Buddhism for mothers of young children

‘Buddhist practitioner Napthali has written an eminently practical book that gives frazzled mothers useable advice and empathy . . . precisely because she is not a teacher and is in the midst of mothering, Napthali offers the approachable and authentic perspective of a rank-and-file practitioner who lives the techniques and situations she writes about.’—Publishers Weekly

‘Napthali’s book focuses on Buddhist practices that will help mothers become calmer and happier in themselves. Follow her advice and we all know what comes next—better parenting.’—Sunday Telegraph

‘Funny, uplifting, reassuring, real and wise. A truly “mothering” book for mothers . . .’—Stephanie Dowrick

‘This is an excellent, practical guide to everyday Buddhism, not just for mothers, but for everyone who has ever had a mother.’—Vicki Mackenzie, author of the best-selling Why Buddhism?

‘Buddhism for Mothers is an oasis of calm and tranquility in the otherwise chaotic existence that is motherhood.’—Mind & Body

‘. . . approach the day-to-day “highs and lows” differently and more positively, and yes—even more calmly.’—Childbirth Education Association

‘I love this book. It brings such a calming sense of being just by picking it up.’—Kathleen

‘I love this book! I would recommend this book to anyone, Buddhist or not. I’m so glad someone is finally talking about how to deal with the stresses of mother hood in a realistic way without inducing guilt or fear. The author’s tone is both friendly and empathetic—just what we moms need. The book is empowering and has made a big difference in the way I parent and the way I view my life as a mom.’—T. M.-R.

‘The author is very honest and refreshing. On every page you get the sense that the author is a very real person who can relate to both the best and the stressed in us all.’—Suzanne

‘IF YOU’RE A MOM, BUY THIS BOOK! I am sceptical of anyone trying to preach an idea to me, and I do not claim to be Buddhist. I just LOVE this book. I checked it out from a local library, but am now purchasing it so I can always have it around. It not only approaches ways to be a calmer mom, but a calmer being in your daily encounter with the world. It has changed how I approach issues, big or small; it’s also inspired me to demonstrate the same zen-buddhist coping tools for my children; and it has helped me to stay in the present moment.’—Kristin

Praise for Buddhism for Mothers of Young Children (formerly titled Buddhism for Mothers with Lingering Questions)

‘Napthali is a lovely writer. She skilfully weaves interviews with other parents into her own thoughts. As for guilt, Tibetans don’t even have a word for it, she writes.’—Sydney Morning Herald

‘If you liked her first book, Buddhism for Mothers, then you’ll adore this one. It’ll give you a new perspective on parenting and may even help you enjoy it more.’—Sunday Telegraph

‘This second book from Sarah Napthali . . . had me repeatedly crying out “yes” . . . By being focused, open and more attentive to the present moment we can enjoy a calmer and happier journey through parenthood; a great companion book for mothers struggling to cope with their new role.’—Perth Woman

‘There is much here to learn; through Napthali’s eyes, patience, reflection and calm become the vehicles to a deeper understanding of self, motherhood and family.’—Junior

SARAH NAPTHALI

Buddhism
for MOTHERS of
YOUNG CHILDREN

BECOMING A MINDFUL PARENT

9781741769272txt_0003_002

First published in 2007 under the title
Buddhism for Mothers with Lingering Questions

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

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FOR MANY OF US, it does not seem so long ago that the future was a complete mystery. Casting our minds back to pre-children days, we might remember a time when we had no idea who we would spend the rest of our lives with, where we would live, which communities we would belong to. Now we find ourselves at a stage where we know, and live, the answers to those big questions. Most of us have a fair idea of how we will spend the next few years, if not decades, of our lives. We have solved much of the mystery of how we ‘turned out’ or ‘ended up’. Some of us gave the full report at our twenty-year school reunion.

Still, not many of us see ourselves as now ‘living happily ever after’—for questions remain. Questions whose answers will determine the welfare of our families. These days, our questions sound more like: What kind of people are my children growing into? What do they need from me? Who, now, am I? What do I need to make me happy? Is there more to life than this? Where am I headed? Am I doing anything wrong? As we speculate on the answers, we feel every emotion from terror to elation, as we brace ourselves for the years of parenting ahead.

Since writing my first book, Buddhism For Mothers, my four-year-old Zac is now seven, my newborn Alex four. Life feels completely different to how it felt then. Many of the stresses have eased. I no longer change nappies, breastfeed or carry anybody. I still hose down temper flares—and dream of a tidy house. My husband, Marek, a mechanical engineer, remains equally disinterested in matters spiritual. Zac is at school. Alex is at pre-school three days a week, so these days I have time to work as a writer for a small number of clients from a home office.

Three years ago my greatest parenting challenge was being torn between the disparate needs of a suckling newborn and an active four-year-old. Today that gap has narrowed dramatically and the two play together—and squabble—for hours at a stretch. Since both boys were temperamental babies and strong-willed toddlers, I have moved from wishing the years would go faster to panicking over how quickly they now slip by. I worry that next time I look at Zac and Alex their childhood will be over.

My greatest challenge these days is dealing with the unrelenting naughtiness of four-year-old Alex. Apparently his behaviour is ‘fine’ when his parents are not around, but when we are, it is marked by a taste for boundary-pushing and button-pressing (mine). To illustrate, not long ago Alex found his way onto the stage at a musical performance at Zac’s school. Running into the middle of the stage, he then turned around, bent over and wiggled his bottom at an audience of two hundred people.

Sometimes I look back wistfully on the days when Zac was Alex’s age, four, and decided to call me Sarah instead of Mum. The phase only lasted a couple of weeks but hearing a tiny son call me by name seemed . . . inappropriate. When Alex is angry, which is often, he calls me Stupid Bumhead. A major line of questioning for my husband and me: Who is Alex and what kind of person is he growing into? What can we do to nurture what is best in him? Sometimes our question is whether his parents will survive the journey.

Some of us find our questions only arise when we slow down. The questions might begin to surface on a holiday or during an illness. When a mother stops to take stock about what really matters and where she should concentrate her energy, the answer is usually the same: her children. She might decide they need more of her time. Or even that she needs to take a step back and allow them more space. She might realise the need for a new approach to a niggling problem. What matters, however—according to a bevy of Buddhists, psychologists, philosophers, academics and wise laypeople—is that we make time for reflection, to ensure that the way we live our days aligns with how we ultimately want our lives to unfold.

For parents, the price can be high if we fail to make the necessary space for the big questions of our lives. Socrates may have sounded extreme when he said ‘an unexamined life is not worth living’, but examining our lives brings us closer to finding contentment. This is not to say that we find instant answers to our questions, or that this book will tell you what your answers are. Even the answers we do find might change over time. Rather, these questions are our life’s work. We learn to treasure the questions, keep them at the forefront of our minds, and allow them to keep us open and curious in our daily lives. Buddhists cultivate a lifelong spirit of inquiry rather than any presumption that we are already wise.

As questioning mothers, we seek to parent consciously. We cannot afford to parent on automatic pilot, let alone in a state of negativity. Instead, we challenge ourselves to find the most skilful approaches to family life. We avoid treating our children in knee-jerk, reactive ways, just as we avoid falling into ruts of crabbiness, snappiness and impatience. We know that every child is different from the next, and that each individual is different from stage to stage, even day to day, and moment to moment. If we want to be the best parent we can be, we need to keep paying attention to the changing requirements of each new moment.

The word Buddha means ‘one who is awake’. Buddhist teachings help mothers by encouraging us to be awake to what is going on now, to what is important and to how we can be happy. Buddhist practices help us to find answers to our deepest questions, such as how to find inner peace.

Siddharta Gautama, who eventually became the Buddha, was born a prince in a kingdom of Northern India. He was raised in a beautiful palace by an indulgent father who sought, at all costs, to protect his son from any knowledge of the misery in the streets outside the palace. The young prince eventually insisted on seeing the world and was deeply troubled to observe the suffering inherent in birth, sickness, aging and death. He decided to renounce the life of worldly pleasures and set about finding a way to end human suffering.

At first the prince tried the life of a yogi living in the forests but eventually saw that a life of asceticism, of denying the body its basic needs, was making him weak and ill, and bringing him no closer to freedom. By now he had turned against the extremes of indulgence on the one hand and denial of bodily needs on the other, such that we now refer to his teachings as the Middle Path. He decided to sit and meditate at the foot of a Bodhi tree in an effort to find liberation from suffering. There, he waged against the forces of his own greed, hatred and delusion.

With a clear mind and an open heart, he managed to penetrate the depths of human consciousness and discover a place of spaciousness and peace. He became enlightened. Having reached nirvana, he was now free from all attachment to worldly conditions. He spent the next forty-five years bringing his teachings to the various villages of India. His message was that we are all capable of awakening and manifesting our true nature, our Buddha Nature. He had discovered a way to end our unease and our anguish.

The last words of the Buddha before he died were: ‘Since there is no external saviour, it is up to each of you to work out your own liberation.’ In other words, each of us is responsible for our own spiritual path. Our own lives are our best teachers.

In becoming mothers, we have already progressed along our spiritual path in that some growth comes automatically. When I ask even the most overwhelmed of mothers how the experience of motherhood has changed them, the answers are inspiring. I hear that motherhood has made them more compassionate, patient, loving, sensitive to others, stronger and more aware of the value of life, love and community.

The path of parenting and the spiritual path are, so often, one and the same, such that for many, the two paths commence at around the same time. Becoming a parent often leads to spiritual seeking. As with a Buddhist practice, parenting demands that we keep paying attention to the requirements of the moment. Both paths require self-awareness if we are to see clearly. And the parallels continue. Children remind us of the mystery in our lives, as we continually find that they are not who we thought they were. Parenting teaches us all those spiritual truths that we resist with all our being, but finally cannot avoid—that life can never be perfect, that nothing lasts, that the only time is now and that I am not who I think I am. The path of parenting forces us to identify, and question, our spiritual beliefs, for soon enough our children ask us what we believe in.

How easy it is to forget that parenting is a sacred responsibility. It is the most important work we will ever do and we only have one chance to bring our best selves to the challenge. When I catch myself parenting in ways I am not proud of, I must ask, can I afford to be half-hearted about this role? On the worst days, parenting becomes mere time-filling before reaching some moments to myself. A Buddhist practice helps us to remember the importance, and the potential, of every moment, no matter how banal it may at first seem.

Motherhood sees us grow, develop and mature, but it can also have the opposite effect. We see control freaks become even more controlling; worriers become neurotic; complainers become unrelentingly negative. How can we secure our journey on the higher road? On a spiritual path, we find the means to cultivating wisdom and open-heartedness. On such a path, a mother uses whatever life presents to her as ‘grist for the mill’, to help her grow into someone who sees herself and her children with clarity.

One concern I hosted as I wrote this book was that I might give mothers more to feel guilty about. I have noticed the tendency in myself to use my Buddhist practice as a source of guilt. I have felt guilty for not meditating but also for meditating when there were so many other tasks competing for my time. I have felt guilty for forgetting to live in the present, for yelling at the children, for behaving insensitively to friends and family, and for a multitude of unwholesome thoughts and actions.

Mothers specialise in guilt, but keep in mind that guilt is never a Buddhist antidote to our problems. A Buddhist mother might still, out of habit, feel guilty from time to time, but she is also likely to commit to a degree of gentleness towards herself and even humour in facing her shortcomings. Intriguingly, the Tibetans do not even have a word for guilt in their language—remorse and regret, yes, but they have no word for guilt. This is the proof that it is possible to practise Buddhist teachings without beating ourselves up when we fall short.

Just as I did with Buddhism For Mothers, I open this book with the confession that it draws on all three of the main Buddhist traditions: Tibetan, Zen and Theravada. A true practice of Buddhism requires us to commit to one of these. Personally, it took me many a month to choose one when I loved all three. When I finally did commit, I changed my mind a couple of years later. These days I attend Buddhist meetings which draw primarily from the Theravada, or Insight, tradition. Still, the five teachers come from both the Theravada and Zen schools. Some have practised in both but are careful not to mix the teachings when they present them. The differences between the three are endlessly interesting to me and most of the Buddhists I talk to, but we need to remember that a true practice does not mix the teachings together.

Another similarity of this book with Buddhism For Mothers is that I have drawn on the experiences of other mothers. One mother in particular features in this book for she allowed me to draw from her daily journal about her practice. Kim Gold is a Zen Buddhist and a mother of two girls, aged six and three. This book abounds with entries from her journal which provide inspiring examples of how Buddhist teachings can come to life for a mother.

Keeping her journal for the past year, Kim has experienced many distressing days, in and out of hospital, leading up to her husband’s seventh episode of surgery—which was finally successful. She endured these crises along with all the usual trials such as transitioning her youngest daughter from her day sleep, staying sane throughout toddler tantrums and battling against her own high standards. As time progressed, Kim’s journal revealed major shifts in her way of seeing the world. Her Zen practice opened her up to new ways of seeing her problems, new ways of relating to others and fresh approaches to parenting challenges.

Another interesting mother who features in this book is Subhana Barzaghi. Despite the exotic name, Subhana was born in Australia and has been practising Buddhism for twenty-five years. At the age of forty-five, Subhana is a qualified teacher in two Buddhist traditions, Zen and Theravada, and has studied with many of the world’s most prominent Buddhist teachers. She has founded, or co-founded, four different Buddhist centres, and led retreats in India, Australia and New Zealand. Starting her career as a midwife in the country, Subhana is today a psychotherapist in private practice. With one grown daughter no longer at home, she now finds herself living with three teenage boys, and her partner, so is definitely a teacher in touch with the realities of daily family life.

As Kim, Subhana and many among us have learnt, motherhood opens your heart to a new way of being. So does practising Buddhist teachings. We open ourselves to all kinds of experiences: to learning, to changing our perspective, to ‘not-knowing’ and to letting go of what we cling to. A Buddhist practice encourages us to live in a state of receptivity: What are my experiences teaching me? Can I see that my children, in so many ways, are raising me?

DRIVING A CARLOAD OF rowdy six-year-olds to soccer practice, I am suddenly struck by how surprised I would have been, back in my twenties, to see myself now. The same feeling sweeps over me as I sit at a barbecue with some fellow parents: to think I didn’t even know these people a few years ago . . . We have all had moments as mothers when we are struck by where we have suddenly found ourselves. We might smile as we marvel at the new world we now inhabit and how far away it seems from our old world.

Sometimes, we miss our old world, we struggle to surrender our former freedoms, our youth and all those evenings, weekends and holidays to ourselves.

Sometimes we look in our mirrors, look at our messy living rooms or at the clock that reads three in the morning, and ask, ‘Where am I?’

To be open to the wonder of the present moment, to the here and now, is an opportunity available to us whenever we choose it. Resisting the temptation to rummage around in our past, to daydream or sift through details of the days ahead, we reap the benefits of looking deeply into what is. To live in the present is to see our children for who they are in this moment, to notice our surroundings, and to listen attentively to others. It means being aware of what we are saying as we are saying it, of what we are feeling as we are feeling it, and tuning into what each of our senses is perceiving. The Buddha referred to the practice of living in the moment as ‘a better way to live’. In his words:

By the time we have children, many of us have become so achievement-oriented, so goal-driven, so addicted to busyness that we lose our ability to relax along with our capacity to notice what is going on in the now. One of the greatest gifts children bring is the way they guide, if not force, our attention back home to the present. Young children live in the present moment, oblivious to the past, unconcerned about the future. They see objects, people and events with fresh eyes, and with wonder. If we choose to, we can take on their viewpoint and see our surroundings as if for the first time. Once jaded, world-weary parents can find themselves lying in their backyards fascinated at the proceedings of an ant colony. If we let them, children can teach us the value of time with no objectives, a skilful kind of laziness free from the need for productivity.

In the book Dharma Family Treasures: Sharing Mindfulness with Children, Buddhist mother Barbara Gates writes about how our children can transform the quality of our awareness:

Before I became a mother I’d always been a dreamer, unaware of much that surrounded me. I would leave the refrigerator door open, crash into people in the market, step in dog messes and jay-walk between cars on busy streets. And I’d felt tied to the unrecognised forces driving me from within to burst without consideration into other people’s lives.

Now the tingling sweetness of Caitlin inspires me to cultivate awareness. I know how she thrives when she’s truly heard and seen. I know her vulnerability to life’s jangling knocks and jolts. And I know her mortality. So, when I cook her meals, when I answer her questions, or cross the street holding her hand, awareness begins to permeate my life.

Part of practising awareness of the moment is noticing the way we judge or evaluate whatever we perceive. We tend to rate everything as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Anybody who has watched their thoughts for any amount of time knows that so many of them carry a judgement about the desirability of the subject of our attention. With Buddhist awareness we experiment with noticing these judgements without buying into them, without becoming emotionally caught up in them. This means noticing, and letting go of, our usual opinions, longings and prejudices in favour of clearly seeing what is.

Of course, it takes practice to dispense with these habits of a lifetime and ideally we practise non-judgemental awareness in meditation. The more we practise non-judgemental awareness, the more we cultivate equanimity—a calm mind that is not at the mercy of extreme reactions.

Kim, mother of two girls, who I introduced earlier, speaks of carrying the benefits of non-judgemental awareness into her daily life, and finds similarities between her practice of Zazen, the Zen word for meditation, and the act of going for a walk.

I used to over-analyse my feelings around the simple act of exercise: do I feel like doing it? Am I bored? Am I too tired? But now I see my daily walks as part of my Zen practice. I don’t worry about whether I want to do it or not. I just assume the ‘posture’. As with Zazen, once I’m on my cushion, with my back straight, and my hands in place . . . I’m there. It is so beautifully simple and devoid of analysis.

The less I ask ‘Am I enjoying this? Am I having fun?’ the better. It’s not that I’m against enjoying my walk, but in this culture of pleasure and convenience we constantly evaluate our situations and, more often than not, end up dissatisfied.

On the days that I reject practising presence, I need to ask myself a question. If I do not practise awareness of the present moment, then what am I practising instead and is it helpful? I might find myself practising resentment about the amount of housework. I might find myself entangled in angry, repetitive thoughts. Or maybe I’ll practise daydreaming and fantasising which, if done to excess, is a form of escapism and rejection of my life as it is now.

If I avoid being present, I might find myself becoming obsessed with my productivity. Life becomes grim-faced as I surrender to being perpetually busy, to always achieving. This is the culture of our time and can become an addictive state of mind. When I find myself on this bandwagon I ask—is this making me happy? More often, I feel stressed. On one occasion I received a wake-up call from a newspaper article in Melbourne’s The Age entitled ‘Surrendering to the simple joys of motherhood’. Writer Joanna Murray-Smith reminded me of another way to be:

Perhaps the modern mother needs not only a fairer deal, but help in relinquishing the temperament of obsessive productivity. Rather than managing our children, we need to relax into their company, take pleasure from the tiny transactions of baby-days, the pleasures of play. We seem to have lost a capacity for tenderness and time-wasting, obsessed with doing more than feeling, distracted by a society that measures purpose in little boxes and success by how quickly they can be ticked off. Has the modern mother lost the ability to find in her mothering the humour, the adventuring, the mystery of that experience?

I cut out that paragraph and stuck it on my fridge, underlining the words humour, adventuring and mystery.

As many parents do, I find myself breaking my life into compartments. Housework is one compartment, time with the children another, and then there’s ‘my time’. I notice a tendency to count down to ‘my time’ as the time when I please myself. Even when ‘my time’ finally arrives, I can find myself in a dither over how to spend it. I can even grow quite stressed at how I will fit everything into this invariably small window of time. On a good day, I wake up to see that dividing my life into sections is no recipe for happiness. After all, ‘my time’ is such a minuscule proportion of a typical day.

A Buddhist outlook helps me to embrace all the hours in my day as part of my life. Every moment is life. Every moment offers the potential to wake up. Spending such a large proportion of our week on housework and errands, it is important to our mental health that we adopt a skilful state of mind. If we practise Buddhist mindfulness— living with awareness of what we are doing as we are doing it—throughout our day, then no moment is too small for our attention. As Kim wrote in her journal:

At times my inclination is to see the day like a big checklist hoping to get to those parts that I ‘enjoy’, like my walks or my art. But then I am only really living for an hour a day! With mindfulness practice I am so much more alive, even during the so-called tedious times.

Subhana awakened to the possibility of mindful living after spending time with renowned Zen teacher Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. Sixteen years ago, Subhana organised his national tour of Australia which included a few days in the spiritual community where she lived in northern New South Wales. Subhana recalls:

His whole emphasis is on mindfulness practice in daily life and he opened my mind to the potential to be mindful in every moment in a way that none of my teachers before him had. Wherever he walked it was as if he was in his monastery doing walking meditation. He never rushed. There was no moment that was not his practice. Even when he was about to enter a room, we all knew it was him because the door-handle would turn so slowly.

His effect on children was mind-boggling. We had about eighteen children living in the community then, aged from four to ten, and he insisted on holding the retreat in their midst. I was very nervous about whether eighteen children would behave for him but he ensured they all had meditation cushions so that they could sit for five or ten minutes. And they did!

I remember an amazing scene when he was doing his walking meditation in the fields. Wearing one of those sloping Chinese hats, and flowing robes, he would slowly walk with his arms slanting outwards and all these children would hold onto his arms or parts of his robes. Occasionally he would stop to examine a flower and the children would too. He would walk along the road and the children would actually do half an hour of walking meditation. They were absolutely mesmerised by his presence. The children—and especially the adults watching from a distance— were just in awe of this man.

Subhana’s account of Thich Nhat Hanh’s effect on children suggests that if we were more grounded in the present moment, it might have a calming influence on our sons and daughters.

As mothers we are privileged to be with our toddlers when they experience their first encounters with common objects like mirrors, shadows, puddles, bugs or autumn leaves. If we pay attention, our children reconnect us to these simple wonders of everyday life. The tiniest sound could stop two-year-old Alex in his tracks. ‘What’s that?’ he would ask rooted to the spot, mouth slightly open with anticipation. Nothing else existed for him, his attention was fully consumed. I was intrigued by how long he spent examining a spider in its web. It lured me to scrutinise along with him as I tried to see with his eyes.

Two-year-old Alex bounced on a trampoline smiling from ear to ear shouting, ‘Fun. Fun. Mum too.’ Up, down, up, down—how could that be fun? I clambered onto the trampoline, started jumping and realised I could only enjoy it by rediscovering feelings from childhood: feelings of freedom and exuberance that adults rarely touch. Later, I reconnected with these same feelings on the swing at the park, when I climbed a tree or played hide and seek.

Alex taught me to adopt what Zen Buddhists call a ‘Beginner’s Mind’ where we come to each new experience as if for the first time rather than with all our old prejudices. A toddler has Beginner’s Mind by default because he is a beginner at life. These small people challenge us to take a look at familiar objects and situations as though we had never seen them before.

One Zen practice that cultivates a Beginner’s Mind, or a ‘spirit of enquiry’, is to repeat to ourselves throughout our daily tasks the question, ‘What is this?’ Two-year-old Alex reminded me of this teaching by asking me ‘What’s that?’—sometimes twenty or thirty times a day. I see ordinary objects and phenomena afresh if I can adopt his viewpoint. Alex is a spiritual teacher, my own resident Zen Master.

A great scholar visited a famous Zen master. While the master served tea, the scholar talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor’s cup to the brim, but, rather than stopping, continued to pour. The scholar watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer keep silent. ‘It’s overflowing! No more can go in!’ the scholar cried. ‘You are like this cup,’ the master replied. ‘How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?’

In Zen Buddhism, wisdom is more about questions than answers. More about openness than certainty. About mystery and wondering rather than knowing. Wisdom is an acknowledgement of not-knowing, an ability to meet each new situation free from bias or any sense of our own expertise. With this definition of wisdom, parenthood clearly made writer John Wilmot wiser, for he said: ‘Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children. Now I have six children and no theories.’

One day I sat next to Alex for his very first train trip through the suburbs. He was all attention as the scenery whizzed past and passengers came and went—so much to take in. He was experiencing a new world, where he could hurtle through the landscape in a huge box connected to other boxes. I was surprised that, for once, he sat still: he was in awe. On our return journey, errands done, Alex turned his focus to the faces in our carriage. He examined each one and when he had eye contact he smiled, inducing the passenger to smile back. I enjoyed our train trip so much—adopting his point of view—that we caught the train again the following week. Just for something to do.

Alex, just turned four, makes me read Peter Pan to him every day. For the first few weeks I see the task as something I do for him—there is certainly nothing in it for me. As he continues to request this book each day, I fill with dread when he hands it to me and admonish myself that I keep forgetting to hide it. But then I change my mind. Again, Alex is a Zen Master in disguise trying to teach me the value of a Beginner’s Mind. For him, each reading is as if for the first time. He experiences all his feelings anew on each visit.

Rather than think my own thoughts as I read, I decide to bring my attention back to the story and try to understand his devotion. And now I can see clearly: Imagine yourself as a child, flying out your bedroom window with a fun-loving guy who has a fairy for a pet. They fly to a faraway land . . . There were fairies living in the treetops.There were mermaids swimming in a lagoon. There were real red Indians in a village on a cliff. There were woods full of wild animals. Best of all, there was a shipful of pirates—wicked ones, with a specially wicked leader, Captain Hook.

Peter Pan lives with the Lost Boys in an underground house—and the story has not even begun. I have started enjoying our Peter Pan time, and I read it with more expression, now that I can see with the eyes of a four-year-old.

Beginner’s Mind can make even the most mundane experiences seem miraculous. Driving home alone from Alex’s pre-school this morning, I imagined that this was my first experience of driving a car. How strange and awe-inspiring it was. Sitting in a comfortable armchair, and with only slight pressure from my foot on the accelerator, I career through space, covering distances in one day that pre-automobile peoples would not cover in a lifetime. I imagine how thrilling this would be if I was one of my ancestors doing this for the first time. I am living their wildest imaginings, their science fiction. In my car my body flies through space, taking corners on a whim and with only the slightest movement from my arms. I feel alive in every moment for it is my turn on this fun ride.

Our thoughts, our inner talk, determine the nature of the place we find ourselves in any given moment. Our thoughts can limit us, torment us, trick us and run our lives if we let them. They certainly provide effective fuel for a bad mood. Whether we are dealing with painful memories or fears for the future, we can short-circuit negative thoughts simply by choosing another place for our attention. It is often easier than we assume, to simply change what we pay attention to. How much attention we give to any given topic is our choice. Throughout her husband’s health crisis, for example, Kim observed:

I have noticed how the moment always gives us many choices. For example, I could dwell in my own depression or I could play with my kids. I could worry about something, or I could focus on the beauty of the grey sky. I could sit here replaying stuff in my mind that I know makes me feel bad, or I could take the kids to their favourite restaurant for a fun dinner. Up until yesterday, I chose to dwell on the more negative side of the moment.

This does not mean we live in denial, suppressing any negativity. On the contrary, Buddhist teachings emphasise the value of becoming more familiar with the nature of negative thoughts and emotions. While a meditation sitting is the ideal time to do this, we can still make such space in our daily lives. But after we calmly observe any negative thoughts, we let them go. Kim continues:

I need to learn how to feel the negative side, rather than run from it—but then to move on to all of the joy that is before me. I need to see the myriad of choices the moment offers, and choose to experience the joy, rather than only the pain.

One time we can practise awareness of where we place our attention is in our conversations with our partners. These are usually our most honest conversations but the danger is—and I speak from experience— that they become a daily whinge session. Although it can be constructive to discuss problems together, or vent frustration to someone sympa–thetic, it is easy to fall into the habit of using time with our partner for the sole purpose of reliving the difficulties of the day.

In its extreme forms, the daily whinge session is a competition to prove who has the hardest life. It is worth challenging the usefulness of such conversations for they often reinforce a negative outlook in both parties. After all, it is easy enough to turn the conversation around to what was inspiring, humorous or uplifting in the day. Growing children make so many amusing comments, ask the strangest questions and often behave with a fresh unpredictability—why not tell our partners about some of the many delights of our day? This is likely to lead to a shared sense of gratitude rather than victimhood.

Just as conversations with our husbands can turn to habitual lamentation, so too can conversations with mother friends, as we complain together about our husbands. Many a mother’s group bonds through sharing frustration about our common enemy: the male. While commiserating with each other about gender inequities brings the relief of knowing that much suffering is shared, some of us risk reaching the point where we only see the worst in our partners. Where anger and resentment blinds us to the possibility of compassion for the other. Again, it is easy enough to turn such conversations around by remembering the strengths of our partners, along with the reasons to feel gratitude toward them. Some of us have to dig deeper than others, but most of us can come up with something.

We have the choice to place our attention on what inspires us, but we also have a choice in the way we interpret our situations. There is rarely only one way to interpret the moment you find yourself in and rarely only one way to rate it, or to judge how pleasant or unpleasant it is. We are far more empowered to see life clearly, and resolve our issues, when we have a flexible perspective, when we can see that we have choices about how we see our moments.

It seems that often when problems arise, our outlook becomes narrow. All of our attention may be focused on worrying about the problem, and we may have a sense that we’re the only one that is going through such difficulties. This can lead to a kind of self-absorption that can make the problem seem very intense. When this happens, I think that seeing things from a wider perspective can definitely help—realizing for instance that there are many people who have gone through similar experiences, and even worse experiences.

When Zac was put into his new class to start the school year, I felt disappointed that, for the second year in a row, none of his close friends were in his class. Although he knew many of the boys in his new class, he had never made a strong connection with any of them and a couple of them were extremely disruptive. Might this affect Zac’s enjoyment of school? Just as the Dalai Lama described, I became, for a few days, increasingly absorbed by this problem. I asked the principal if Zac could join the other class but it was full.

I was eventually able to change my perspective on the situation and see some real benefits with his staying in his current class. I began to see that he could grow as a person from working with less than ideal conditions. Being with close friends in the other class might have made him playful and distracted, and it was probably better that he avoid comparing his academic progress with these friends, some of whom were well above average. Moreover, he was not particularly perturbed himself and was more relieved to have a teacher he felt comfortable with. He could play with his old friends at lunchtime just as he did the year before. I changed my perspective on the situation, and then let go of my anxieties.

Whenever we feel dissatisfied, we can challenge ourselves to not only shift but also enlarge our perspective. Imagine we start to feel glum about a lack of time to ourselves. If we approach the problem from a wider perspective, we are more likely to deal with the prob–lem wisely. We might, for example, ponder:

• How have women coped with this lack of time to themselves through–out history? Or in my grandmother’s and mother’s generations?

• What are the external influences in society that contribute to this problem?