help for a sangha family

I learned last week that a new mother in my Shambhala Buddhist sangha had lost her life after giving birth to her much desired twin babies. Here is a link where, if you are inspired to, you can donate an amount, however small, to her husband and new babies, who are healthy and peaceful, but in need of assistance. If you can hold this family in your heart minds this week, and send them love and peace, I am certain it would be felt and appreciated. The preciousness of human birth, and the reality of death. Good contemplations to turn our minds to appreciation. May Michal be reborn in a completely pure realm, and may her family know peace and goodness.

just a reminder

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


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

judging or joy?

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

riding the rollercoaster

"As warriors, we try to rejoice whenever there is an obstacle, and we try to regard that as something that makes us smile. Each particular setback creates a further smile. We keep on going in that way, and we never give up or give in to any obstacles...It is like riding a rollercoaster: the more you go down and the more you go up, the more you smile each time." - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

I have been riding the rollercoaster that is parenting the past couple of weeks. I have been so tired out by six weeks of almost continuous illness that my neurosis has been, shall we say, a bit heightened. The usual ups and downs have been more exaggerated as my defenses have fallen away, or maybe, it's that the defenses have gotten stronger. Working with my mind while my two year old and one year old go about their business of exploring the vividness of phenomena and their emotions has been challenging work.

My previously very gentle eldest has turned into the toddler that hits, pushes and kicks other children, usually without any obvious provocation. If I look deeper of course, I see that there is provocation- as in, the other child is in his immediate space, or looking at a toy he is interested in, or beginning to interact with him in some completely innocuous way. Babies and older children alike are targets. It has been quite the ride for me, indeed. On the other hand, he has also taken off in his speech, which for me is a real joy. He was a very late talker, so much so that we were beginning to get concerned and had him evaluated. Hearing him express himself in words, and describing his world is incredibly poignant and wonderful.

Meanwhile, his brother is in that 13 month old "newly walking, must climb onto everything, creep into everything, run and fall everywhere" mode, marked by ouches and bruises. So, I have been alternating between loving appreciation of their growth and fear, chagrin, and horror at the acting out and getting hurt - all perfectly normal developmentally, and all perfectly challenging for this mama.

Using my mindfulness to create some space around my reactions to them has given me some insight. One thing that keeps coming up for me is my own fear of looking bad, or being bad. When my eldest pushes another toddler down, or deliberately bounces a ball off the head of a young baby - along with the almost primal reaction of needing to intervene and protect, comes a deep feeling of shame and embarrassment. These are very old feelings for me, and are present often in many of my interactions with others. Now, there is nothing wrong with me having these emotions. What becomes problematic is that if I am not mindful, these strong, old emotions lead me to behave unskillfully or aggressively with my toddler.

The same is true with my youngest when he is exploring and/or getting hurt. Feelings of shame, embarrassment, of somehow being wrong or bad arise, whether or not others are around to witness. Again, not wrong, but problematic if I am not mindful in how I respond. In both situations, if there is enough space, if I can pause for a brief second and touch in to what I am adding to what has occurred, what I am projecting onto it, I can usually respond appropriately- redirecting, comforting, distracting, having a gentle teaching moment, etc. When I can't pause, and am just carried by the energy of these hot emotions, I tend to overreact - I get a little aggressive in how I respond to my little ones. I become unskillful. I get more punitive or more exasperated or freaked out. I get shrill. I get nervous. Edgy. Things escalate. The space narrows. Everyone is miserable.

So, I am working on smiling, as Chogyam Trungpa taught. Learning to ride the rollercoaster with my arms up, constantly touching into the fear, shame, anger, frustration, tiredness, whatever, and letting go and opening up - smiling. Pulling myself and them out of the situation, sometimes physically, sometimes just to the other side of the room. Smiling.

It's been hard. Today was a challenging day. Painful. Trungpa continues:

"the experience of our day-to-day living situation consists of dissatisfaction, questioning, pain, depression, aggression, passion. All these are real, and we have to relate to them. Having a relationship with this may be extremely difficult. It's an organic operation without any anesthetics."

Today was like that. Raw. But I have found rawness to be more workable than just stuckness. Rawness has so much possibility and tenderness. Stuckness is so solid seeming and choking. So, I have had to keep touching that rawness, and just holding it.

"The present is worth looking at...Faith is that it's okay in the present situation, and we have some sense of trust in that."

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.

maitri or true love

For Valentine's Day, I thought it might be nice to contemplate maitri, or loving kindness. Pema Chodron has a great teaching on the subject. Chogyam Trungpa often translated maitri as "unconditional friendliness", which I find wonderful and piercing.

Maitri is one of those brilliant innate qualities that we can use our practice to uncover and nurture. In our daily lives, it can seem difficult to be unconditionally friendly towards ourselves and others. We usually put all kinds of conditions on our friendliness. We often won't even say hello to someone unless they say it to us first, and sometimes even then, we are a bit reluctant to respond in kind. It can be hard to open our hearts, to let down our guard. It can be hard to be truly gentle to ourselves and not find fault in how we are feeling, or what we are doing. Maitri transforms all that, transforms the hardness into softness, the habitual tendency to close up into just opening and extending out.

If you have a bit of space in your day to sit still, ground yourself, and place your attention on your breath as it goes in and out of your body - in other words, to meditate for a bit, you can introduce this maitri practice. Once you feel your mind is a bit settled, wish yourself happiness. You can simply say "may I be happy." It can be that simple. Once you feel relaxed with that, you can bring to mind someone dear to you, like your children. "May they be happy." Once that is settled in, bring to mind a neutral person, someone you have no strong feelings for or against (maybe your postman, or the cashier at the store). "May they be happy."

Then bring to mind someone you have trouble with. It doesn't have to be big trouble. You can start with someone that is just a little bit troublesome :). "May they be happy." Once you have worked with that person for a bit, you can extend out to all beings "May all beings be happy." Then just let go and relax. Be in the space where you are. Let the environment wake you up. Come back to the breath. You have now done maitri practice.

If this is a bit too formal for your schedule, just try and pause during your day and wish yourself happiness. When you have another little moment, wish your child happiness. Another moment and wish the postman happiness. And so on. These little moments are watering, watering the seeds of unconditional friendliness in your heart.

I always feel like I fall in love a bit when I do this practice. I can feel my heart open, little by little, and often when I see the person I have been contemplating, wishing happiness to, I feel my heart jump and get a bit happier myself. It's very softening, like a lovely, warm spring rain.

Wising you all true happiness, great ease, and love this day and all days.

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.

working with obstacles

"[You] do not have to pretend that everything is okay. And you do not have to wait for things to get better in order to practice. Instead of viewing mishaps as personal attacks, you can include them in your practice. You might even welcome them, for it is when you face difficulties, not when things are going smoothly, that you learn the most. That is what tests the strength of your practice. " - Acharya Judy Lief

This week was one where I seemed to be haunted by mishaps, or parenting and life challenges. In addition to still being sick, our appliances were visited by a mysterious plague causing first the dishwasher, then the refrigerator, and finally the washing machine to break down, all within about 48 hours of each other. And because we were all sick, we couldn't really address these breakdowns in a timely manner which meant that dishes and clothes piled up and our meager income was spent on takeout. My poor toddler, unable to go to his usual activities, spent most of each day indoors being sick, cranky, uncomfortable, and susceptible to tantrums. My baby was a bit out of sorts himself, and also in need of a change of scene and more interaction than I felt capable of.

I spent the week coughing my lungs out, trying not to trip over the mess in our apartment, negotiating repairs with my landlord, nursing both my children in what seemed an unending series of feedings and feeling victorious if I managed to get us outside for a thirty minute walk by 11:00 am. Oh, and I lost my patience, a lot. I had a very hard time holding my experience and not just reacting to it. Instead, I began feeling rather victimized by reality. Victimized by the inanimate objects showing their impermanence, by my body showing its impermanence, by my children showing their ever changing natures and moods. I wanted things to be different. And that's when I would break, and react to my toddler with frustration or impatience rather than nurture. Which of course just made everything so much worse.

There is a lojong, or mind training slogan that says "when the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi". As Acharya Lief says above, it is when things get tough for us that our practice really takes place. Can we pause for long enough in the midst of obstacles and watch our reactions? See where we are getting stuck? Notice where we are tightening? See where we want to blame others for our difficulties? Desire that things be different from what they are? Can we see where that energy turns into aggression? Where we want to attack, lash out, force things into changing? And can we unstick ourselves? Do something different?

A teacher once told me that when I noticed myself about to argue with someone or something, I should spin myself around in a circle and laugh instead. That this would be the most compassionate thing to do, even if the other person thought I was crazy. We don't have to do something as extreme as this when we feel our frustration and aggression rising. Sometimes just pausing is radical enough to change the familiar flow of habit energy and allow us to make a different choice. Maybe we still yell, but more softly! Or we decide not to say anything at all. Or we cry instead. Something different. Something less harmful. Something that creates the possibility of joy perhaps rather than suffering

There is another slogan that says "always maintain a joyful mind". I noticed so keenly this week when I acted out of my dissatisfaction rather than joy. Noticed when I was making these mishaps all about me and things not working out for me. Noticing means practicing. Watching the mind. Holding our experience in our awareness. Noticing is inherently gentle. We aren't judging - we are just noticing. We don't make ourselves wrong for feeling angry or victimized. We see it. Touch it. Feel it. We can even feel humorous about it. "Oh dear. There I go again. All about me, me, me. Poor me, poor, poor me!" It's pretty funny if you really begin to notice how you talk to yourself. Humor also helps cultivate gentleness. We don't need to beat ourselves up so much for being human. We can hold ourselves in loving kindness, extend some compassion to ourselves. Buddha is still in there. Buddha just got a bit obscured by our opinions of and attachment to how things should be.

Being mindful does not mean we don't make mistakes, or that our mind is never stolen away by worry, desire, anger, what have you. But it does mean we notice and come back. Come back to our trust in basic goodness, in our own sanity and compassion. In the basic goodness, sanity and compassion of our children. And then we get back onto the path of bodhi and start walking it all over again.

As Acharya Lief continues in her teaching: "Transformation does not mean that all our problems go away or that we overcome all our difficulties. It does not mean that the world is suddenly all rosy. It means that the path of dharma is big enough to accommodate whatever arises, good or bad. When you work with mishaps using the tools of mindfulness and loving-kindness, your relationship to such mishaps is transformed—and in the process, so are you."

Wishing you continued transformation this week and gentleness as you work with your own particular mishaps.