texture and power. So many fears. Am I doing this right? Do others think I am doing this right? What am I doing? How could I have done that? How could they have done that!? And so on. Doubt can become such a trap that we almost dare not move for fear of making a mistake or embarrassing ourselves. There is no freedom to act, and we become completely disconnected from our basic goodness and that of others.

Again and again in my daily life with my little ones, doubt arises. At the end of the retreat, a little party was held to celebrate a milestone in my local meditation center's history. We brought our children to this party. They were the only children present, and they did what a two year old and a 10 month old do - they made noise, they were audibly frustrated with having to wait to have a piece of the delicious looking cake present, they were antsy and wanted to run and move about, wanted to explore in baby and toddler ways - i.e., throwing plastic forks on the floor, ringing the meditation gong, crawling over meditation cushions. Really, not a big deal. But, oh, the looks! And oh, the doubt that arose in this mama - doubts about my parenting, about my choice to bring the children, and doubts about them - feeling embarrassed about them and wanting to make them wrong for being, well, young children.

I began to doubt the entire situation. I felt stressed and anxious - very claustrophobic. And then at one point, I overheard an elderly woman say to another person present about my toddler: "He has such a loud voice for such a little boy" and it pierced me. I wasn't sure if she was irritated or just noting it neutrally, but it stopped my mind, which had been racing along in a similar observation. As so often happens in these moments, I began to laugh. Indeed, he does have a big voice for such a little boy. He is two years old. He is excited. He has a lot of pent up energy. He loves the gong and the pictures of the Buddha and the cushions. He loves running around on a carpeted floor. He was expressing his windhorse, his sheer delight in exploring the phenomenal world and his body moving through space. How marvelous. How absolutely appropriate for him. And how not a big deal. We weren't attending a silent meditation. We were at a celebratory party. He was celebrating something bigger. The life force, flowing through him, through us, through the space.

And I saw how I had felt ashamed about that. My heart broke open. I had been doubting his goodness. I had been doubting the fundamental sanity of the situation. There was nothing to be ashamed about. If necessary, I could redirect the children, move them into a different space, cut some frosting off the back of the cake to give to my eldest (which is what I did, ahem). But ultimately, there was no problem. There was no "not doing this right". What I realized again about doubt is that it is based in the fear of not getting confirmed by others. Or not confirmed in the way I would hope to be. This illusory, ever changing "I" wants to believe it is some "thing". Something real and solid and admired by others. Children have a way of disassembling this project we have of building ourselves up again and again.

I guess what I realized (once again) was that my children have a right to be here. And I have a right to be here. This doesn't mean we have the right to create chaos and confusion. There is a time and a place for the throwing down of plastic forks and the indiscriminate ringing of huge meditation gongs. But we can relate to all of it without doubt. With fundamental confidence in our sanity and the sanity of our children. And in the sanity of the others observing us as we relate to one another. Sometimes we have to wake up their sanity as well (the sanity of those around us)- we have to remind them that children are sentient beings, the same sentient beings they come to the meditation cushion to assist. We have to remind them that children are buddha. That the phenomenal world is messy and a bit chaotic and noisy, and ultimately, extremely workable. That phenomena can wake us up to the present moment, rather than shut us down further.

At one point during the weekend retreat I was asked to timekeep for the meditation session. This means sitting at the front of the room, next to the big meditation gong, watching the clock, ringing the gong to mark off the periods of sitting and walking meditation, and just "holding the space" as they say. As I sat up front, meditating, I could hear people crunching in the snow outside. I could hear the stomachs of people meditating growling. People sneezed and sniffed. Someone farted. I found it all tremendously moving. Every sound brought me back to right now. Every sound pulled me out of any self obsessive thoughts into the thought of others. Our children demand this of us on a daily basis. Let them pull you out of self-doubt. Let them remind you of your goodness and the goodness of the world.