Mamasattva

one with everything (whether we like it or not)

Often, I feel it in my body when my kids are really suffering. After 8 years of mama-ing, I've grown somewhat accustomed to it. I hurt when they hurt, simple. And by now, not a surprise.

What I didn't know in my bones is that I could feel the deep suffering of my friends so deeply in my own body...until last week when some sudden, seismic changes happened in my close circle of friends.

Aches, sleeplessness, stomach upsets -- these all would've made sense for my friends to experience, but as someone whose life at the moment is actually really good, I was caught by surprise that they were happening to me, a bystander.

With time, acupuncture, meditation, and massage, my body is much better today. What I've (re)learned: being a bystander is an illusion. That thing about "being one with everything?" It's for real. And of course with the help of some Pema Chodron wisdom, I'm reminded that it is not a bad thing. It is just life.

This kinship with the suffering of others, this inability to continue to regard it from afar, is the discovery of our soft spot, the discovery of bodhichitta. Bodhichitta ...means "noble or awakened heart." It is said to be present in all beings.

And just in case I think of congratulating myself for having such a big heart, Chodron goes on:

Because bodhichitta gives us no ground, it cuts through our concepts and ideals. We can't make it into a project of becoming a "good person" or the one you can always count on to be there. It's far more uncertain than that.

Truth is I've had fleeting thoughts of distancing myself from the drama "to take care of myself." But there will always be drama and change and anyway, it seems this wise body won't allow me to forget: we're connected. Beyond ideas of "trying to be a good friend" is this truth, this shared vulnerability.

So I practice leaning in a little, breathing in pain, breathing out relief for everyone involved (including the "bystanders").

Chodron gets the last word:

Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt...At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down...At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

 

what i love about health scares

 

I talk a big talk when it comes to living in the moment.  And I do put effort into it, trying my best to notice this very breath, the rise & fall of this very thought, feeling where my feet are throughout the day.  But it seems it's only when I get The Call from the Doctor that things get real.

I got that call from the radiology center yesterday, five days after a routine mammo. I was at the park with Little Boy and his friend, A.

"We need more images of your breasts, possibly an ultrasound."

With those words, my stomach drops into my knees, metal is in my mouth, everything is both sharp and blurry.

Between the time of that call and getting the results of the additional images, what is important becomes so super clear.  There is fear, for sure, and sadness and resistance. But there is also this weird little thread of...relief. I think it's relief that what is important (gratitude & kindness) is really not that complicated and all those things I usually think I need to be worried about are actually no big deal.

Another thing I love about health scares: it feels easier to have an open heart. There are no more strategies for the future or grudges from the past, none of that matters when it feels like the number of my days is way less than expected.

There's the rub! For all my talk of living in the Now, I still expect to live a certain amount of life. And it's only when I get The Call that I'm made aware of that expectation, that idea which, in a way is, actually death.  Real  life doesn't care about that expectation. It goes on, changing and changing, doing its wild dance. Maybe that's why, when I eventually find out that the test results are normal, mixed in with the great relief is a familiar shutting down. Something that came more alive in the last day goes back to sleep.

Pema Chodron says in her book, When Things Fall Apart:

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.

Let me say: I don't want to get sick for the sake of mindfulness practice.

But I can appreciate how, by keeping sickness & death near, each moment's vitality as well as the wide open-heartedness I believe is within each of us can be more easily experienced.

 

word friendly, revisited

 

Back on Ash Wednesday, I made a vow to abstain from disparaging speech for the period of Lent. Now that Easter has come and gone, I'm thinking over how that all went and what I discovered.

 

• I broke the vow less times than I expected, which was, frankly, a nice surprise.

 

• Whoever came up with the precept of Right Speech really knew what they were doing. Because by keeping this precept in my consciousness, speaking/expressing felt simpler, easier, and cleaner.

 

• Except when it didn't. I got to see a pattern of when I did break the vow, in what situations I was likely to forgo true intimacy because of fear (based on the idea of "protecting" a "me"). So although it was usually followed by an achy dullness, forgetting the precept revealed valuable information. Not about where I "fell" but where I "slipped." And where I slip most often is when, out of fear of what has happened (past) and/or what could happen (future), an identification with a solid "me" is formed.

 

• It was harder when it came to the Littles. How not to disparage while complaining about them to Husband? This was interesting. Littles, obviously, are beings, too. Yet because I feel responsible for their raising, because they are "mine," and I work so damn hard, I'm entitled to say things behind their backs I wouldn't say to their faces, right? Hmm...

 

• Completely unsurprising: it was hardest with speech about myself.

 

I'm going to keep trying to honor this vow, even now after the end of Lent, mainly because it just feels good, with a special focus on the kids and myself.

And since I work best with set chunks of time, let's say for the next 40 days, I am going to "pretend" that the kids and me are "friends" of mine who, like all friends, are deserving of respect and kind words.

 

flash meditation

One of the stories I often tell myself as a mama is that "I'm too busy to (verb describing some kind of self-care)." Recently, I read this article about the epidemic of "busy-ness" and meditation. Inspired, I got up especially early today and started with a 20-minute sit.

Our house is not big and when the kids are awake, I can pretty much hear them wherever I am. So this morning, as I sat in the master bedroom, I could hear every squeal, chatter, protest, and song. I noticed the mind's thought-threads swirl around the sounds, then returned and returned to the breath, to where muscles tightened and released. I remembered Zen Master Dogen's advice from Fukanzazengi: a quiet room is suitable. In my life right now, a quieter room is the best I've got. Totally fine. This sit felt exactly like the Way of the Mama. It was do-able.

What I've had to learn living the Way of the Mama is how to meditate on the fly, or what I call, "flash meditations." A deep breath, a softening, feeling the bottoms of my feet -- in a moment, sometimes just a few seconds. Here's when I've "flash meditated":

• in the car at stop lights
• exercising
• brushing my teeth
• using the toilet
• waiting in lines
• just before eating
• waiting for a page to load with a slow internet connection
• being on hold for the next customer representative
• in bed, before getting up and as I'm falling asleep

The story of being too busy is a popular one and very compelling. But it's not really true.

Can you challenge your story today? 

worst horse

Last night, I had a big bout of Worst Horse blues.

Currently, in my inner circle of mamas, I am the only one who is not earning income. I won't say I don't work because I hella work, but none of it brings in any money. Recently, a couple of my friends have gotten more work outside the home, and last night, in a swirl of fatigue, hormones, and history, I came down hard on myself. Envy and despair because I'm not earning money, not realizing a livelihood bliss, not even knowing exactly what that bliss is. Loser-ville.

But even as the waves of those thoughts passed over and through, there was this little awareness mixed in, this memory of the story of the Four Horses from Suzuki Roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver’s will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one does, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. 

I want to be the best horse, I just want to get this whole livelihood thing. Everyone else is passing me! And I'm getting older! And what if something happens to Husband, how can I support a family?!

Whip! Whip! WHIP!

Then a breath. Then awareness: these thoughts come from a dead place. From ideas about a "me" & "success" based on the past which is gone.

This, now, is what *is.* This, now, there is breath and quiet.

Then arises space for other things: observing the need to create a "me," an awesome conversation with Husband about what is actually important (each moment, a loving presence for the kiddoes) and then, a sense of a livelihood path that feels like the next logical step, affection for friends flushing out the envy.

Suzuki Roshi goes on:

If you think the aim of Zen practice is to train you to become one of the best horses, you will have a big problem.  This is not the right understanding...When you are determined to practice zazen with the great mind of Buddha, you will find the worst horse is the most valuable one.  In your very imperfections you will find the basis for your firm, way-seeking mind.  Those who can sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen, the actual feeling of Zen, the marrow of Zen.  But those who find great difficulties in practicing Zen will find more meaning in it.  So I think that sometimes the best horse may be the worst horse, and the worst horse can be the best one.

Ok, then. 

 

close encounters

(courtesy of Angie M. Yingst)

I'm starting a local mindful mama group with my friend Amanda of Urban Almanac.  It's been brewing in the back of my mind for some time-- years, really -- but finally, about a month ago, I felt ready to reach out, write the emails, and get the ball rolling.

One of my hopes is the group will be the kind of space where I can exhale. I don't remember much from that movie, "Waiting to Exhale," just one moment when a character finally met someone with whom she could literally exhale, let go, be herself.

I try, in each moment, to relax and be myself, drop defenses, notice that there is no solid identity to defend in the first place. It's easier when it's quiet, when I'm alone, when there are no tasks that need attending to. And it would be way easier to continue sitting on my own rather than spend time creating, worrying about, and co-leading a mama group. 

But.                                                                                               

Two things:

I get lonely.

And I know, from working with my teacher and from having lived in and practiced with a sangha, it takes two. At least.

Or, as it is said in the Lotus Sutra, only a Buddha together with a Buddha can master buddha dharma.

I come from a tradition of not meditating in a cave but of going out into "the world," of living with & helping other beings, relating.

I like the way Zen Buddhist teacher Norman Fischer puts it:

Although we must all rely on our own experience and intelligence, we cannot realize Suchness [the world as it is] by dint of our own efforts. An appreciation of true Suchness can be awakened within us only in radical encounter.

Radical! Face-to-face, for real. And these days, just physically sitting in silence with others on purpose feels radical. So easy now to simply be a profile pic and a few words on a screen, to cultivate a smoothed-over online persona, to "delete" hurt feelings or scroll past a challenge.

Obviously I enjoy the social media as much as the next mama. But even though the act of inviting friends to "like" the group's Facebook page feels as if I'm sticking my actual neck out with nothing more than a bit of skin between my stretched out, throbbing jugular and "the world," I yearn to sit with other bodies in real life, to stop holding in my spiritual tummy, to lift the veil, expose my delusions, and make like Kannon who hears the cries of the world.

 

word friendly

 

It has been years since I gave up anything for Lent.

But this year, it feels right to give something up.

My vow for the next 40 days relates to one of the Bodhisattva precepts concerning speech (Not Discussing the Faults of Others).

Specifically: I vow to give up saying anything about anyone that I wouldn't say to his/her face.

I chose this precept because I talk a lot. Too much too often, letting valuable qi energy leak out of my mouth and also through my fingers on the keyboard (I'm including the written word as part of speech). And as a Mama of 2 rambunctious Littles, I could really use that qi!

Not only that, but when my lips get too loose, often there's an unpleasant aftertaste. On my soul. I eventually feel a bit more dull, even if throwing down an especially sharp zinger can initially feel sparkly.

And obviously, there is the strong possibility of simply hurting someone's feelings.

In his book, The Mind of Clover,  Zen Buddhist teacher, Robert Aitken, described discussing the faults of others as "aloofness," that in abstaining from it, we can return to "intimacy." This resonates, as lately I've been given to a low-level but abiding lonesomeness, a yearning for connection that goes deeper than what I create with my usual chatter.

The thing is: I know I will fail.

Sometime -- probably several times --  in these 40 days, I will forget this vow. For reasons most likely having to do with fear, I will disparage someone else. And then I'll have the chance to really investigate without judgment.

• What idea felt more important than keeping the vow?
• How did it feel in my body before, during, and after I spoke?
• Was the intention to help or to harm?
• How can I make amends?

I'm not trying to be perfect or get to heaven.

But if the poet Hafez is right and that "what we speak becomes the house we live in," then I'd way rather live in a love shack, wouldn't you?

 

Maitri & the Mama Bear

 

Now, in second grade, Little Girl's friendships are getting more complex.

I've had a problem with one of her besties for some time. Without going into too much detail, I'll just say that from what I've observed, the dynamics of this friendship right now seem unhealthy. Too many past misbehaviors and too much anxiety on the part of Little Girl have somehow involved this friend (whom I will refer to as The Bestie. See how I resisted the urge to call her The BEASTIE?).

Two things happen for me: my own friendship karma from the distant past gets a re-boot and the protective maternal instinct flips on. Add to that a historically hot temper and here comes a hurt Mama Bear on the fucking War Path.

So when things came to a head recently, I brought some energy to the face-to-face I had to have with The Bestie's mother. I kept it together and didn't say anything inappropriate. But even though I'm actually shorter than this woman, I felt I embodied the conversation with the ferocity of an upright bear, 10 feet tall and roaring.

It was exhilarating! Righteous anger can be such a high!

And afterwards, it was exhilarating when I recounted the incident to friends and in my mind. But in-between the "righteousness" were waves of weary and sad, anxiety that I over-did it, fear of my own anger, ancient grief, dread of the long relationship I will potentially have to have with The Bestie and her mother.

I understand part of my job as a mother is to protect my Littles. As a Buddhist, though, I can't help noticing how painful it is to solidify the sense of (Bear) Self and Other.

The next day, my heart still felt so tight. I tried sending lovingkindness to Bestie and family and just could not do it. So I looked to a Master, Pema Chodron, someone who knows from hanging out with a tight heart.

I found a note on her Facebook page describing the practice of Compassionate Abiding. It's essentially breathing into the tightness, letting go of the desire to make the tightness go away. This practice, she says, is to develop maitri. Reading how Chodron defines maitri - unconditional friendliness toward oneself - I felt just enough of a loosening for the tears to come. Breathing into my contracted chest, a tiny soothing space arose. Space enough to remember that the Bestie's mother loves her girl like I love my girl and that there is room for a Mama Bear to come...but I don't have to invite her to stay.

 

there are no big deals

Years before I started meditating and working with my Zen teacher, I was a member of Al-Anon, the 12-step program for friends and families of alcoholics. I had a great sponsor. One of her favorite slogans was, "There Are No Big Deals."

I thought about that today when, early on a morning I usually have for myself, I got a call from Little Boy's preschool.  "He seems sick, can you come pick him up?"

It was unexpected, considering the way Little Boy had been playing just before I dropped him off.

But even more surprisingly, the news merely caused a ripple and not the tidal wave I've been known to experience when plans suddenly change and the expected "Mama Time" goes out the window. Usually there's a surge of Righteous Anger then a Scramble to somehow Get What I Want anyway followed by Pity Party.

Today, not so much.

Maybe it was the intense acupuncture treatment I'd just walked out of when the preschool called. But I'm hoping it also had something to do with a little bit of hard-earned wisdom.

For years, since Little Girl was born, I've tried to practice being interruptible. Plans, expectations, ideas about what even the next moment will be like can change in an instant because of these small people. There is a lot less universal wear and tear if I can be a little spacious about it, if my grip is light.

And I've found a light grip is supported by (surprise!) meditation (even the shortest bits, like 5 minutes before I fall asleep at night), noticing my breath, taking the time to really feel how emotion-thoughts and sensations come and go through my body.

So I picked Little Boy up. Turns out he is not sick; he just wanted what I wanted: Mama Time.

Ok, no big deal. And yeah, my grip was light today but I'm certainly no Hakuin:

I made sure to negotiate with Husband for some time alone after he finishes work.

 

each moment is christmas

                       

 

 

 

 

 

I tell my kids that Christmas is about peace and kindness and being with loved ones.

Yet right after Thanksgiving, Mama seems to disappear into a flurry of activity, working hard behind the scenes to make The Magic happen.  Or at the very least, I’m often distracted even if I’m physically with the kiddoes, juggling tasks and events in my mind.

So it’s no surprise that both Little Girl and Little Boy have been acting out lately.

Little Girl stole some items from her classroom the other day (first time she’s done that, or at least been caught) and Little Boy has had especially monstrous meltdowns with his Legos this week. Meanwhile I’m playing Andy Williams holiday songs a little too loud, dancing around with a grimace on my face, trying to create Beautiful Memories of a Special Time, goddammit.

When I do nothing but take a few belly breaths, I can remember:

That really all my kids and I want is connection, especially now with the shorter days, we’re spending more time in darkness. It’s good to just share some light and hold each other’s hands.

 Zen Buddhist priest Shohaku Okamura has said:

…the reality of our life is before the separation of self (subject) and others (objects). We separate our self from others by discriminative thinking, when we "open the hand of thought" (or release our discriminating views), we are right in the network of interdependent origination. We are connected with everything.

So maybe, instead of feeling like I have to be The One Behind The Curtain, I’ll try settling into the reality that we are already connected in each moment. Sitting down with my kids, belly breathing, not saying a word, letting the ideas of this season's “have to” and “should” arise and fall without grabbing.

In other words, practicing peace, kindness, and just being with my little loved ones.