“I’m a single dad who does most of the childcare. I also work full-time and write my ex-wife a large monthly check,” said Rob, a single dad and employment lawyer. Rob is the primary caregiver, but other parents and teachers still call his ex-wife when arranging playdates or scheduling conferences. It grates on Rob that people assume that being male offers a ticket out of work-family conflict since that very assumption exacerbates Rob’s working-parent pain. For instance, he said, “There is no ‘Daddy and me’ that meets during the weekdays, and mothers usually don’t want a guy hanging around when they are breastfeeding. This creates severe loneliness.” 

Women are often the primary care-takers, diaper changers, and dentist-appointment makers while also inhabiting breadwinning roles, but work-family conflict can’t be exclusively attributed to gender. Even the long list of external factors—such as racism, financial problems, marginalization, job and food insecurity, the lack of mandated paid family leave in the United States, inflexible workplaces, inadequate access to flexible, affordable childcare—does not explain the entirety of the work-family conflict problem. When hard-fought solutions are finally implemented, working parents often continue to struggle mightily. As one physician and mom of three explained it in my therapy office, the searing guilt of long work days and exhausted parenting eat away at her. Another patient, a lawyer, described the sadness of not being able to attend his daughter’s baseball game and still make the necessary billable hours. 

Even lucky individuals—the working parents with financial resources, flexible schedules, and supportive partnerships—habitually feel internal conflict. After all, as early twentieth-century psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud noted, “love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness [emphasis mine].” Being driven to master skills and make public contributions while also participating in deeply loving relationships are innately human drives. Since acting in line with one drive necessarily means you have stepped away from the other, there is no way around the experience of role tension. In other words, work-family conflict turns out to be a feature, not a bug, of being human. 

Instead of trying to resist role conflict, recognizing its inevitability can help set you on a more productive path.

As psychologist and author of The Ape that Understood the Universe Steve Stewart-Williams, explained, natural selection built us to be chronically conflicted for good reason: “A diverse array of desires and drives ensures that we’re ready to take whichever path presents itself to us. Also, having multiple, incompatible desires is like having a miniature parliament in our heads: One faction argues for one thing, another argues for another, and the clash of perspectives often leads to better decisions.” While Stewart-Williams admitted that “adaptive” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s ‘fun,’” seeking to eliminate role conflict and viewing a lack thereof as the ultimate sign of progress creates an unwinnable situation. As it is said in the Tao te Ching, “Hard and easy complete each other.” 

Instead of trying to resist role conflict, recognizing its inevitability can help set you on a more productive path. As Swiss psychologist Carl Jung noted, “What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.” And as modern research shows, trying to eliminate uncomfortable human experiences tends to yield the paradoxical effect of amplifying them. Trying to suppress distressing thoughts and feelings only to find them getting amplified is so predictable that psychologists have even given it a name: “the suppression effect.” And they have identified that a more effective strategy for managing uncomfortable, internal experiences involves allowing, rather than ridding, those experiences, and doing so in a particular way—with self-compassion. 

Research from self-compassion researcher Kristin Neff and her colleagues defines self-compassion as a set of practices that includes making contact with internal distressing experiences, and doing so with the sort of kindness we often naturally offer to those we care about. The practices of self-compassion also invite us to recognize the universality of human pain and suffering, recognizing that there is nothing at all wrong with us for having whatever experience we are having. Perhaps surprisingly, research shows that practicing self-compassion during moments of suffering helps us to achieve more effectiveness in the roles we care about most, as well as greater happiness in our life’s journey.

Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh offered a notion of “no mud, no lotus” in his beautiful book of the same name to explain how our suffering can even, at times, serve us quite well. The idea here is that mud provides the beautiful lotus with needed nourishment. As sticky, dirty, and disgusting as mud feels, its existence is the reason floral goodness flourishes. Beauty and muck often go hand in hand. This notion applies to the role conflict in working parenthood, too. For instance, when you have to leave work before finishing a project because daycare is about to close, this time pressure can make you more efficient at work. And the feeling of having mastery at work after a morning of cereal thrown at the wall, or having children who could care less that you got overlooked for a promotion at work, can help you manage your stress more effectively. Appreciating both the unavoidability and the embedded benefits of the inside problem of working parenthood helps us cease our unwinnable battle and conserve energy to fight the battles in what can be changed, including more humane social policy, workplace flexibility, and marital equality.

The outside problems of working parenthood cause unnecessary suffering and are problems that we need to identify and work against by continuing to push workplaces, our partners, and society to make advances in expectations and practices. But the inside problem of working parenthood can’t be solved the same way. Distinguishing between the outside and inside problem of working parenthood can help us manage both more effectively.

The post The Inside Problem of Work-Family Conflict appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Most contemporary Buddhists know that Prince Siddhartha, the Buddha-to-be, left his family in search of liberation on the day his son, Rahula, was born. Many have been perplexed, sometimes outraged, at such a seemingly irresponsible act. What is less well-known, though, is that after his awakening, the Buddha became his son’s primary parent for most of the boy’s childhood. From the time Rahula was seven, he was under the care of his father, who proved to be a remarkably effective parent: Rahula had reached full awakening by the time he reached adulthood. So we can ask, what kind of parent was the Buddha? What kind of parenting techniques did he use? How did an enlightened teacher convey his spiritual message to his own child?

The scriptures do not offer much detail about the relationship between the Buddha and Rahula, but various hints provide a very interesting picture of how the teacher guided his son’s maturation. While an earlier story describes how Rahula came to practice under his father, most of these hints are contained in three discourses, which, when read together, follow the pattern of the three successive trainings forming the path to awakening: when Rahula was seven, the Buddha taught him about virtue; when he was a teen, the Buddha instructed him in meditation; and when he was twenty, the Buddha taught him liberating wisdom. Rahula’s gradual maturation to adulthood thus paralleled his progress along his father’s path to awakening.

When my older son turned seven, I began to wonder what kind of spiritual guidance I could offer him and his younger brother. At a minimum, I wanted them to learn enough about the practices and teachings of Buddhism so that as adults they could turn to these resources if they desired or needed to. I also thought it would be wonderful if they could feel at home in Buddhism so that no matter where they went in life, this home would always be available as a refuge. And finally, because the greatest wealth I know is the well-being, peace, and compassion I have found through my Buddhist practice, I’ve often wondered how I can pass along these riches more broadly to the next generation as a kind of spiritual inheritance. Remembering that Rahula had entered his father’s care when he was seven, I searched through the Pali discourses to learn what I could about how the Buddha taught his son.

I found the question of how to leave a “spiritual legacy” beautifully addressed in the story about the way Rahula came to practice under his father. Six years after he left his family, and one year after his awakening, the Buddha returned to his hometown. Seven-year-old Rahula, on the urging of his mother, went to meet his father to ask for his inheritance. If Siddhartha had remained at home, Rahula would have been in line to inherit the throne. But as a renunciate living a life of poverty, what could the Buddha pass on? In response to Rahula’s request, the Buddha said to Sariputta, his right-hand monk, “Ordain him.” Rather than receiving the throne, Rahula inherited his father’s way of life, a life dedicated to liberation.

While it is unlikely that my son will shave his head and take robes anytime soon, I would still like to expose him to the basic Buddhist principles that have so deeply informed my own life. When I came across the three discourses where the Buddha teaches Rahula, I was surprised that the teachings seemed not only still fresh but also relevant to raising a child in modern America. In fact, these discourses have now become a guide for me as a parent.

Virtue

The first story illustrates how Rahula was taught to live a life of integrity. When he was eight, Rahula told a deliberate lie. The sutta called The Discourse of Advice Given to Rahula at Mango Stone (Middle Length Discourse 61) tells how the Buddha dealt with this. Having first meditated, the Buddha went to his son. Rahula prepared a seat for him and, as was the custom, put out a bowl of water so the Buddha could rinse his feet. After his father cleaned his feet, a little water was left in the bowl. The Buddha asked, “Rahula, do you see the small quantity of water left in the bowl?”

“Yes,” replied Rahula.

“As little as this,” the Buddha said, “is the spiritual life of someone who is not ashamed at telling a deliberate lie.”

I imagine Rahula taking a deep gulp upon hearing this.

The Buddha then threw out the remaining water and said, “Thrown away like this is the spiritual life of someone who is not ashamed at telling a deliberate lie.”

The Buddha then turned the bowl upside down and said, “Turned upside down like this is the spiritual life of someone who is not ashamed at telling a deliberate lie.”

And to drive the point home, the Buddha then turned the bowl back upright and said,

“As empty as this bowl is the spiritual life of someone who is not ashamed at telling a deliberate lie.”

He then taught his son, “When someone is not ashamed to tell a deliberate lie, there is no evil that he or she would not do. Therefore, Rahula, train yourself to not utter a falsehood even as a joke.”

This part of the story reminds me that there is force but no inner strength behind angry castigation of children. Calmly, when he thought the time was right, the Buddha made his point without punishment or anger.

After this brief but sharp admonishment for lying, I imagine the Buddha had his son’s attention. He then instructed his son to become more reflective about all his behavior. The Buddha asked, “What is a mirror for?”

“For reflection,” replied young Rahula.

The following paraphrase conveys what the Buddha said next:

Whenever engaging in a physical, verbal, or mental activity, you should reflect, will this activity bring harm to myself or to others? If, on reflecting, you realize it will bring harm, then such activity is unfit for you to do. If you realize that it will bring benefit to you or to others, then it is something fit for you to do.

It strikes me as key that instead of teaching his son to recognize absolute notions of right and wrong, the Buddha was teaching him to reflect on harm and benefit; this requires both self-awareness and empathy. Grounding moral decisions in what is harmful or beneficial helps protect our ethical life from being guided by abstract and external ideals unrelated to the effects of our behavior. Harm and benefit are also related to a person’s sense of purpose. Things we do can either detract from or support the direction in which we want to go.

This teaching reinforces my belief in the importance of cultivating a child’s capacity for empathy and an understanding of how his or her actions impact others. The powers of reflection and compassion do not come only from being told to be reflective or compassionate. They come from seeing these qualities modeled in others, particularly one’s parents.

The Buddha also told Rahula to notice after doing something whether or not it caused harm. If harm resulted from something Rahula did, he was to find a wise person to confess this to as part of a strategy to do better in the future. From this I have learned the importance of helping a child develop the integrity to admit mistakes. And such integrity depends a lot on how a child’s mistakes are received by his or her parents. Again, the parents’ ways of being and acting in the world are crucial to how a child’s virtue grows: if the parent is someone who can be trusted and who is more interested in helping the child grow than in punishing the child, then the young person is more likely to be honest.

Meditation

The second story shows how the Buddha began teaching meditation to Rahula as a way to develop a foundation of inner well-being (Middle Length Discourse 62). This story takes place when Rahula is a young teen. It starts as he sets out with his father on their morning almsround. Rahula was having conceited thoughts about his good looks, which he shared with his father.

Noticing his son’s preoccupation, the Buddha said, “When seen with wisdom, the physical body should not be viewed as me, myself or mine.” In fact, the Buddha continued, one shouldn’t see any feeling, perception, mental activity or consciousness through concepts of me, myself or mine. Hearing this, Rahula felt admonished and returned to the monastery without collecting food for the day.

I take this to be a radical teaching for a young teenager. I can’t imagine that as a teen I could have understood what the Buddha was talking about. However, I remember all too well how, at that age, I was preoccupied with my personal appearance. I have often heard this justified in teens as part of the important developmental process of individuating, of finding themselves. Is it appropriate to admonish a fourteen-year-old for feelings of vanity? Was the Buddha interfering with normal developmental issues that teens should negotiate alone? Without developing a strong sense of self, how can a young person grow into a psychologically healthy adult? What kind of self-concern does a teen need in order to mature?

The Buddha’s answer to these questions is seen in what he next did for his son.

The evening after he was admonished, Rahula went to his father and asked for instruction in breath meditation. The Buddha first used analogies to illustrate how to have equanimity during meditation. He said:

Develop meditation that is like the earth: as the earth is not troubled by agreeable or disagreeable things it comes into contact with, so if you meditate like the earth, agreeable and disagreeable experiences will not trouble you. Develop meditation like water, like fire, like air and like space: as all of these are not troubled by agreeable or disagreeable things they come into contact with, so if you meditate like water, fire, air or space, agreeable and disagreeable experiences will not trouble you.

Then, before actually teaching him breath meditation, the Buddha told his son to meditate on lovingkindness as an antidote to ill-will, on compassion to overcome cruelty, on sympathetic joy to master discontent, and on equanimity to subdue aversion.

Only then did the Buddha teach breath meditation in its classic formulation of sixteen stages. These stages go through phases of calming the body and mind, cultivating strong states of well-being and insight, and letting go. And then, as a powerful punctuation to his teaching to Rahula, the Buddha concluded by stating that if mindfulness of breathing is developed, a person will have the ability to be calmly mindful of his last breath.

As I read about the Buddha teaching his son breath meditation to cultivate strong states of inner well-being, I saw how this is an alternative to building a rigid conception of “self.” I wonder how much of modern teenage attempts at self-building and differentiation are fueled by their being ill at ease with themselves and with others. I assume that the process would be very different if based on a sense of being both at ease within oneself and imperturbable in the presence of others.

When teaching meditation to kids I have noticed that at about thirteen or fourteen, a jump occurs in their ability to meditate. I have been quite impressed by the ease with which some young teens can drop into deep states of meditation (though they tend not to last long). I have known young people for whom meditation became an important tool for finding stability and peace in the midst of their adolescent challenges.

But it is not just for the usual teenage trials that breath meditation is useful. Breath meditation can be drawn upon at every step in one’s journey in life. In this story, the Buddha concluded his instruction of his son by pointing to the value of breath meditation practice in preparation for the moment of one’s death.

Wisdom

In the third and final sutta, the Buddha guides Rahula through a series of questions that lead him to liberating wisdom (Middle Length Discourse 147). By this time Rahula had devoted the greater part of his teen years to the path of awakening; in one passage he is described as exemplary in his love for training. By the time Rahula was twenty, his father understood that he was close to liberation. The Buddha then did something that I find quite touching: he went for a walk with his son deep in the woods in a grove of majestic sal trees. Sitting at the base of one of these large trees, he led Rahula through a thorough questioning of every basis used for clinging to the idea of a self. The process the Buddha used was one of progressively loosening the enchantment with finding a self in anything. For someone as well trained as Rahula, the deeply rooted tendency to cling to some idea of an essential self can be the last barrier to liberation. As he listened to his father’s teachings, this clear seeing of the impersonal nature of phenomena was the final step Rahula needed for his full liberation.

The Buddha’s teaching on not-self can be perplexing. It is easy to see it as abstract philosophy and so miss that this teaching is a form of practical instruction on how to find happiness through letting go. To me it seems important that the Buddha taught Rahula about not-self while they sat deep in the woods. I have often found that I have a very different perspective when in nature than when in the middle of urban life. I find that the sense of peace and well-being that nature can provide facilitates letting go of self-concern. To contemplate letting go while reading a book on Buddhist philosophy in one’s own home is a lot different from doing so surrounded by a quiet grove of trees. In reading this third discourse, I reflected on how useful it is to know oneself in the context of the natural world.

When the seven-year-old Rahula asked for his inheritance, he couldn’t have imagined that thirteen years later he would have received the greatest gifts that any parent could pass on to a child. In Buddhism, awakening is known as the greatest happiness. As I consider my aspirations for my own sons, I wish them the peace, happiness, and safety that the path of awakening provides. Perhaps in the different phases of their growth, they too can be established in the three trainings of virtue, meditation, and wisdom.

⧫

From the Spring 2008 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 24, No. 2) © 2008 Gil Fronsdal

Related Inquiring Mind articles:

• Meditations on Laundry 

• Teaching Peace to Playful Warriors

• Family and Buddhist Practice 

• Parenting as Practice
• We Teach Who We Are

The post What the Buddha Taught His Son appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

From the corner of almost midnight, huddled over my computer, quietly crunching my toddler’s favorite cereal from a brightly colored unbreakable bowl, I struggle to muster the eloquence to convey ultimate truths I’ve learned from wise teachers and Buddhist scripture. A mixture of perfectionism, pride, and true reverence keep me feeling the need to represent the dharma in a more formal way, and yet, the heart of the matter is here with me in my matronly sweatpants as I live and breath the chaos of every day, learning to weave my breath with nonjudgmental awareness—the mother of all Buddhas.  

For many of us, our first taste of love came from our mother or from another caregiver. And for those of us who had this good fortune, this is how we learned what unconditional love and compassion is. Like the true affections of a great mother, our awareness is naturally loving, unconditionally compassionate, and nonjudgmental. Like a great mother, it stays with us always, no matter what happens in our lives.

Attention is the fabric of our awareness. Our ability to attend to or pay attention is the most resourceful and powerful faculty we have as human beings. But in our daily life, our attention process becomes judgmental. We become attached and fixated on our thoughts and feelings, avoidant of pain, and drawn toward pleasure. We become overly concerned with ourselves in a way that can make our world feel smaller. It’s very hard to be kind, helpful, or patient with others when you aren’t kind or patient with yourself. As a parent, I know this all too well. On the days I’m being rough with myself, I tend to be less patient with my kids, more reactive, and less present. One of my favorite quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh is, “When you love someone, you have to offer that person the best you have. The best thing we can offer another person is our true presence.” The most generous thing we have to offer others is our true presence, and we cannot even begin to make such a gesture without being present with ourselves. 

The practice of tonglen can help us reverse the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure, and reduces the fixation on and clinging to our suffering as something inherently bad. Instead, we give suffering our loving attention and awareness—we give it our whole presence. This practice of taking and sending is one of the Seven Points of Mind Training developed by the Tibetan Kadampa master Chekawa Yeshe Dorje in the 12th century. Yeshe Dorje distilled the great 10th-century master Atisha’s 59 lojong slogans into seven practical methods of mind training that contain the essence of all 59 slogans. All of them are fundamental practices on the Mahayana path–through cultivating relative bodhicitta we can come to realize ultimate bodhicitta. 

The purpose of this practice is twofold. It gives us practical means to take on our experiences on the path, whereby our suffering can become a source of compassion, wisdom, patience, and understanding for ourselves and others. This is relative bodhicitta. In the process, we can recognize the nature of our minds, or ultimate bodhicitta. In other words, relative bodhicitta is how we learn to love ourselves and each other. Ultimate bodhicitta is the fundamental pristine awareness, or nonjudgmental, naturally open, loving spaciousness undivided by self and other. Through the practice of tonglen, we are cultivating relative bodhicitta, and in doing so, we cultivate the ability to recognize the very awareness that allows us to love and hold space for ourselves and each other. The full understanding of this wisdom is known as prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom, and is also referred to in Tibetan as the deity Yum Chenmo, the great mother of all Buddhas. 

In this practice, we breathe in the suffering of ourselves and others, visualized as a dark matter or smoke, and breathe out, sharing with ourselves and others a sense of joy and freedom from suffering. Although we may visualize and imagine various people and sensations in tonglen, the entire experience is held within our present awareness. Like a good mother tending to her children, we meet these expressions of mind with our unconditional loving presence. 

When doing this meditation, people frequently say they feel bad or scared at the thought of taking on or breathing in the suffering of others. There is no harm in breathing in suffering or even imagining it; in fact in doing so, we are welcoming our experience by giving our direct attention generously and without judgment. 

The reason the practice begins with resting in spacious awareness is to gently remind us that that is where the present moment is. There is nothing that our unimpeded awareness cannot hold. It is also helpful to simply return our attention and focus to our natural breath if ever this visualization gets to be too much.  

***

Tonglen Meditation Instruction

1. Rest your mind briefly in a state of open, clear, spacious awareness. This is ultimate bodhicitta.  
   
2. Now start to work with different textures and sensations. Breathe in a feeling of dark, smoky, heavy energy and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, light, uplifted energy. Breathe these sensations in and out completely through your pores.

3. Now move onto a personal situation, a painful situation that is real to your experience. Breathe into that feeling of tension, welcome it into your body in the form of dark smokey light, inviting your spacious awareness to hold it lovingly.
   
   As you exhale, imagine that dark smokey energy transforms into white light, and envision this light giving you joy, wisdom, happiness, and freedom from pain; imagine this light giving you unconditional, non judgemental love and spaciousness.

4. Next try breathing in the pain of someone else you love and care about, taking on their suffering and sending them your joy and freedom from pain.

5. Finally, make the taking and sending bigger. If you are doing tonglen for someone you love, extend that to others who may be in the same or similar situation as your friend or loved one. Imagining others experiencing pain, fear and suffering, continue taking it on, and sharing your joy and freedom from pain. Until finally you can have the space to imagine your enemies or someone who you feel negative energy toward; give yourself the courage and spaciousness and generosity to do tonglen for them and all beings you can imagine.

6. Imagining an infinite, vast ocean of people, gradually drop the visualization and rest in open, spacious awareness once more.  

May all beings be free from pain and recognize the innate loving wisdom awareness that is our very nature. 

And in the meantime, may we at least learn to love ourselves and each other in the process.

The post A Meditation for Mother’s Day appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

What parents need—for the sake of their children as well as themselves—is help in walking with, instead of struggling against, their pain, confusion, and doubt. Leave the rationales to sociological, political, and even religious debates, because here we are focusing on the nitty-gritty of making parenting not just a tolerable ordeal but an opening, a doorway to the widest possible array of experience—the grandeur and the gore. 

It is crucial for you to learn to mindfully stand in place and face the parental experience internally—your painful emotions. To face your “inner parent” is to bring self-compassion and mindfulness to bear on your relationship with yourself, with the pain that parents so readily magnify through unskillful means into unnecessary suffering and that gets in the way of the mindset required for seeing into and behind your child to their prize. 

I am not aware of any tool or strategy for ending the inevitable pain of parenting. The vivid momentum of sweet moments such as when kids first learn to pump their legs on the swing will eventually go still. Young kids will walk out of your sight and you will surge with fear. Older kids will hurl dagger eyes and sledgehammer words at you across the years. Even when they are only three feet tall, your emotional buttons will never be out of their reach. 

The whining will continue. Your sleep will be interrupted, either through their crying in their childhoods or your worrying in their adulthoods. They may be disabled or in other ways hampered from the easy happiness you wished for them. You will have no clue what to do in that crossroad moment as they hover in the doorway, their eyes expecting your parental reaction to save them. Every other life domain—your jobs, relationships, your own extended families—will press at you just as they ask for one more thing. And they may lose more than their fair share in life. 

Perhaps you sometimes wish you could ask for a refund, a re-do, a chance to check the fine print of the brochure. Yes, we love our kids, and no we cannot, nor do we really want, to go back in time and say “No thanks, I have a headache” on the night their spawning occurred. Parenting is best thought of as that old board game Chutes and Ladders, and this version has many more of the former than the latter. 

In the face of all of this, I invite you to meet your parental heart-mind—not simply glance at yourself in a mirror, but really meet and greet your inner experience, your truth (in the harsher moments of parenting, this truth is more often a judge, jury, and executioner) and take a long, hard, inner look. “You aren’t good enough,” experience often says, and the pain soon surges in your body. “You can’t handle these kids . . .” “Bad things will happen . . .” “They are ungrateful, and you’ll never have a life of your own.” Experience pokes at your thoughts and your feelings and rarely stops its hammering, and it makes parenting harder than it needs to be. Therefore you need to carve out some time to kindly examine and create some space around your internal parental critic. 

I am not asking you to ignore painful experiences, I am asking you to stay with your pain, and regard it like a naughty puppy being trained. With a dedicated mindfulness practice, you can learn to teach your angst-primed parental brain to stay sitting and smarting on the carpet of your mind and body and bide your time until the pain shifts and changes on its own. Because it will. You can train your parental brain to let the pain be as it is, and not chide and mishandle it into the beast that most of us have known in our lesser moments as parents. Pain, yes—suffering, no. 

As I write this book, parental stress has been amplified by the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic that drastically altered society beginning in March 2020. The Harris Poll conducted a survey on behalf of the American Psychological Association in late April and early May 2020, surveying 3,013 adults age eighteen and older who reside in the United States. On a ten-point scale, the respondents’ average reported stress level related to the coronavirus pandemic was 5.9. When asked to rate their stress level in general, the respondents’ average reported stress was 5.4. In 2019, the average stress level—as reported in the APA’s annual “Stress in America” survey—had been 4.9. The COVID-era report of 2020 marked the first significant increase in average reported stress since the survey began in 2007. 

Especially in current times, parents are facing universal emotional pain, with no race, income level, or other boundary keeping these pains forever at bay. We all therefore need to remember parenting can and does hurt. You as a parent are not alone. May you and may all parents be free of these pains, these sufferings. This is my meditation, and I suggest you close your eyes in moments across the days and weeks to come and make it your own. Bring self-compassionate kindness into a wish for the courage and the spaciousness to prize yourself. 

♦

From Prizeworthy: How to Meaningfully Connect, Build Character, and Unlock the Potential of Every Child by Mitch Abblett © 2021 by Mitch Abblett. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com

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If we parents and caregivers thought it was hard to keep up a regular meditation practice in normal times, it sure got a whole lot harder with the radical changes in home life brought by the pandemic. Yet, meditating in these conditions is not only doable, it can be an essential sanity-saver. 

I’m not talking about trying to do the impossible, where the impossible means dedicating an hour of your day to sitting in complete silence. This is about meditating with the circumstances we’re in. 

There are plenty of opportunities for practicing while at home with others in residence. Here are some tips. 

1. Put devices away or on airplane mode for dedicated periods when you’re with your children or taking a moment to meditate. Removing this one distraction automatically increases the availability of attention for meditation or for being fully present with others. You’ll be surprised what a difference this makes. If you’re using your device for a guided meditation, turn notifications off.

2. Dedicate caregiving or household work to be a meditation session itself. Whether sweeping, folding laundry, or chopping onions, drop thinking ahead to the next activity or reviewing the past one. Become fully attuned to what’s happening through your five senses, as well as to attendant thoughts and emotions, as you perform your work. Feel your connection to your home environment. Choose one routine as your Meditation-in-Motion and do it consistently across the days. Add or change to another when you’re ready.

3. From “me-time” to “we-time” meditation. Our image of me-time comes from a period when we weren’t responsible for others. Me-time back then meant we could be alone and had the time to choose something that addressed our personal well-being. For most caregivers, this style of me-time is nearly impossible. However, we can choose to redefine “me” as well as what we feel nourishes us. When “me” becomes “me with my toddler” and the activity becomes “enjoying watching them as they eat, roll, and squash blueberries at the dining table,” then we have ample me-time as caregivers. Our image of meditation, especially as the ultimate me-time, can undergo the same reframing. Similar to the “chores meditation” above, when you’re with your loved one, drop thinking about what’s ahead or ruminating about the past. Become fully aware with all five senses. Be attuned to your thoughts and feelings, as well to those of your loved one. Release any agendas, especially ones for that other person. Perhaps choose just one routine—whether diapering, bathing, or feeding—to practice as a We-Time Meditation.  

4. Actually meditate, but lower expectations to, like, 1 minute and maybe up to 5 minutes. It’s OK to do it on the spot spontaneously when the opportunity arises, whether that’s on the couch, standing with coffee at the window, sitting on the back steps—it doesn’t matter if you’re cross-legged on a cushion. Letting go of all the formal accoutrements of meditation practice might lower the barriers to actually doing it: no need to set a timer, benchmark the duration, pick a specific time of day, dedicate a spot, ring a bell—none of that. Don’t even worry about finding a guided meditation on an app. Just quiet yourself down, bring some stillness to your body, and follow your breath a few times. Keep it light and easy. You’re just taking a moment to touch in and maybe reset. If you have conditions at home that are supportive of these more structured elements, include them as you can. 

5. Meditate with your loved one, depending on their inclination. With little kids, bedtime metta, or lovingkindness, is great. You can read your child storybooks on mindfulness and then invite them to try the practice described in the story with you. Hugging meditation, cloud meditation, and walking meditation are all great ways of meditating with others in your home. Meditate while watching your loved one fall asleep. 

For more complete instructions on how to practice meditation as a parent or caregiver in normal times, but equally applicable for weird times, read How to Meditate While Raising Kids.

What Parent-Meditators Have Been Doing

To give you a sense of how parents with an established meditation practice are meeting with pandemic conditions, let me share four examples.

Paloma said that prior to the pandemic she had been fairly loose with her meditation practice. When schools moved to online learning in March 2020, her son was suddenly home full-time; she eventually took him out of school altogether and began homeschooling him. To her surprise, even though she had far less time than before the pandemic, she actually became much more disciplined about maintaining a daily, dedicated sitting practice. Why? Because with the constant demand for her attention in the days that followed as her son’s educator and parent, as well as working from home and being the household manager, this practice became a foundational anchor that determined the quality of her presence.

On the other end is Franz, who previously had a very regular zazen practice. The pandemic hit, his 10th grader’s school closed, he worked full time at home, and the schedule went from orderly to. . . not exactly chaos but close, making it very hard to schedule anything, including meditation. “What I found, though, was that I took advantage of irregular and shorter opportunities for meditation,” he said. “I now see that this formlessness of my meditation echoes the formlessness of my current life.” Much of this loosening has been refreshing, he reports, providing more connections between the cushion and daily life. 

In the middle is my sister Isa, mother of a newborn, 2- and 4-year-old, working full time, with a husband who is a frontline hospital doctor and father. She meditates for five minutes a day. “I think my meditation streak is a self-health/self-preservation thing. While this is probably my healthiest maternity leave yet, it’s still exhausting and takes a lot of mental energy,” she told me in an email. “Taking the time for meditation really allows me to focus in a way that I’m not able to the rest of the day, and I feel better for it.”

As for her older sister Sumi, a so-called specialist in mindful parenting, I’ll share this. A few months ago, my boss asked the staff what new things they were learning during isolation. One was learning Dutch; another grew a garden. Me? I said I had learned to lower my expectations. And then to lower them again. And again. Until basically I had no expectations or standards. Dust bunnies gathered, the kids had too much screen time, I read three volumes of Outlander (steamy!), and I didn’t have the energy to keep up the meditation routine I’d had before (maybe I should have read less Outlander). At some point, I even let go of the expectation that I should meditate regularly. Rock bottom, baby.

And yet in retrospect I may have been meditating more than I thought. Taking a moment to relax on the sofa without intentionally doing so I would find myself forgoing reading or thinking to instead attend to my body, breath, sounds, the space around me. Sitting in the kitchen to chat with my daughter as she did dinner cleanup, I would just “drop in” to being there—present, grateful, and connected. The giant shift in daily patterns, which has the odd combination of both much less activity (no sports, driving to lessons, etc.) and much more work (supporting the kids with online school, dishes, meals, and yet more dishes and meals), has facilitated a kind of “active retreat” home environment. In this context, meditation has become softer, more relaxed, integrated, and real. As I have let go of a programmatic practice of meditation, I have actually started meditating more spontaneously and naturally. 

The post Meditation Tips for Caregivers During Lockdown (And How Others Are Staying Mindful) appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When Bethany Saltman’s daughter, Azalea, was born fourteen years ago, she felt love—and impatience and anger and other strong emotions she knew were inside her that we don’t often associate with motherhood. 

Saltman, a writer and longtime Zen practitioner who spent several years living at Zen Mountain Monastery in New York State’s Catskill Mountains, decided to investigate these difficult feelings. Her curiosity about the connection between her and Azalea led her to attachment theory and the American-Canadian developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth (1913–1999). Attachment theory, first developed by the British psychologist John Bowlby and expanded by Ainsworth, posits that our future relationships and many other aspects of our lives are determined by the way that our parents tended to us in our early months, teaching us to regulate our emotions (or not) and to develop qualities such as empathy and insight.

Ainsworth is credited with developing the Strange Situation, a 20-minute laboratory procedure that ascertains the type of attachment shown by a one-year-old baby toward a caregiver (usually, but not always the mother). In the Strange Situation, the child toddles into a room that doesn’t look like a laboratory, making a beeline for the blocks, dolls, or poster on the wall. The parent and child play for a few moments. Then there’s a knock at the door and the parent leaves the child in the room, either alone or with a stranger who has entered and tries to keep the child entertained. Researchers believe that what happens next—tears, ambivalence, anger—determines so much about how we relate to others, not only at a year old, but throughout the rest of our lives.

Ainsworth’s procedure, based on her field research of attachment styles in mothers and their babies in Uganda, was a major development in attachment theory and remains the “gold standard in psych labs everywhere for assessing security between children and their caregivers,” according to Saltman. 

Saltman’s own “discovery” of attachment theory led to more than a decade of research into Ainsworth’s life and work, as well as to an examination of her own relationships and the intersections between attachment and karma. Her book about her findings, Strange Situation: A Mother’s Journey into the Science of Attachment, was published by Ballantine Books in April. Saltman joined Wendy Biddlecombe Agsar, Tricycle’s editor-at-large and resident new mother, to talk about the intersection of dharma and attachment.

***

So, some of my questions are more personal than I’m used to asking. But I have a 10-month-old baby, and it’s hard to ignore that while reading your book. I am totally into that.

I think we have to start with the basics. Can you start by telling me how you became interested in attachment theory? When my daughter, Azalea, was born, I noticed that I was confused by my feelings. In addition to love, I quickly noticed all these other parts of myself appearing—impatience, frustration, anger. I somehow thought that I would enter some other realm and that those edgier parts would be eclipsed by this love. I quickly discovered that this was not the case, and frankly, it scared me. I felt like there must be something wrong with me and I wanted to understand: Am I OK? Can I do this? Can I love this person?

Once a woman becomes a mother, every single thing she does, thinks, and feels is charged because our culture is very invested in the maternal experience.

So I started to read and investigate. I had heard about attachment, but I didn’t understand what it was, and I had become really worried that my so-called “attachment” with Azalea was going to be insecure. Then I heard about the Strange Situation and started to see pictures of Mary Ainsworth, and I just fell for her. I thought: “Who is this woman? She doesn’t have children, she’s very formal, but so friendly.” She’s from an era that I happen to love, and she reminds me of my grandma. And when I realized that in 20 minutes you could learn so much about a relationship between a mother and child I was like “Oh my God, count me in, I want to know everything there is to know about my relationship with my daughter.” For some reason, from the very beginning I really believed in it. 

Going back to all of these difficult emotions—we don’t have a lot of examples of the reality of motherhood. I had a baby last year, and I still feel, especially with social media and the way society is, that it’s supposed to be this wonderful and beautiful experience. And when you breastfeed, you’re supposed to have this amazing bond. Sometimes breastfeeding is amazing, but sometimes you’re hungry or tired and you have to pee and you’ve already tried to feed the baby like five times in an hour. And there’s no picture of that. One hundred percent, yes. As I wrote in one article, “People always tell me I’m brave for writing this book.” That comment alone tells me how afraid I should be. But I love my daughter so much, and I am willing to expose myself for her, I can make this an offering and say, “Look, I didn’t just get hungry or have to pee when I was nursing—I got mad.”

But if sitting on the cushion for however many years has taught me anything, it’s that if we can’t open the door to these difficult feelings, they will make themselves known somehow. And it might get ugly. Full stop. If we want to take care of this, there’s one way to do it: be all of our feelings. That’s all there is to it, and it’s very, very difficult.

I gave birth to my son via C-section, and it seemed that everything surrounding that decision seemed to be up for debate as to what was the best thing. I even had one woman in my mother’s group tell me she was so sorry that I didn’t have a “natural” birth. It’s these little things I never realized could be so charged. Well, once a woman becomes a mother, every single thing she does, thinks, and feels is charged because our culture is very invested in the maternal experience. This basically cancels out subtlety, nuance, and real feelings, because they’re very threatening. When, in fact, the bigger threat—as Mary Ainsworth discovered and as the Buddha discovered—is not having those feelings.

I think it’s important to note, like you write in the book, that up until the 1950s researchers believed that babies just needed parents for things like food. You write about the American behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, who kept his baby daughter in a climate-controlled “baby box.” The idea that babies need our love and attention was really a radical thing. Indeed. And I think today, as a culture, we are a little bit unclear about where we stand on that. Anybody would say “Of course babies need love.” But what does that mean for us? We almost treat the idea of needing love with a behaviorist slant—like love is a thing that you present with your breasts. It’s this belief that our children need us, because we don’t like love that’s messy. It’s the Instagram version of love, which is an awful lot like a baby box.

So you mean that love in our culture could mean doing something for your baby, like feeding them organic food, more than the actual feeling? That’s the checklist approach to love and attachment. This idea of doing things right is rigid and so deeply entrenched in our minds. It’s easy to say “Of course I love my baby, and of course they need me to love them. Look, I’m nursing, I’m feeding them organic stuff. I’m driving myself insane with effort, that must mean something. I’m smiling, I’m rejoicing, I’m doing all these things.”

But what Mary Ainsworth noticed in securely attached relationships was “mutual delight.” That is something that you can’t fake. We’re getting really good at almost faking it with our phones and pictures. We can look at someone’s Instagram feed and think they’re delighting in life. But we must know better, right?

How exactly do researchers determine attachment patterns based on 20 minutes of watching a child and mother in a room? During the Strange Situation, the researchers observe and take very particular notes about what’s going on during these reunions and separations—all the different types of attachment behavior. Ainsworth had a system of determining what kind of attachment relationship was being expressed during the 20 minutes, and they all flow from three types of behavior: secure, insecure/avoidant, and insecure/resistant [a fourth classification was later added for babies that were inconsistent, disorganized, or confused]. There are also subsets of these primary classifications. 

The Strange Situation is not an experiment; it’s a research tool. You get a baseline of the kind of relationship this parent and child have, and use that information for some kind of strategic solution—group therapy or video-based interventions, for example—that promotes reflective, functioning parents. You might use the Strange Situation at the end of the strategy to see whether it worked.

Researchers have also found that there’s a 75 percent correlation between a parent’s attachment and their child’s attachment at one year. Can you explain how the Strange Situation is used to come to that conclusion? In terms of our future this is a really important point, and one that dharma practitioners will be able to appreciate. What we see at one year is a flash, a snapshot of where that relationship between a caregiver and child stands, based on millions and trillions of minute interactions that have happened in that first year. Non-Buddhists often think of karma as some moral law or destination, as in you get what you deserve. Sometimes we do, and sometimes we don’t. What the Buddha meant by karma is the way every cause will have an effect. We can’t always know what that effect will be, but an accumulation of karmic seeds will affect us, for sure. This is true in culture, as we’re seeing now more clearly than ever, and in our families.

Karma works by developing power as it continues, and the only way to stop a karmic causation is to get in its way and give it a stronger dose of something else. Otherwise, our attachment tends to continue, not because there’s something magical about being one year old—it’s just karma; it’s just the way it goes. It’s incredible the way karmic seeds are sown and harvested. A strong positive event can certainly shift things. But if you’re avoidant at a year, you’ve got a good chance of being avoidant at 30.

I’ve felt a wide range of emotions since learning about this. It’s so amazing! But it’s also scary. What if I’m not securely attached, and then my son isn’t, either? There’s this opportunity and hope for change, and then this idea that things are just the way they are, that there’s no beginning and no end. Where do we go from there, in our practice, in our families? We practice. That’s all there is to do. It’s interesting information, but it doesn’t change the reality, which is that we’ve got one heart, one life to live.

I think the path of practice is the clearest thing in all of this. Everything else depends on so many different causes and conditions, but the path out seems to be clear. That’s what a securely attached adult does: they have mixed feelings. The avoidant baby at one year old is denying. It’s like that very fundamental dharmic understanding of heaven, hell, and other realms, jealous gods and all of that. Clinging takes many forms and so the avoidant baby is clinging to denial, to not feel what they’re feeling, by a year.

Well, and then there’s the other side, the resistant baby is also clinging to an idea of I’ll get it at some point, at some point this is going to feel good. Whereas the securely attached baby is able to actually experience their emotions to the point of extinguishing them, with the help of the parent. By the time we’re sitting on our cushions, we’re trying to learn how to do that on our own, extinguish our sensations by practicing them. By seeing through them, by experiencing them. A baby cannot do that, so that’s where we come in.

The avoidant baby in the Strange Situation is chilling. Their heart rate and stress levels are going up, but they sit there like a stone, while their parent is in the doorway, saying, “Daniel, I’m here, hi.” The avoidant babies ignore their own experience; they can’t tolerate the feeling of sadness, and by a year they’re repressing, they’re angry, they’re distancing themselves. They’re separating from their own experience because the parents, for whatever reason—and there are lots of good, understandable reasons—haven’t been able to be present with their child enough so that the child has fluency with their own sensations. And then the resistant child: they can feel for a second, then they have to step off, and then feel again, then step off.

What are some good reasons why a parent may not be able to be present with their child? They’re depressed, or had a traumatic childhood and never learned how to be attentive. Or they’re experiencing COVID-19, poverty, job loss. There are innumerable good reasons. A parent might have a hard time paying attention to a child because they’re having a hard time with their own experience and their internal life. And for those reasons, the result might be the same: a child won’t feel like they can trust that the parent will be there for them, which might lead to avoidance behavior at one year old.

One of my favorite concepts to come from the attachment literature was from Mary Main, a psychologist who had studied with Mary Ainsworth: she called it attentional flexibility. From a dharma perspective, that’s golden. When we’re sitting on our cushion and have thoughts passing through, our intention is to let go of them and return to the present. That’s developing attentional flexibility, and a secure baby in the Strange Situation has this. They are despairing, at the brink of death, their loved one is gone, and that is a seriously distressful situation. So they’re brought to the edge just a little bit and then when the parent returns they’re able to be, like, “Oh . . . that’s over,” and go back to playing. It’s like when we notice we’re thinking when we’re sitting. It takes so many of us a lifetime—at least—to learn how to do this, because we don’t have intentional flexibility—we get so stuck in our thoughts or lost in space. We’re rigid, we’re excessive, we’re avoidant, we’ll do anything but be present in the moment. And we can see that happening exactly in the Strange Situation with an insecure one-year-old. The insecure baby gets caught in their feelings of loss when the parent leaves, and they can’t return to playing when the parent returns because they don’t have a trusting relationship.

I’m definitely curious, and I’m sure other people will be, too. Do you have advice for people who want to learn more about their first year of life? Can this knowledge help us? As interesting as our patterns are, ultimately, I don’t think we have to know all the details of our early lives. If you’re really interested, then practice becoming more present. You’ll learn everything you need to know through rigorous self-study. By learning to work with yourself, you’ll become a more delighting person and parent, and your child will become more securely attached and just a happier person. It’s not like if you’re avoidant there’s one treatment and if you’re resistant there’s another.

Get right with yourself, get to know yourself, metabolize your feelings, and ask what is getting in your way. I could go on and on, but that’s our work as dharma practitioners and the work of anybody who wants to free themselves of their past. The past is fascinating and I totally support therapy and any kind of work you want to do. But ultimately, everything we need is right here, right now, in the present, on the cushion or wherever you are.

What haven’t I asked you that you’d like people to know about the book? This book is not just for parents; it’s for anybody who has a parent. Because it isn’t just about how we raise children—it’s how we raise ourselves to be reasonable, happy, delightful adults. And it’s never too late, or too early, to take a look at our minds. To me, a secure attachment is kind of a North Star: Some of us may never get there, but that doesn’t matter—it matters that we have intention and that we manifest that lovingkindness from wherever we begin.

Your book reminded me about something that Sharon Salzberg talks about in a podcast I listened to recently. She had a very difficult childhood, but she says that she was able to “re-parent” herself through her teachers by drawing upon qualities she saw in them. Exactly: the way that we talk is important, and we talk to our children the way we talk to ourselves. A friend of mine recently said, “The first person you talk to in the morning is you.” If we can put a microphone to that voice and hear it, we would learn a lot. And you don’t have to be a meditator, or a Buddhist—we’re just in a very fortunate position because we have the tools.

The post Strange Situation appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

To raise mindful, compassionate children, parents must integrate practice into daily life and establish a strong foundation in their own practice to serve as a model. Sumi Loundon Kim, a Buddhist chaplain and author of the Sitting Together parenting curriculum, provides immediately applicable practices cultivated from her experiences as both a Buddhist chaplain and a mom.

In this series, you will learn practices for introducing mindfulness and compassion to your families’ daily routines and how to recognize and address harmful family patterns.

Read more: Goodnight Metta: A Bedtime Meditation for Kids by Sumi Loundon Kim

Sumi Loundon Kim is the Buddhist chaplain at Yale University and founder of the Mindful Families of Durham. She is the editor of the anthologies Blue Jean Buddha and The Buddha’s Apprentices, and the author of Sitting Together: A Family-Centered Curriculum on Mindfulness, Meditation, and Buddhist Teachings.

The post Mindful Parenting: Nurturing an Intentional, Compassionate Family appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Bedtime provides a magical window of opportunity to meditate with children. This transition in the schedule is already set up as a time when we stop playing, drop the busyness of the day, and prepare our minds and bodies for relaxing, resting, and eventually, for sleep. Meditation, likewise, is predicated on letting go of tasking and settling back into quiet reflection. Many of us with young children also have well-established, pre-bedtime routines, so slipping a three to five minute meditation into this pattern is relatively straightforward.

Of the multitude of meditations, children tend to take to metta, or lovingkindness, because it is visual, directed, and invokes warm fuzzies. I began practicing lovingkindness with my two children when they were preschoolers and slept in the same bedroom. I didn’t expect much of a response, but they loved it and eventually did not feel their bedtime routine was complete without practicing metta nightly. Even in later years, if we found ourselves sleeping in the same space such as in a tent or hotel room, our kids asked me to lead a metta meditation before going to sleep.

Related: Teaching Your Children Buddhist Values

With young children, keep metta meditation short and simple. In its most basic form, metta can employ three phrases:

• May __ be healthy
• May __ be safe and protected.
• May __ be happy and peaceful.

The three phrases are applied to categories of people:

• Oneself
• Someone with whom the child has a close relationship, such as a family member, teacher, caregiver, or friend
• An animal or aspect of the natural world, such as cats, pandas, rivers, or mountains
• All beings, everywhere

Feel free to adapt this any number of ways. You can adjust the phrases and increase the categories based on your child’s developmental capacities. For example, you can add metta for people we don’t know, for difficult people, or for communities suffering from a natural disaster. (Insight meditation teacher Gregory Kramer’s booklet Seeding the Heart is a great resource for working with different age groups.)

Although in my family we practiced metta while snuggled into our beds, my friend Nilakshi and her four-year-old son sit together at their family altar. He lights incense and rings the bell himself. Their chosen categories are themselves, one person in the household, someone from the extended family, one friend in school, and one kind of animal. She shared with me that she loves seeing him smile when he picks the people to give metta to and that he is usually very calm by the time he heads to bed right after.

Related: How to Stay Mindful When Your Preschooler Isn’t

For your first few evenings, you can use a script (like the one below) until you get the hang of it. Then, create the form that works best for you. Before you begin, have your child choose which family member or friend he or she would like to send lovingkindness to, as well as one feature or animal from nature.  

After practicing this for a few weeks, your kids might want to lead the meditation themselves. Fantastic—go for it.

Metta Meditation for Bedtime Script

• (Speak the following out loud.)
• Take a long, deep breath in, starting way down in the belly. Filling up, up, up! And, big exhale—“aaah!” (Make a loud sigh with the exhale.) And again, long breath in, filling up, up, up! And again, our sigh of relief—aaaah!
• Now, relaxing our bodies, letting them become soft and heavy, just melting into the bed. Feeling warm and cozy. Everything completely relaxed. If you want, you can place a hand or both hands on your heart. Let’s feel our hearts and picture a warm, glowing light, like sunlight, that’s radiating from our heart center outward. This heart sunlight glows with love and kindness.
• Let’s begin with kindness for ourselves, remembering our own basic goodness and kindness. (You can mention something from the day, too, such as, “Emma shared her Legos and Connor wiped up the cat barf, even though it was super gross.”)
• Think these phrases in your mind: May I be healthy. May I be safe and protected. May I be happy and peaceful. (Narrate each line slowly. Pause for at least 5 seconds between phrases to allow time for the child to imagine or feel the connection and intention.)
• Now we share our lovingkindness with grandma. Let’s picture grandma in her favorite chair in the sunshine by the window. May grandma be healthy. May grandma be safe and protected. May grandma be happy and peaceful.
• And letting our metta radiate outward to the rainforests of the world, with giant trees providing fresh air for us to breath and shady canopies and homes for thousands of species of insects, animals, and tribes. May all rainforests be healthy. May all rainforests be safe and protected. May all rainforests be happy and peaceful.
• And then radiating kindness, over the entire world, spreading upward to the skies, and downwards to the depths, outward and unbounded. (This phrasing invokes a section of the Karaniya Metta Sutta).
• May all beings be healthy. May all beings be safe and protected. May all beings be happy and peaceful. (If desired, add, “May all beings be awakened.”)

In my family, we close with a short blessing, which my tween son still requires of me before he turns in.

May the Buddha bless and protect you. May the devas bless and protect you. May the Bodhisattvas bless and protect you. Om mane padme hum. Om mane padme hum. Om mane padme hum.

♦

This meditation is also available as a guided audio practice on Tricycle’s podcast, For the Moment: Short Practices for Relief and Resilience. 

For more advice from Sumi Loundon Kim, watch her video Dharma Talk series Mindful Parenting: Nurturing an Intentional, Compassionate Family.

The post Goodnight Metta: A Bedtime Meditation for Kids appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

My preschooler son is amazing until he decides to be defiant. He’ll put his foot down and simply refuse to listen to what we ask him to do. This happens at least a once a day. Recently at the playground we gave him a five-minute reminder that we would be leaving, and he seemed OK, but when the time came he threw an epic tantrum. Our morning routine is the worst of all. When we are finally out the door (after a LOT of coaxing!), he starts crying, stands still, and does anything he can to delay leaving. We have tried many things—bribing him, carrying him, trying to reason with him—but to no avail. Is there something wrong with my child? Please help!

Sounds like you have pulled out all the stops to deal with your son’s strong will. I understand that you may be feeling helpless, but you can take heart that your child’s behavior pattern is most likely a healthy developmental milestone. His motor skills are improving rapidly, enabling him to explore his surroundings independently. He is also developing a sense of self, trying to define who he is and what he can do. So you find him exerting himself, pushing and experimenting with boundaries, which stems from his evolutionary need to learn life skills and establish autonomy. But a lot of his inexperienced adventures might be dangerous—like playing with a kitchen knife—or simply unacceptable, such as a whim to decorate your family photo with ketchup. It isn’t surprising that his misadventures are therefore frequently met with the word no, leaving him confused and disappointed. Now you are the lucky one with the responsibility to encourage his independence while teaching him limits. Sounds like a tall order! Let me share a step-by-step guide on how to manage these situations.

1. Check Safety
   Use your keen parenting instincts to assess if your child is putting himself or others in danger during his explorations or tantrums. If he is having a meltdown in the middle of a bustling street, quickly remove him from danger. Try to stay calm while doing so. Remember, you are his role model, so choose your reactions wisely.
2. Check in with Yourself
   Once you ensure your child’s safety, it’s time to hit your own reset button. Take a full deep breath. Dissolve any anger or frustration. Tune in to your body and relax any tense muscles. Now let go of expectations, including that of your child’s compliance.
3. Use Empathy
   Now put yourself in your child’s shoes. What is he feeling? Why is he feeling that way? Bring yourself to his eye level. If he is sitting down, sit with him. Tell him what you think he is feeling and why. If your child likes touch, give him a hug or hold his hand. When he feels understood, he will be open to work with you in reaching a resolution. A child’s misbehavior is often a mode of communicating something deeper.
4. Identify and Address Triggers
   Think of the last five tantrums. Do you notice a pattern? Look beneath the surface as there could be a deeper cause, such as transitioning to a new school, moving, parental stress (yes, even when you think you are doing a great job hiding it), bullying at school, being tired and hungry, or developmental delays. If you think his increased frustrations are due to speech or motor delays, or they seem odd, then consult a clinical professional. Otherwise, address what you think might be the underlying cause. If the trigger is your own stress, use stress-relief strategies such as practicing mindfulness meditation daily. In fact, research shows improvements in a child’s behavior even when just one parent practices meditation.
5. Communicate
   Since tantrums are a child’s way of communicating stress, they are also a great opportunity to teach them effective communication. The first step is to recognize that he is not throwing a tantrum to punish you. Listen carefully to what he is saying or doing. Understand where he is coming from and say it. For example, if he does not want to leave the playground after you give him a five-minute reminder, say, “I understand that the playground is a fun place and you want to play a bit more, but it is getting late for dinner. How about we come back again tomorrow?” When he hears these words, he realizes you understand why he is upset and you are offering him a solution. By modeling such communication, you will create a future expert communicator.
6. Become Mindful Together
   You can prevent tantrums simply by giving your child the gift of your time. All you need is five minutes a day to play with him mindfully. Choose a time when you won’t be rushed, such as after school. Let him take the lead. Repeat what you see him doing and saying. Praise him for his actions during this mindful playtime. Enjoy becoming a child with him! This will boost his confidence and enrich the parent-child relationship.
7. Teach Correct Response
   Once you build a solid foundation of trust, your child will be more receptive to being disciplined. Discipline is not about punishing. It is a way to gently teach boundaries, so your child can navigate the world smoothly. When you give instructions, you set him up for success. If you want him to listen to your instructions, give precise, short, three-step instructions. Remember that a child’s attention span is short. He may not listen to you because he simply forgets long and vague instructions. When your child listens, praise him for it. Be specific as to why you are praising. You could even set up a reward system. If your child is being stubborn, offer him a couple of options so he feels that he is making the final decision, not you

In the end, see if you can become mindful and take the “power” out of the power struggle between you and your little explorer. Be patient with yourself and your child. Use this bump in the road as a learning experience for both of you.

Related: Three Poems to Introduce Children to Mindfulness

The post How to Stay Mindful When Your Preschooler Isn’t appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Fifteen years ago, psychotherapist Gina Biegel was interning at a healthcare provider’s child and adolescent psychiatry department while also taking a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course. In hospitals, Biegel kept seeing teens “getting stuck” when engaging with interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy or group therapy.

What started as an idea to adapt MBSR for those adolescents led to a research study, and eventually a program called MBSR for Teens (MBSR-T), a mindfulness program for young adults that also teaches them how to use positive coping skills.  

Earlier this month, Biegel published Be Mindful and Stress Less: 50 Ways to Deal With Your (Crazy) Life, a book based on her MBSR-T curriculum. Though written primarily for teens and young adults, Biegel said the book is appropriate for readers of any age looking for quick and accessible mindfulness practices. Below, Biegel answers questions on how MBSR-T differs from adult mindfulness practices, what to do about social media consumption, and the best way parents can support their teen’s meditation journey.

How has the mindfulness field changed since you started teaching these practices to teens and young adults?   I didn’t get a lot of support when I first started teaching. There were a number of people who didn’t think mindfulness was going to work for teens—I disagreed, and I think that initial pushback encouraged me more. Back then, the terms mindfulness and mindful weren’t used in the mainstream like they are today, and an entire movement has been created since then for mindfulness in education and with youth.

I was shopping at Whole Foods recently and noticed that there is a line of “mindful mayonnaise.” And I’m like, “Wow, mindfulness has become really saturated!” There’s some good to that—it’s easier now to bring mindfulness into the mainstream and into schools. But it’s also watered down the core of what we’re trying to teach. I also think the term mindfulness can be used passive aggressively—to ask, “Why can’t you be more mindful?” or say, “Pay attention!”  

Related: Does Mindfulness Belong in Public Schools?

What is MBSR-T, and how are the exercises different from those taught in traditional MBSR? All of the formal adult MBSR practices are used. The exercises are just shorter and keep in mind the developmental needs of a teen. There is less silence in the guided meditations and more informal practice. Say you’re awake for 16 hours a day, and you spend half an hour on formal practice. There is 15 and a half hours left in a day for teens to bring mindfulness into everything they’re doing in their lives—sports, hobbies, interests, schoolwork, friends, relationships. Why not focus on those 15 and a half hours? Yes, formal practice is important and of value, but I think informal practice is as important if not more important.

MBSR-T teaches not only mindfulness, but also self-care, self-respect, and positive coping skills. Adults expect a lot from teens, and there is this assumption that teens are going to do what is right. No teen is going to regulate themselves, or turn off their phone or social media, unless they’re taught how.  

What are young adults not being taught to do? In our culture, parents try to prevent their teens from experiencing any pain. But teens need to feel pain. They need to cry; they need to fall and get back up again to see that they can get through it. Otherwise, when real, serious situations happen, they’re not able to cope. This has a lot to do with adults, who often use medication to put a Band-Aid on an emotion instead of feeling it, noticing what it’s like, and seeing what they can do about it.

You’re very strategic when talking about technology in the book, starting small and waiting until the end to suggest the idea of unplugging entirely. What’s your approach when it comes to teens and tech? A few weeks ago, I was teaching at schools in San Luis Obispo, California, and I said: “Our thoughts can be like fake news.” And they totally got it. This is about helping teens see and witness their thoughts, because they’re constantly around noises and alerts from their phones and getting these dopamine hits from getting more likes or having someone respond to something they posted.

I am thoughtful about introducing the topic of social media without directly saying it. I like to ask teens to share a bad or good experience they’ve had—if I sit there and tell them that social media is bad, that’s not going to be the same as if they bring it up themselves. And unfortunately, at least in the U.S., every school that I’ve ever come across has a really serious situation that’s happened regarding social media. With social media, teens are living to make a picture or video instead of living their life as it’s going on. They’re missing moments, and they have this kind of fake persona that prevents people from seeing who they really are.

Also, I find that parents are having such a hard time with setting limits—they’re afraid to take their kids’ phones away. I also think parents need to take a rigorous look at their own smartphone use.

You also encourage technology use in the book. There’s a mindfulness exercise that asks the reader to take a walk with their phone or digital camera and snap five to ten photos of things they find interesting, and one that seems out of place, as a way to better notice your surroundings. They’re going to be with the device anyway, so I might as well teach them to be mindful with it.

Related: How to Help Your Kids Practice Mindfulness (Without Making them Sit Still)

You say the book is for everyone. What is one exercise adapted for teens that adult meditators should try out? I would say HOT—having an experience, observing it, and taking it in. We have so many opportunities to notice positive, beneficial, or pleasant experiences. For example, I have a cup in front of me. It’s a pretty eggplant color, it was handmade, it has my yummy coffee in it, I’m very lucky that I have it, and I can use it to enjoy the smell and taste of my coffee. All of us, especially in today’s political and social climate, can work on taking in the good and being kind.

What mistakes do you see parents with a meditation practice making when encouraging their child to explore meditation? A lot of parents who practice might think that their teen is going to have the same barriers or successes that they do. That one-size-fits-all approach is not the way to do it. More active practices, like mindful walking, mindful eating, a body scan, or yoga are going to be more accessible. Asking a teen to sit in silence without any support or direction can be very harmful, especially with disabilities both seen and unseen, because you don’t know what you could be triggering. Modeling is the best thing a parent can do—being mindful in their own lives, practicing putting their phone down, and being present at meals is going to affect their relationship with their teen whether the teen is practicing or not.

Overall, how can mindfulness make the teenage years less painful? We take good care of the things we own—when our cell phones are low we charge them, when our car is empty we fill it up with gas—but we don’t necessarily take care of ourselves like we do our devices. Mindfulness helps teens begin to notice when they are emotionally depleted and when they aren’t attending to their basic needs. Mindfulness is not only about paying attention and being aware but also about deciding where we want to put our attention. Do teens attend to all the “likes” or positive moments they have in their life, or are they attending to the one “dislike” they received? We can help teens turn toward the people, places, things, and situations that nourish them and fill them up instead of those that drain and deplete them.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The post How to Support Your Teen’s Meditation Practice appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.