“Mamma, What Are You Doing?!”

One morning, my 3 year old daughter Alice woke up early, wandered into our darkened living room, and found me sitting quietly in the middle of the rug.

She asked, loudly and worriedly, “Mama, what are you doing?!” She’d never seen me meditate before and was truly puzzled.

I told her, “I’m sitting and paying attention to my breath. Would you like to join me?”

To my surprise she did, and decided to sit directly on my lap, — her small back to my belly, her legs a miniature crossing on top of my own crossed legs.  The child was sitting meditation with me! On top of me! It was very cozy, of course. I was now meditating not on my breath, but on the sound of this child’s breath, and on the feeling of her being cradled by me. She found stillness at a certain point, and I heard her soft breathing in the quiet of the morning.

A few minutes later she wandered off again, on to a new activity, and I was left feeling changed.

For Alice in those minutes, meditation was an activity like any other. No big deal, no drama. She just sat still and paid attention to her breath like I told her to. Easy. It was a good reminder to me of how natural meditation can be. We adults often contrast meditation to what we consider more normal human activity, but she just did it. And then she walked off to get her bear with the same sense of focus. One activity was not markedly different from the other.

Of course, I did think, well, she is a child. Maybe it’s easier for her in a way. I was reminded of how we often revere children for their ability to be present, to be precisely who they are, where they are, and when they are. I hadn’t linked kids with meditation, but now I did. I remembered how Buddhist monks are sometimes said to be child-like. Or the way in yoga how we admire the way children, as well as youthful people of all ages, so fully enjoy their innate flexibility.

There’s the Buddha, the Dharma, and also the Sangha. They are each considered one of the three jewels of Buddhism. And there I was, holding and surrounding her the way I feel the Sangha holds and surrounds me. My legs grounded her sits bones. My upright posture indicated to her that she should keep her back aligned. My soft belly expanding into her low back reminded her to keep to her breath. My quiet fed her quiet. She was in the palm of my body.

As she walked off my lap that morning I felt the presence of previous generations of meditators, of people meditating in their own darkened or light-filled rooms in all countries of the world, even of all the people who will meditate after our bodies are dust in the air. I knew in that moment how much I am encouraged and uplifted by this community, almost all of whom I will never meet, and the support and warmth I felt was unmistakable. Just as Alice sat supported by me, I am in the palm of the Sangha. We all are.

A Good Six Minutes

I started the OM Meditation Teacher Training Program this August and already I know I will be different by the end of it. Committing to the program was the first thing to change me. Just knowing that I was actually going to make room in my life for mediation after flirting with it through 12 years of yoga classes and countless mediation tapes (where I fast forwarded through the silent parts when I was supposed to be meditating!) allowed me to have a meditation session the week before that was the most refreshing one I’d ever experienced. OK, it only lasted 6 minutes, admittedly, but it was a good 6 minutes!

Later that morning I was present enough to catch the significance of something my daughter Mia said. Just as we were leaving our building, she fell and skinned her knee.  I announced that I had a band-aid for her and proudly whipped out my gallon-sized Ziploc bag full of everything necessary for small emergencies: band-aids, wound cream, baby wipes, bug spray, sun lotion, bug bite lotion, and even a powdered cold pack you can activate by breaking. I told her, “See? Mama has everything we need in this bag!” The smile hadn’t left my face when she asked, concerned, “Why, Mama? To be heavy?” I was already crouching but my knees fell to the ground. I sat back on my heels, and knew she had a point. I don’t think I could speak at that moment. It’s kind of a blank.

Mia was more curious about the heaviness of my present load than with the importance of being prepared for the ills that might befall her. And she’s right: it’s heavy to always be prepared to fend off the negative. Over time, the prepared bag only gets bigger – you might think of adding arnica gel or poison ivy soap. Although all the items are intended for healing, it’s still baggage, plain and simple. It’s akin to thinking out in advance a comeback line for a mean person at work. Even if you did say that line, and deliver it successfully, would that be good? You were the one carrying all that with you. Of course the prepared bag is practical – I’ve used most of the items in there this summer – just as that comeback line might be very satisfying at some level – but it’s also true that there are different ways of being prepared for life.

In a first level OM Meditation Teacher Training seminar, I was reminded that holding our mind to the breath, developing a second-tier observation post, using our thoughts creatively, and feeling loving-kindness towards all beings, all in the present moment, are all much better than stewing in anxiety related to the past or to the future. That anxiety is typically about what we perceive has happened to us, or what we fear might happen to us. But what if we start questioning the solidity of the ills we have so clearly defined for ourselves? What if it’s actually we who create, though the repeated grooves of our thinking, the road blocks in front of us? I want to find a way to be here, mindful and aware, and to respond to my environment one moment at a time. The more deeply I commit to my practice, the more I think I will subtly but surely change my way of seeing and being. I’m excited about everything new I will see and think and feel in this process. One thing I do know: building these strengths will be much more meaningful to me and to the people around me than the size of my prepared bag.