Two children in the house. Little bird is sleeping, Ebo is at Montessori preschool. I have perhaps ten minutes, maybe twenty before Birdie will wake up and I'll need to let go of this project and give myself back to her.
Over this past weekend I spent time with my sister and her family. My sister just began a yoga teacher training and in doing so was charged with a spark of freshness, of the beginner's mind toward all of the ancient teachings. We talked at length at how our preferences are what creates suffering. Liking this, not liking that, limiting our world to such a narrow range of experience that by the time we are 60 there are only a few things that we are willing to talk about, or experience. So I've been thinking about that and watching how my egoic mind really wants to take over, especially when I start letting go, not having preferences and going with the flow. I seem to be able to go about 18 hours (including sleep time, which in being a nursing mother still involves quite a bit of conscious parenting) before I feel a certain kind of boredom, or anger, or a strange need to be dissatisfied with the moment. This, of course, ultimately takes me out of the moment and then aligns me with my ego mind and then I become involved in the project of trying to wrangle my world back into the lasso of my preferences. Like this morning...Ebo woke up and with only 30 minutes before preschool started wanted to play the "get my clothes on really really slow game", in tandem with the "you pick out things for me to wear and I'll reject them game". I watched myself begin to manage my stress. I didn't want her to be late. Why? I'm not sure, I mean it's preschool and she's three and a half. Perhaps so I don't appear to be a bad, untimely parent. Or maybe I had a bit of anxiety about my day, sometimes this happens on Thursdays because my husband doesn't go to the office on Wednesdays and it's much easier to parent with two parents. Plus I like him. When I have anxiety about my day, I often try to stay busy. This doesn't really help make me less anxious, it actually just allows me to avoid relating to the anxiety, which ultimately makes it worse. So this morning I saw all of this unfolding in my mind. I remembered to let go of my preferences, which was scary and then strangely relieving. I breathed and played Ebo's games, made her breakfast, told a story and then off she went (only ten minutes late).
Now, I have a tendency to berate myself if I don't get it perfect. So in addition to trying to let go of my preferences I am also going back to the beginning in my yogic training and allowing ahimsa (nonviolence), the yogic yama that trumps all others, to be my primary parenting tool. Which is exactly why I started this blog. Normally in the hours that Ebo is at preschool I fill my time with a bunch of tasks while Birdie sleeps or doesn't. I don't so much enjoy these tasks as they seem to be what one is supposed to do when staying home with a baby.
The Dalai Lama says that the path of the householder is the most difficult, to practice, to remain present and Chogyam Trungpa says that conscious parenting is the fast track to enlightenment. Could it be possible that enlightenment is boring?
