"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.
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Friday, July 1, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
everybody's in trouble
"Everybody's in trouble. Everybody, every minute, is tortured, suffering a lot. We shouldn't just ignore them and save ourselves alone. That would be a tremendous crime. In fact, we can't just save ourselves, because our neighbors are moaning and groaning all over the place... We can't just try and go to sleep. The rest of the world is going to wake us up with their pain." -Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
This is a useful quote to contemplate when you are feeling stuck. Stuck in your own stuff, your own obstacles, unable to access a wider view. When we can raise our gaze from our own claustrophobic ruminations, it can be amazing what we see, heart breaking, shaking. It can definitely ventilate our own little situation. This quote came to my mind today when reading a terrible and terribly important article in the New York Times over the debacle of "care" in New York state's institutions for disabled children. I won't link to it, as it is a very triggering piece, containing descriptions of abuse and worse. But it is there if you would like to read it, on their front page. I read it this morning, and wept aloud, as my two little boys played at my feet.
There is so much suffering in the world. How do we not turn away? How do we not turn away when we can't even stay with our own suffering, or that of our children? How do we turn towards it, and stay with it? Because if we can do that, we can maybe, possibly, help someone else. Help our children. Help our family. Our neighbors, our friends, our enemies. Help those who we secretly might believe can't ever be helped. This is our task.
We can learn by helping our children. We can learn by staying with their suffering, holding them when they cry, acknowledge their hurts, large and small, instead of covering them up with the quick "you're ok, you're ok" as we shush and shush. What's that about? That "you're ok?" Is that what we want to hear when we are crying? Someone telling us that we are really alright, that it isn't a big deal?
I had a friend who very tragically lost her husband at a young age, in a very sudden, abrupt way. People tried to make her feel better. They tried to cheer her up, to distract her, to tell her it would be ok. But she wouldn't do it. She wasn't ok. She wasn't going to be ok for awhile. And even then, it would be a different sort of ok, not the kind people mean when they say it. She needed to grieve. She needed to really feel her hurt, her deep, wrenching pain, and to cry. Some friends could not abide it. Some friends dropped her, feeling she was indulging in it. I would go and visit and just sit with her while she cried and cried and cried. I didn't say very much. There wasn't much to say. I just sat, and tried to stay open, until the tears stopped. It wasn't easy. It was scary. Her grief reminded me that everything is impermanent. That none of us can escape pain.
We can breathe with our children, being present with them, noticing when we want to shush them or brush over their hurts, so that we can "get on" with our day. We can instead acknowledge that what is happening, right now, is our day. We can open to our own discomfort with their tears. Acknowledge our own fear, anxiety and old hurts that can be opened when witnessing their pain. We can practice tonglen, or maitri.
This willingness to stay with suffering takes bravery. And we can take this brave heart out into the larger world, and by doing so, our children will in turn trust their own bravery. Everybody is suffering. Everybody, everybody. We can't ignore their pain. As Chogyam Trungpa writes, their pain will wake us up. Once we are able to find the courage to peek out from our own stuckness, our own unwillingness to open, and begin to breathe in some fresh air and relief, we can somehow find a way to bring that same relief to others, in any way we can. It might be a very small way. That's ok. In fact, that is stupendous. Just finding the bravery to hold our children when we would prefer to stifle their tears - that is enormous. Or the bravery to smile at our neighbor. That is huge. Who knows where that step will lead? We are watering the seeds of bravery, compassion, opening. A smile can lead to total transformation.
These little, small seeds we water can grow into mighty trees. Trees that extend the shade of compassion and liberation to many, many beings. Let us practice not turning away. Let us work to stay, just stay, and open, to everybody. To their pain. That can be enough. To just sit there, open, and let their pain in.
This is a useful quote to contemplate when you are feeling stuck. Stuck in your own stuff, your own obstacles, unable to access a wider view. When we can raise our gaze from our own claustrophobic ruminations, it can be amazing what we see, heart breaking, shaking. It can definitely ventilate our own little situation. This quote came to my mind today when reading a terrible and terribly important article in the New York Times over the debacle of "care" in New York state's institutions for disabled children. I won't link to it, as it is a very triggering piece, containing descriptions of abuse and worse. But it is there if you would like to read it, on their front page. I read it this morning, and wept aloud, as my two little boys played at my feet.
There is so much suffering in the world. How do we not turn away? How do we not turn away when we can't even stay with our own suffering, or that of our children? How do we turn towards it, and stay with it? Because if we can do that, we can maybe, possibly, help someone else. Help our children. Help our family. Our neighbors, our friends, our enemies. Help those who we secretly might believe can't ever be helped. This is our task.
We can learn by helping our children. We can learn by staying with their suffering, holding them when they cry, acknowledge their hurts, large and small, instead of covering them up with the quick "you're ok, you're ok" as we shush and shush. What's that about? That "you're ok?" Is that what we want to hear when we are crying? Someone telling us that we are really alright, that it isn't a big deal?
I had a friend who very tragically lost her husband at a young age, in a very sudden, abrupt way. People tried to make her feel better. They tried to cheer her up, to distract her, to tell her it would be ok. But she wouldn't do it. She wasn't ok. She wasn't going to be ok for awhile. And even then, it would be a different sort of ok, not the kind people mean when they say it. She needed to grieve. She needed to really feel her hurt, her deep, wrenching pain, and to cry. Some friends could not abide it. Some friends dropped her, feeling she was indulging in it. I would go and visit and just sit with her while she cried and cried and cried. I didn't say very much. There wasn't much to say. I just sat, and tried to stay open, until the tears stopped. It wasn't easy. It was scary. Her grief reminded me that everything is impermanent. That none of us can escape pain.
We can breathe with our children, being present with them, noticing when we want to shush them or brush over their hurts, so that we can "get on" with our day. We can instead acknowledge that what is happening, right now, is our day. We can open to our own discomfort with their tears. Acknowledge our own fear, anxiety and old hurts that can be opened when witnessing their pain. We can practice tonglen, or maitri.
This willingness to stay with suffering takes bravery. And we can take this brave heart out into the larger world, and by doing so, our children will in turn trust their own bravery. Everybody is suffering. Everybody, everybody. We can't ignore their pain. As Chogyam Trungpa writes, their pain will wake us up. Once we are able to find the courage to peek out from our own stuckness, our own unwillingness to open, and begin to breathe in some fresh air and relief, we can somehow find a way to bring that same relief to others, in any way we can. It might be a very small way. That's ok. In fact, that is stupendous. Just finding the bravery to hold our children when we would prefer to stifle their tears - that is enormous. Or the bravery to smile at our neighbor. That is huge. Who knows where that step will lead? We are watering the seeds of bravery, compassion, opening. A smile can lead to total transformation.
These little, small seeds we water can grow into mighty trees. Trees that extend the shade of compassion and liberation to many, many beings. Let us practice not turning away. Let us work to stay, just stay, and open, to everybody. To their pain. That can be enough. To just sit there, open, and let their pain in.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
parenting without labels
When we are not sure what is going on, we react in fear and start labeling things black and white, good or bad, doomed to fail or destined to succeed. The process of labeling something because we are not sure what it is further increases the illusion of duality. Dualistic mind creates an aggressive scenario because we project a self and “other.” This process becomes a cycle: the heavier the dualism, the heavier the fear. - Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
Lately I have been contemplating the quote above from my teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. The original context of this teaching was the current economic crisis and the fear it continues to generate, but I have been chewing it over in regards to my parenting. In particular, I have been seeing how easily I can become dualistic, both with my own children and with others and their parenting choices.
To become a parent is to make friends with fear. To become a human being is to live with fear of course, but being responsible for another life really intensifies it! Having children really forces one to face the truth that we cannot control things. The world and life are groundless. Our children will get hurt. They will get sick. They will make mistakes. They will hurt others. They will drop out of highschool and run off to Mexico with that other kid we really disapprove of...you get the idea! All we can do is provide them with a strong foundation of love, nurturing and acceptance so that they recognize their own basic goodness and can make that manifest in the world. But that can look all different ways. And they will still get sick, get old if they are lucky, and eventually, like all of us, will die.
Scary stuff. And compounded by the already chaotic daily challenges of raising young children, it is no wonder that we try to push off these truths and our fear around them by constructing some kind of identity that (we hope) will somehow stave off the vagaries of living. This immediately puts us at war with life! It is hard to go with the flow of life when we are constantly trying to stem it, stop it, turn it this way and that. This is how suffering increases and we lose all ease in our parenting.
The dharma tells us that it is always problematic when we seek to construct and maintain any kind of identity, any "this is what I am" storyline. When we label ourselves as being some thing, then others inevitably become something else, and separation is cultivated in our minds and hearts. So, if I decide to call myself an attachment parenting mama, then everyone else either is in alignment with that or not, and of course, whatever actions I take as a parent are either in alignment with this label or out of alignment with it. Always the schizophrenia we impose on the outer world is equally imposed on our inner world! This leads to labeling things as good or bad or with me or against me. Even our children are either with us or against us. We are constantly measuring ourselves, our children, and other parents up, seeing how we all do against the criteria we have created. And then we judge.
And the more I experience this, the more I realize all of this is really just about managing our own fear. Our fear for our children and for ourselves. Our fear of the world. And our continual struggle to deny reality - to try and make things permanent that are impermanent. This is, as the Buddha taught, the root of all suffering. We keep thinking that if we just do things a certain way, we will be safe from life. But what if life wasn't something we had to keep safe from? What if we could really begin to trust in our own basic goodness, and in the basic goodness that underpins the entire world?
As a good attachment parenting mama (lol!), I read Mothering magazine, which is all about natural parenting. In their letters to the editor section, I am always struck by how the majority of the writers list their natural parenting bona fides in the beginning of their letters, as in "I am a breastfeeding, babywearing, bedsharing, cloth diapering . . ." you get the idea. I find it rather exhausting. Just as I find it exhausting when I find myself doing it! Stating our identity seems to close off compassion for other paths. And it can also close off compassion towards ourselves or our children when we miss the mark, when we don't comfortably comply with the parameters we have imposed so strongly on our lives.
We need to make peace with the truth that everything is constantly changing. Nothing is fixed. Our children certainly are not, but neither are we. I often think of the many different things I have called myself over the course of this lifetime, and how they more often than not no longer apply in any way, shape or form! We need to allow ourselves this kind of space in our parenting - the space to be constantly changing, adapting, flowing. This is allowing life to work through us and with us, rather than fighting it. This is opening ourselves to our own parenting path, our children's path, and the paths of other caregivers. We can see more clearly when we aren't looking through our heavy labels. What we see without them is so much more beautiful, joyful, and energetic than with them. We can stop being at war with ourselves and others and instead fill our heartminds with gentleness and spaciousness. This will cultivate our awareness of basic goodness and allow it to flow out of us unimpeded.
To read all of the Sakyong's wonderful talk, you can go here.
Lately I have been contemplating the quote above from my teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. The original context of this teaching was the current economic crisis and the fear it continues to generate, but I have been chewing it over in regards to my parenting. In particular, I have been seeing how easily I can become dualistic, both with my own children and with others and their parenting choices.
To become a parent is to make friends with fear. To become a human being is to live with fear of course, but being responsible for another life really intensifies it! Having children really forces one to face the truth that we cannot control things. The world and life are groundless. Our children will get hurt. They will get sick. They will make mistakes. They will hurt others. They will drop out of highschool and run off to Mexico with that other kid we really disapprove of...you get the idea! All we can do is provide them with a strong foundation of love, nurturing and acceptance so that they recognize their own basic goodness and can make that manifest in the world. But that can look all different ways. And they will still get sick, get old if they are lucky, and eventually, like all of us, will die.
Scary stuff. And compounded by the already chaotic daily challenges of raising young children, it is no wonder that we try to push off these truths and our fear around them by constructing some kind of identity that (we hope) will somehow stave off the vagaries of living. This immediately puts us at war with life! It is hard to go with the flow of life when we are constantly trying to stem it, stop it, turn it this way and that. This is how suffering increases and we lose all ease in our parenting.
The dharma tells us that it is always problematic when we seek to construct and maintain any kind of identity, any "this is what I am" storyline. When we label ourselves as being some thing, then others inevitably become something else, and separation is cultivated in our minds and hearts. So, if I decide to call myself an attachment parenting mama, then everyone else either is in alignment with that or not, and of course, whatever actions I take as a parent are either in alignment with this label or out of alignment with it. Always the schizophrenia we impose on the outer world is equally imposed on our inner world! This leads to labeling things as good or bad or with me or against me. Even our children are either with us or against us. We are constantly measuring ourselves, our children, and other parents up, seeing how we all do against the criteria we have created. And then we judge.
And the more I experience this, the more I realize all of this is really just about managing our own fear. Our fear for our children and for ourselves. Our fear of the world. And our continual struggle to deny reality - to try and make things permanent that are impermanent. This is, as the Buddha taught, the root of all suffering. We keep thinking that if we just do things a certain way, we will be safe from life. But what if life wasn't something we had to keep safe from? What if we could really begin to trust in our own basic goodness, and in the basic goodness that underpins the entire world?
As a good attachment parenting mama (lol!), I read Mothering magazine, which is all about natural parenting. In their letters to the editor section, I am always struck by how the majority of the writers list their natural parenting bona fides in the beginning of their letters, as in "I am a breastfeeding, babywearing, bedsharing, cloth diapering . . ." you get the idea. I find it rather exhausting. Just as I find it exhausting when I find myself doing it! Stating our identity seems to close off compassion for other paths. And it can also close off compassion towards ourselves or our children when we miss the mark, when we don't comfortably comply with the parameters we have imposed so strongly on our lives.
We need to make peace with the truth that everything is constantly changing. Nothing is fixed. Our children certainly are not, but neither are we. I often think of the many different things I have called myself over the course of this lifetime, and how they more often than not no longer apply in any way, shape or form! We need to allow ourselves this kind of space in our parenting - the space to be constantly changing, adapting, flowing. This is allowing life to work through us and with us, rather than fighting it. This is opening ourselves to our own parenting path, our children's path, and the paths of other caregivers. We can see more clearly when we aren't looking through our heavy labels. What we see without them is so much more beautiful, joyful, and energetic than with them. We can stop being at war with ourselves and others and instead fill our heartminds with gentleness and spaciousness. This will cultivate our awareness of basic goodness and allow it to flow out of us unimpeded.
To read all of the Sakyong's wonderful talk, you can go here.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
