Buddha Nature

I enjoyed this poem today…thanks, bussokuseki.

Buddha Nature.

The Newtown Dukkha

We spent the weekend at Pt. Reyes, which, if you have never been to California, is a gorgeous peninsula on Tomales Bay. Or maybe it’s on Drake’s Bay. Either way, it is typical coastal Northern California, which is to say: often cold, foggy, and wet. We went with friends, all of us celebrating a 40th birthday. Lovely to be away, not listening to NPR. Lovely to go for some wet hikes, eat good food, rest a lot, laugh a lot, read, and catch up with friends.

One of the women who was there is a Buddhist, and she invited me to chant with her on Sunday morning. Her sect of Buddhism is called Nichiren, and she chants twice daily. Such a different practice from the one I have been cultivating (a silent practice; I managed six days last week!). The chanting felt like something I’d like to do more of. It’s very grounding to put your voice into the silence. But I am still sort of in a catch-all, learning phase of my practice, so I don’t think I’m ready to sign on with one sect/teacher/persuasion. I might never be.

It feels a little false to blog, today, about anything other than the tragedy in Connecticut. So I won’t say much more, besides that I am holding love and light for the families who lost beautiful little children at the hands of a troubled man. It occurred to me this morning that the true mindful way would be to hold love and light for that troubled man, too, though it’s difficult.

The Infertility Dukkha

I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was a bit of a tough weekend. Pulling one of my Osho Zen Tarot cards for myself on Sunday morning, I got the “Turning Inward” card, which felt appropriate since Saturday I definitely shirked most offers to hang out, be social, or do much of anything besides be home, quiet, and mourn a little.

I have been pulling the Zen Tarot cards for myself all along in this fertility/infertility journey, and while I guess if you held a gun to my head and asked me whether I really believe in tarot I’d have to say no, I nonetheless adore those little cards because they always seem to remind me of something concrete, grounded, and real about whatever illusory situation I turn to them for. And occasionally, there is some magic, as when I asked last spring, “when will I become pregnant?” and pulled this card:

Can you see? It says “Patience” underneath a photo of a pregnant woman. I nearly fainted when it came up in my hand.

But that was months ago, and since then I tend to pull cards like “Turning In,” cards that are reminders, sure, but not exactly…magic.

And I could do with some magic. Friday we went to the infertility clinic. The news? Not great. Not many eggs; eggs getting old; eggs not being released with enough oomph. The technical name for all of this is diminished ovarian reserve. Or as I think of it: old lady syndrome. The doctor wants us to begin infertility treatments after Christmas.

Oh, dukkha. Blessed be for Marc, who on the way home initiated a tough but concrete/grounded conversation about our good fortune. “I want this to happen,” he said. “But if it doesn’t, we have so many blessings already.” I nodded and agreed through a few tears. He is right, of course.

My challenge, as usual, is attachment. I wanted so badly to be able to just make a baby, the old-fashioned way. Without all this soul-searching and medical intervention and acupuncture and mindfulness and whatever else it will take. It once felt so simple, the possibility, like something that could just happen naturally.

“It could,” said the doctor. “I would not be shocked.” But she didn’t sound too optimistic, either.

I will say something positive: mindfulness helped me in that appointment, and afterwards. It helped me to remember to take every step as it comes. And mindfulness has helped me move more gracefully from Saturday’s grief to Monday’s more expansive thinking about infertility treatments, about blessings, and about pausing to think and make decisions instead of rushing headlong in.

Lex is being extremely cute this afternoon, in that way that mischievous, spirited three-year-olds are cute (he is sitting on the toilet singing “this little light of mine” at the moment). A bit ago he came up to me on the couch and threw his arms around my neck.

“You’re super cute right now, Mom,” he told me.

Talk about a blessing.

Only Connect

I have been thinking all day about why Tuesday night’s scene at the restaurant did not feel like a challenge, like dukkha. In fact, if I’m honest it was one of the best moments of my week. I think that’s because one of the places in my life when I feel I am most mindful is when my kid needs me. When he gets hurt, he calls for Mama; when he was freaking out about the chip, he needed me. Even in the hustle-and-bustle life I sometimes lead, I strive to be able to sit with his difficult feelings and be present for them.

These moments of connection mean the world to me. Lex isn’t the cuddliest kid, so when he wants to lie in my arms and sleepily relay the grievances from a bad dream—as he did the other morning—I stay present. When he gets hurt and calls for me, first, I don’t send him to Daddy instead—I stay present.

I’m not sure, lately, that I am as good at staying present with my partner, Marc. He and I are fortunate to have a really deep and abiding love. So deep that, when I first had Lex and everyone I knew told me that what I’d feel for the baby would be completely different and much grander than what I felt for my husband, instead I remembered what it had been like to fall in love with Marc. From the beginning, we’ve had this very ancient and wonderful sort of love, kind of like the unconditional love you’re supposed to feel for your kid.

But ten years in, it’s very easy to take each other for granted. To spend weeks forgetting to really be with one another.

I thought of this last night. After a nighttime meditation session, Marc and I went to bed. Usually, lately, we’re on different schedules; I’m an early bird, he’s a night owl (is someone the diurnal dove or the crepuscular canary? Sorry—), but last night we bedded down at the same time. And as I fell asleep I thought, just connect. And I noticed his arms around me, and I noticed when his breathing deepened, and I noticed when his arm fell slack, and I noticed the stillness in our bedroom…and I woke up this morning feeling grateful and close again.

Amazing.

Angsty Pants

The Buddha taught that there are Four Noble Truths:

1. There is suffering (dukkha).

2. Attachment causes suffering.

3. Suffering can end.

4. There is a path to end suffering.

What’s the path? You guessed it: meditation and mindful practice.

It’s a rainy morning in Northern California and I am ruminating on my daily dukkha. Funny, because if you’d seen a movie of my life yesterday you might have suspected that the greatest dukkha was either a) the awkward five minutes when I attempted to hook up the bicycle trailer to my bike, in the dark, after preschool—with Lex trying to be helpful (some kinds of help are the kind of help we all can do without…)—and then dropped one of the critical safety bolts in a pile of wet leaves (and remember, it was dark). At this point, Lex really started to be extra helpful by shouting “it must be in the leaves, Mama! In the leaves! How come you dropped it, Mama? Huh?”

or b) the moment when, having survived the bike trailer incident and a slightly harrowing ride to my favorite happy hour joint where I was meeting my dear friend Katie, Lex lost it in the restaurant. One minute he was happily eating a taco and chips, chatting away, and the next he was howling, big fat tears running down his face. You see, I’d eaten a bite of a chip he’d declared ruined because it had broken (silly me for thinking it a discard). He howled so much that half the restaurant turned to stare and the host came over to inquire whether there was anything she could do. I’m sure Katie was appreciating her birth control pill in that moment. He howled so much that a woman at another table, sitting with a child who was probably ten, came over to tell me “it does get easier, you know.” I found her concern very touching.

But oddly, while both of those moments, well, sucked—I didn’t hold onto them yesterday. No; the much greater dukkha for me was nothing you’d see in a movie; it was going on in my head.

My greatest dukkha is angst.

I suppose one might call all dukkha angst, and all angst dukkha, and maybe that would be right. So perhaps I should say that angst is my biggest challenge. And lately, some days I just wake up angsty. I am angsty about my writing, which I feel I am not doing enough of; I am angsty about being 39 and not pregnant; I am angsty about money, perpetually; and then I am angsty about my career more generally. Then I am angsty about this mindfulness project, for not meditating enough, not studying enough, and/or for wasting time with mindfulness when I should be getting published and becoming famous. Oh yes, it’s a hamster wheel. And for me, the wheel feels all too real most days. I honestly, after an angsty hour, will come to the conclusion that yes, I am wasting time with mindfulness because I should do a better job of juggling work, parenting, writing, publishing, being Martha Stewart, blogging, finishing all my Christmas shopping in a timely manner, exercising, putting out, getting pregnant, and—oh yeah—nurturing a budding music career.

I was tossing all of this around on BART yesterday when I read this passage in Buddhism for Mothers:

As mothers we discover life is no light experience. We have responsibilities; pitiable amounts of time to ourselves; desperate worries about whether our children are healthy, ‘normal,’ and able to meet the expectations of the judgmental world around them. We suffer guilt that we’re not attending to the hundred other things we could be doing. We agonize over our careers and, in many cases, the loss thereof. In our darker moments we may struggle with self-esteem as we watch the worry lines set in and our body parts begin to point down (5).

And I began to tear up.

What can I say? The angst didn’t all dissolve, but I did start to wonder whether all those negative thoughts are what Buddhism refers to as illusion.

On this rainy morning in California, I am thinking about angst. And I am thinking about mothers. And I want to shout out to the mother at my son’s preschool who is a single mom with no car and all kinds of other logistical challenges. She was crying this morning when I dropped off Lex. I am sending loving kindness her way, though she may never know it’s coming.

Thanks for reading this long and somewhat rambling post.

The Daily Dukkha

I’ve received a number of great book recommendations since I started this project. My friend Lisa recommended a book called Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate by Wendy Johnson,and Katie a memoir by Rosemary Mahoney called The Singular Pilgrim. I also just picked up Sarah Napthali’s Buddhism for Mothers from my friend Steph, and that one seems absolutely perfect for me at this stage of my life, when so much of my dukkha is caused by angst about my kid or about the (im)balance of our lives since we had a kid.

Dukkha? Yes, dukkha. In all the books I’ve been reading, “dukkha” is translated as “suffering,” but then there is usually a quick disclaimer that by “suffering” the Buddha did not necessarily mean grief but discomfort. The daily discomforts. The dissatisfactions. The unsatisfactions. (Look, I made up two new words.)

Sarah Napthali says this: “…the first Noble Truth is that life is inherently unsatisfactory and imperfect. Before motherhood, we may have found this teaching overly pessimistic. If we felt less than happy we could catch a movie, ring a friend or distract ourselves in a myriad of ways from any pain.” And while she’s talking to mothers here, she’s also talking to the rest of us: every day, we feel small pain and discomfort, imperfection, and we distract ourselves from it.

I think a part of me, learning this over the last few weeks, has felt disappointed that this is all Buddhism can offer. The teaching is that I need to accept that I will feel anxious, that happiness is impermanent, and realize that my attempts to overcome this discomfort are distractions, tricks. My job, it turns out, is to learn to accept the discomforts and allow them. At this stage I don’t quite get how this leads me to get over my anxiety and be a happier person, but I think I trust the road nonetheless.

In any event, I decided over the weekend that one of the best things I could do on this mindfulness experiment of mine would be to notice the daily dissatisfactions and record them. And so I am introducing the Daily Dukkha, or, if that sounds a bit too much like me reporting on my…regularity, the Daily Challenge. Because I can’t promise to post every day, and wouldn’t want to impose that pressure on the girl who’s allowing herself to take a break, I won’t—but I will try to post as often as I can.

The Daily Dukkha. It has a nice ring, no?

So here is one for today. Well, since it’s only 10:00 a.m. here in California, I will post yesterday’s challenge (yes; the DD will likely be retrospective).

We were at a party, and I wanted to go. A well-meaning but overly chatty friend had cornered me, and Lex was running wild with the other kids. Marc was very much enjoying a beer. And all of a sudden I was done. It was past Lex’s bedtime, I hadn’t rested as much as I’d wanted to over the weekend, and I wanted to go. But extracting the boys was nigh impossible. Marc said sure, we can go—but made no attempts to remove himself from the chair where he was comfortably lounging. Lex pitched a fit when I gave him the five-minute warning. Marc stayed put. Finally when Marc rose and allowed Lex to take one more spin in the wagon even though five minutes were long passed, I felt myself get completely pissed off, and I hissed at Marc in the living room at my friend’s house.

On the ride home, I recalled some of the good advice from The Happiness Project, something to the effect of let it go.

At home, Marc asked whether I was angry. I made the “a little bit” sign with my fingers. And then I took a deep breath.

“It is hard for me when I say I’m ready to go and you say ‘sure,’ but then I’m the only one trying to get the three of us out the door,” I said. “It’s really difficult for me.” We talked for another minute and then I let it go. And Marc did too.

Because if there’s one thing that really gives me dukkha—ha—it’s when I feel I need to say something but then the whole night gets ruined because I’ve opened my mouth. You know that feeling?