Children are exemplars of the art of being

not teaching children to meditate
November 30th, 2010

How do you teach children to meditate?
I’m asked about this all the time. Please know that I speak only from my own perspective as a mother and a practitioner. Everyone has his or her own view. Here is mine.

Children don’t need to learn to meditate. Parents do. Children are immensely helped in all ways by living with one or more parents who practice meditation. One powerful way is that our children see us do it, regularly, like brushing our teeth and putting dirty clothes in the hamper.

This might sound like heresy coming from a Buddhist priest. After all, there are many well-meaning parents and programs that aim to teach children meditation. Young children are very curious and adaptable, and with clever instruction, they can be taught nearly anything. But my point is that children already practice single-minded attention and non-distracted awareness. You may not see it in their stillness, but in their activity: games, art, or outdoor exploration. (Engaging with your children in any of these activities is a form of group meditation.) We all have this capacity for single-minded focus within us. As adults, we practice to return to this state – the state where we can get lost, devotedly, in what we are doing, carefree and undisturbed.

My teacher sums it up quite clearly every time he reminds our sangha: “We don’t practice to cultivate our Buddha Nature. Our Buddha Nature is functioning perfectly. We practice because we are neurotic!” Not many children are yet neurotic, plagued by delusive thoughts, fears and feelings of alienation. This is what I mean when I wrote in Chapter 24 of Momma Zen: “Children are exemplars of the art of being.” The aim of all Buddhist practice is to return to our natural state of wide-eyed wonder and unselfconsciousness that we can observe in our children many times a day.

But I can’t get my child to pay attention to me.

A lot of conflicts arise because children persist in doing what we don’t want them to do. It seems like it’s hard to redirect or distract them. Isn’t it funny that the fact that our children are undistractedly doing what we don’t want them to do absolutely drives us crazy?! They don’t yet have problems concentrating! We more often have trouble loving and accepting them as they are, trusting that they are changing and growing all the time, and usually doing what they need to. If you are afraid, by the way, that your children are exposed to too much electronic media, then you need to take care of that directly, by limiting their access. I completely support that kind of clear-eyed discipline. Making that change can be very difficult, but it is indisputably wise.

As for attention, I have seen with my own eyes that the best way to receive attention is to cultivate my own, and give it.

How do we teach compassion?

The virtues of compassion and forgiveness aren’t instilled by discussion or imposition, but rather, they are revealed as our innate wisdom by our practice. When we ourselves have our own regular at-home practice we might realize that our children are already naturally compassionate and forgiving. They care about the world, and they don’t hold grudges. They care about small things – insects, rocks, animals – and they care about big things – the oceans, the Earth and the universe. Usually, they care far more than we do! Compassion and wisdom are the natural characteristics of our own nature, the nature we as adults reveal to ourselves through our own sitting practice. When we reveal them to ourselves, our actions reinforce them in our children, and they learn from us by seeing how we live.

But I want to give my child life skills that my parents didn’t give me.

None of this means there isn’t a way to help our growing children deal with their fears and anxieties. There is. But we deal with it as it appears. We cannot inoculate our children from life’s hardships. We can only give them our nonjudgmental company through the bumps. If you have specific questions about the methods I’ve used, please ask and I’ll write about them. Suffice it to say, helping anyone focus on his or her own breathing in a quiet room is just about the only thing I teach.

What about teaching mindfulness in schools and to treat ADHD?

Recent research documents the extraordinary therapeutic benefits of meditation, or so-called “mindfulness” practice in treating ADHD and other behavioral issues in our families and schools, but I leave that to the doctors and therapists to expound. If you have to deal with those realities, and many families these days do, you will be best advised by the experts, counselors and social scientists. I’m confident that the benefits of meditation in any setting or situation, wherever the need and urgency arises, are profound. What I’d like you to do first is prove it to yourself, over and over.

Shouldn’t I be giving my child a spiritual upbringing?

About the spiritual training of young, my view is a bit of the same. How you behave in your home is their spiritual upbringing. I think we have to be careful with all forms of ideological indoctrination, and that is what spiritual training is in children: the imposition of a set of abstract beliefs and ideals. Children will take these from of us, but I don’t think dogma serves anyone for long. After all, I was a very good Sunday School student, the star of my confirmation class, and yet I had my own spiritual crisis to resolve later in life. We all do.

I always remind myself that I’m not trying to raise a Buddhist child. I’m trying to raise a Buddhist mother, and it’s taking all my time! Not only my family, but also everyone everywhere will be served by my devoted discipline in my own training. Not because I’m self-important, but in recognition of the one true reality: no self. We are all interdependent, which means we are all one.

Do you ever worry that you’re not giving your child what she needs in the future?

Of course, all the time. When my daughter has her time of spiritual doubt and searching, I hope she remembers the warmhearted attention, quietude and acceptance of home. I can’t know for sure when that time might come, but that’s the best gift I can give her: a way home. As for when I will teach her to meditate, the answer is when she asks. The best way for you to share your practice with your children is the very way you share it with the world – by your steadfast, unconditional love and acceptance, and your selfless response to needs that arise. Simply put: by paying attention.

Not teaching your child to meditate may be your most effective meditation.

You might find these further tips and reminders helpful:

The Monastery of Mom & Dad
8 Ways to Raise a Mindful Child
10 Tips for a Mindful Home
15 Ways to Practice Compassion on the Way Home for Dinner

Reproduced in full from cherrio road by Karen Maezen Miller

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I have read and re-read this post from Karen Maezen Miller's blog several times, and I am struck each time by the wisdom it offers. I have taken the liberty of reproducing it in full here as an acknowledgement of my gratitude and to share it further. I highly recommend Karen Maezen Miller's blog and books for her sharp wisdom and soft gentleness.

Be Grateful to Everyone

Gratitude does not seem to be that front and central nowadays. Instead of appreciating what we have, we keep focusing on what we do not have. We are filled with grudges and resentments and have strong opinions about what we deserve and what is our due. We may be taught to say “Please” and “Thank you,” but what have we been taught about appreciation? In our commodified world, we see things as material for our consumption. We don’t ask, we just take. And in the blindness of our wealth and privilege, we don’t see how much we have to be grateful for. We take all that we have for granted and we live in a very ungrateful world... I think we need to work on our basic gratitude, first. Simply adding this dimension to the way we view things would be a great improvement.

- Judy Lief, "Train Your Mind: Be Grateful to Everyone"

Received as Daily Dharma from Tricycle.com on the 25th of December 2010

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And gratitude takes practice. We started a gratitude practice in our family a while back now: at every meal we all hold hands and each share something we are grateful for. We usually eat together at the table and this helps us to slow down and connect, it helps our time together and our eating to be more mindful. Sometimes we are grateful for the food, sometimes for each other, sometimes for something planned but yet to happen, after a little practice it's easy to find something to be grateful for. After all, the very fact that we can sit together and share a meal means we that have so very much to be grateful for.

Humility: Breath is Truth

Some people practice throughout their entire lives just by paying attention to breathing. Everything that is true about anything is true about breath: it's impermanent; it arises and it passes away. Yet if you didn't breathe, you would become uncomfortable; so then you would take in a big inhalation and feel comfortable again. But if you hold onto the breath, it's no longer comfortable, so you have to breathe out again. All the time shifting, shifting.

- Sylvia Boorstein, "Body as Body"

Received as Daily Dharma from Tricycle.com on the 27th of December 2010

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A gentle nudge towards humility - we don't need a special and challenging Gongan (Koan) or Huatou, we don't need bells and gongs, we don't need to sit in a special posture - we have everything we need in this body to practice and to wake up.

Action: Get Up #Reverb10

December 13: Action
When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?
(Author: Scott Belsky)

Get Up.

It's easy to lie in bed and think. Thoughts take over, fantasy pervades, the morning passes by. Well not the whole morning necessarily, but maybe 5 or 10 precious minutes. Getting up before the thoughts take control is always the next step upon waking.

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I'm participating in Reverb10 and reflecting on my Dharma practice (i.e. life!) in 2010 as explained briefly in a previous post. Feel free to join in on your blog and/or add your comments on my reflections.

Body Integration #Reverb10

December 12: Body Integration
This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?
(Author: Patrick Reynolds)

Prostrating. One at a time, one hundred and eight times, head down, palms up, releasing.

Stillness, movement, being. Mindfulness.

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I'm participating in Reverb10 and reflecting on my Dharma practice (i.e. life!) in 2010 as explained briefly in a previous post. Feel free to join in on your blog and/or add your comments on my reflections.

11 Things - Get Real #Reverb

December 11: 11 Things
What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?
(Author: Sam Davidson)

I don't know about 11 things per se. However I have found through this Reverb10 journey that there are probably 11 minutes (or considerably more) of internet time that I don't need to spend online and could do with eliminating. There are whole thought processes that spiral along from one internet dot to another internet dot, connecting and making all sorts of pattens.

Not only does time spent online take up time that could be spent more closely with family, formal practice, reading real books, washing the dishes, etc. (moments of quiet joy where we can touch reality, unvarnished by thoughts or fantasies of it being any way other than it is), it also feeds these spiralling thought processes that take attention away from moment by moment awareness.

There is so much information on the internet these days and so many interesting and good things to read and places to interact with other people online. But actually I'm not convinced that being online so much is necessary or that it is contributing to my quality of life. I'm not sure I'm being useful, or of service, by being online.

Everett Bogue wrote about "mindfulness training for the digital self" which hints at similar things, although he has his particular take on the "digital self". And there are also people such as Gwen Bell and Tammy Strobel advocating "Digital Sabbaticals". These are interesting and useful reflections, but still predicated on a necessity of being online. I don't see that this really applies to my Dharma practice.

So in 2011, I plan to reduce and re-focus my online time and presence, to allow more time to get real.

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I'm participating in Reverb10 and reflecting on my Dharma practice (i.e. life!) in 2010 as explained briefly in a previous post. Feel free to join in on your blog and/or add your comments on my reflections.

Don’t get swept away by emotions

If you are a good horseback rider, your mind can wander but you don’t fall off your horse. In the same way, whatever circumstances you encounter, if you are well trained in meditation, you don’t get swept away by emotions. Instead, they perk you up and your awareness increases.

- Pema Chodron, "Bite-Sized Buddhism"

Received as Daily Dharma from Tricycle.com on the 10th of November 2010

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My experience of this kind of increase in awareness is when I manage stay in the present, in any situation. At work, at home, on the train, in conversation, when a particular emotion arises and I am aware of it while staying in the present, there is a heightened feeling of being alive and in a kind of flow. Not being swept away. Riding the flow. Not following a particular emotion off into one story or another. And as Pema Chodron indicates, this applies across the board, not just to emotions. Emotions are strong distractions from the present for some people and in some circumstance, but for other people and at other times, phone calls, gossip, questions, the weather etc can be strong distractions.

I can easily be pulled away from the present when I am at work and it seems that phone calls and emails are piling up an endless list of tasks to do. I can easily fret and worry and turn away from the tasks at hand for a comforting distraction. And yet, when I stay present, the flow of emails and phone calls and requests for attention from colleagues can perk me up and I can dance with liveliness through all the tasks that need doing. I can ride on the flow of the present moment with just what is in front of me.

The urge to do something

"ONE DAY when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet's house to see what Piglet was doing."

- in which A House Is Built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore, from The Pooh Story Book by A. A. Milne

Reading A. A. Milne aloud is wonderful and I heartily recommend it for the enjoyment and for the abundance of insights available.

Recently it was this opening line that particularly struck me as I often have a strong urge to do something when I am sitting in meditation: write to-do lists for work; plan out the day; plan the rest of my life; scratch my ear; move my legs - anything, so long as it involves doing something! Just sitting isn't enough.

And again in another example, when someone is talking to me I have a strong urge to do something: solve their problem (as perceived by me); cheer them up; tell them my version - anything, so long as it involves doing something! Just listening isn't enough.

This is a reason why regular Dharma practice is so powerful: it undoes these habitual urges.

Actually just sitting is enough; just listening is enough; this present moment is enough. I am enough, no need to do something (anything) to make it so. And you too.

an Inn for All

Realisation: The Palace that Became an Inn for All

A respected monk arrived at the gates of a King's grand palace. Due to his great fame, none of the guards dared to halt him as he entered the hall where the King was seated on his throne. The following conversation ensued.

King: Dear Venerable Sir, how may I assist you?
Monk: I would like somewhere to spend the night in this inn.
King: You have mistaken! This is no inn - it's my palace!
Monk: Who owned this place before you?
King: My late father.
Monk: And who ruled it before him?
King: My grandfather, who is also deceased.
Monk: If this is where people come to live only for a while before leaving, why is it not an inn?
King: I am so sorry! This is indeed an inn. Your stay is most welcome!

The monk had wanted to remind the King of the irrefutable truth of transience, of all things material and even mental, of the fleeting nature of his life, wealth and status - despite wielding great power. Similar to the King, wherever we live, be it a big house or a small apartment, is like a hotel. Even the most valuable material things within are but items in a hotel, temporally 'loaned' to us for use. As much as we might wish to live in this hotel forever, we can never - unless we realise the path to transcend the cycle of life and death. Even this body that we have, which we think is ours to rule over is a hotel which we live in, for usually less than a hundred more years! If so, may we use 'our' body wisely and share 'our' posessions kindly! - Shen Shi'an


I received this recently on one of the Daily Enlightenment weekly emails and it gave me cause for reflection. What I saw was that I really don't treat my own home as well as I would treat an "Inn for All". In fact I pay much much less attention to the cleanliness and tidiness of "my own spaces" than I do to other places. For example, when I stay with my fiancée at her friend's flat, as we often do over weekends, we usually dedicate an hour or even two to cleaning the place before we leave it. We are both very grateful for the weekend loan of the flat and we do our best to leave it in a tidier and cleaner state than how we receive it. And this is not to say it is ever untidy or unclean when we get there! And I really enjoy this cleaning time we have together, it is very meditative and a nice way to offer gratitude.

So what is missing when it comes to treating "my own space" as an "Inn for All" and putting in the extra effort and love to express the respect and gratitude I feel?

I'm not sure yet actually, but I can certainly see it is missing in many areas - "my" (rented) house, "my" garden, "my" car, "my" work space... I keep all of these relatively tidy and relatively clean, but not to the degree that I can say they are always an expression of my respect and gratitude and ready to hand over to the next (royal?) occupant!

Strive for higher self-esteem

Excerpt: Should We Strengthen Our Sense of 'Self'











Q: Psychotherapists tell us we should have a healthy sense of self. Should strengthening our sense of self be part of Buddhist practice?

A: People working in the field of psychology often speak of our having a sense of self. But when there is a self, one tends to compare it to other selves. Out of that comparison come the ideas of low self-esteem, high self-esteem, inferiority, superiority, and equality. Low self-esteem is considered to be detrimental. We're told to strive for higher self-esteem. But high self-esteem can also be harmful. The complex of superiority brings unhappiness. It's not a compliment to say, "He's full of himself." The person with high self-esteem can make himself and others suffer. The desire to be equal, to be "just as good as" someone, also brings unhappiness. Only the person who is empty of self is happy; he has no jealousy, no hatred, no anger, because there is no self to compare.

According to the Buddha's teaching, the self is the foundation of sickness. There are many negative mental formations; when they manifest they make us and others suffer. And there are many positive mental formations that can improve our quality of being and increase our concentration and insight. We practice in order to strengthen these positive mental formations, rather than to strengthen our "sense of self." The practice of mindfulness will help these energes to manifest, and you will have a better equality of being... Mindfulness is the energy that helps us to be truly present. When you are truly present, you are more in control of situations, you have more love, patience, understanding, and compassion. That strengthens and improves your quality of being. It can be very healing to touch your true nature of no-self. Psychotherapy can learn a lot from this teaching

- Thich Nhat Hanh from Answers from the Heart: Practical Responses to Burning Questions (Parallax Press)

Received in The Daily Enlightenment's weekly Buddhist email newsletter 30.04.09.


When I first read this I was struck by a couple of things that this seemed to contradict.

• I wasn't entirely in agreement with the apparent definition of "self-esteem" being used, I tend to view "self-esteem" as the view or opinion we hold of our own value, with little reference or comparison to other people. Obviously it will be relative to others to some degree, but not particularly in the sense of feeling we are better or worse than someone else.
  

• In teachings I have received through the Western Chan Fellowship, including those of Master Sheng Yen, the instructions have been that we must first gather the mind before we will be able to transcend the mind and a state of no-mind might arise. This is often related to our sense of self in that it is first necessary to gain a clear and strong sense of self ("a healthy sense of self") before we are able to transcend this and a state of no-self might arise. Awareness starts with the self, then the question of what this "self" is follows. (However, to be clear, the underlying motivation is never to gain a stronger sense of self.)

These were first reactions though and on further reflection, the second paragraph really pulls it all together for me and I can see that what TNH is teaching doesn't really contradict the teachings I have received. I appreciate how he distinguishes the ideas of negative and positive mental formations in the Buddha's teaching from the idea of self and I find this has a valuable sense of clarity.

I also re-examined my ideas around "self-esteem" and noticed that my first reaction was a defensive response to the challenge of TNH's words. Actually I am fully in agreement with what he teaches and have in fact reflected on this before. Low self-esteem and high self-esteem are both forms of self-cherishing.

What I take in conclusion from this excerpt is: "Mindfulness ... strengthens and improves your quality of being."

[I think this is probably also a good reminder that reading an except from a book doesn't necessarily give the whole picture being presented!]