Parenting and Practicing

My wife and I just got the news a few weeks ago that we are going to have a baby in September, and this past Thursday we went for the sonagram. Seeing the little one and hearing his or her heartbeat (we can't tell yet) really revved up my emotions in a lot of different ways. I was thrilled and happy and scared as hell.

The thing that occurred to me which is related to this forum is this: how on Earth am I going to continue a practice with a baby? Right now I'm squeezing time in to sit, and I can't help but wonder if having a baby is going to keep me from practicing. Monastics are celibate for a reason. Having a family takes time, energy and is full of attachment. How can we lay people manage to balance a strong practice with family life?

I would love to hear any advice, perspectives or just plain commiseration on this topic. If you've been through it, what is it like? If you are planning to have a family, how do you think you can balance that with practice?

Thanks in advance for the conversation.

Ron

Hello, RonCrouch. I've been through practice and family for about a dozen years now. The only advice I have to give is that you make a deal with yourself to make the time to practice. The deal, the committment, is what matters. If you are committed you'll find the time. I found it easer to practice in half-hour increments twice a day. Some find it easier to commit to one longer sit each day. You have to harmonize your practice to your life. Babies are notorious for disrupting regular schedules, so learn to think of the baby and the challenges the baby brings as part of your practice

JMHO

Also remember that practice isn't just on the cushion. The door is everywhere when you commit to waking up and looking around with sincerty - even while changing diapers.

Yeah, what Mike said. There is nothing quite as sincere as changing a baby's diapers. To paraphrase Jack Kornfield, "After the ecstasy, the diapers."

Hi Ron,

I'll second what Mike and Chris wrote. While finding ideal practice conditions is more difficult when raising children, it does raise the question, "why do my practice conditions have to be ideal, anyway? Who said they had to be?"

From my experience as a parent:

I use any small chunks of time for formal meditation, whenever they crop up. On the bus / train. Lunch break. While waiting for the computer to stop displaying the hourglass/psychedelic beachball/ring of ice.

Remember your heart's motion towards *caring* when listening to your child's heartbeat? Cultivating that motion of the heart is pure metta practice, as per the Metta Sutta.

Watching a child grow and develop and try to make sense of the world, is very, very revealing as well. And when they start to ask questions, giving honest answers is often surprisingly difficult (but always worthwhile!), and tracing back these difficulties is another thing I've found highly useful, practice-wise.

As to being scared - hey, you're the product of a billion-year development program for parenthood. All your ancestors managed to raise their kids - without exception - or you wouldn't be here now to worry about being a good parent. How's that for lineage?

Cheers,
Florian

I raised 3 kids, mostly on my own. The first was a sleeper-in: I continued my formal sitting practice in the early mornings. The second was an early riser-- by the time she was old enough to wander in and say, 'Mommy, what are you DOING?' I understood that my core practice was going to be being as present as a parent as I could find a way to be; time to 'just sit' was going to be dessert.

As a grandma, I can say that there is no jhana better than resting in the awareness of a little sleeping head against the hollow below your collarbone.

Hi Ron.
I just read a biography--OK, perhaps a hagiography--of Dipa Ma, and one of the things I came away from it with was a sense that one should take a "no excuses" approach to being a householder. Dipa Ma, who herself would do things like sit for three days without moving, would tell her students that it was basically BS that they didn't have enough time to get enlightened. "All you need is four hours of sleep," she would say. "Get up at 4 a.m. and sit, and sit for two hours at night until midnight." I bought an alarm clock and have been sitting a lot more since reading this book. If my wife goes out with her friends and the kids are asleep, it's an in-house retreat for me rather that vegging in font of "SurvivorMan" or something!
I have identical twin 6-year-olds. Here are a few things I've learned:
1.) If you do not bring a massive amount of awareness to body, speech and mind as you parent, you will mimic your parents' parenting styles to a remarkable degree--all of the screaming, nagging, scolding, etc.
2.) Jack Kornfield's wonderful line, "There is no difference between attention and love" should be a mantra for every parent. What your kids require most in this world is your attention. Children are immensely sensitive, and they can pick up immediately on body language that says, "I'm bored and I don't want to play 'Candyland' right now,' or whatever it is. The good news: Once a person commits his attention to his children, and sees them flourish and brighten and smile as a direct result, there is no greater gift in the world.
3.) Another Jack Kornfield line runs something like this: "Kids are live-in Zen masters who are hell-bent on waking you up." It's literally true when they're infants (LOL)! As they get older and work to test your limits and figure out [continued below]

[continued from above]
...as they get older and work to test your limits and figure out what they can get away with, your buttons will be pushed again and again. If you haven't worked on the spot with anger and frustration, if you haven't worked on cultivating equanimity off the cushion--now's your chance.

These days, I have boiled the essentials in my life down to two things: Paying full attention to my family, and waking up through my practice. The two things are one thing. I've given up some of the more frivolous stuff: binge-drinking, playing the guitar or banjo for hours and hours. I'm doing a three-day retreat in March. It's workable.

"Hi Ron.
I just read a biography--OK, perhaps a hagiography--of Dipa Ma, and one of the things I came away from it with was a sense that one should take a "no excuses" approach to being a householder. Dipa Ma, who herself would do things like sit for three days without moving, would tell her students that it was basically BS that they didn't have enough time to get enlightened. "All you need is four hours of sleep," she would say. "Get up at 4 a.m. and sit, and sit for two hours at night until midnight." "

I don't have the book any more but didn't Dipa Ma also constantly state that the most important thing was contstant mindfullness throughout the day (especially while changing diapers) ?

" I can say that there is no jhana better than resting in the awareness of a little sleeping head against the hollow below your collarbone."

I love this, Roomy. Thanks.

"
" I can say that there is no jhana better than resting in the awareness of a little sleeping head against the hollow below your collarbone."

I love this, Roomy. Thanks.

"

I have pictures of myself doing just that 15 years ago and I'm always amazed at how peaceful I look.

"I don't have the book any more but didn't Dipa Ma also constantly state that the most important thing was contstant mindfullness throughout the day (especially while changing diapers) ?"

I believe so (although I'm not sure about the diapers part ... smelling ... smelling ... changing ... changing).

Congratulations, Ron! What's worked well for me during 21 years of parenting is to always get up at least an hour before everyone else and hit the cushions immediately. Almost guarantees that you'll get to sit for at least an hour a day! Other bennies are that early morning is a nice time of day to sit, and it makes a difference for everything that follows to have that under your belt. More recently discovered sitting in the middle of the night when I'm restless, can't sleep and just squirming in bed. Having cushions right next to the bed helps with that. Just roll off and sit. Middle of night sittings have a unique quality. Also, if worries were keeping me awake, they usually clear out, then you can sleep great. If you can forgive one last thought, 21 years went by awfully fast! Glad I didn't totally procrastinate practicing (and sometimes regret the procrastination I did do . Best wishes, Mark

Okay... to compare notes:

I used to lock myself in the file server room at my office between 5 and 6 AM every weekday. No one else around at that time knew the combination to the door lock so I could practice uninterrupted. It was pretty loud with all those fans going but in an odd way I think the noise was great help to my practice, which at the time was pure-as-the-driven-snow investigative vipassana. Then I'd come home at night, visit with family, catch up on other stuff, eat dinner and at about nine o'clock go out on the front porch and sit and listen to the neighborhood while doing more vipassana. I mediated like a wild man on commercial airline flights - I still do. I could find practice opportunities everywhere but the very hardest place to meditate uninterrupted was at home, where my famliy was curious about it and prone to interrupt, just not realizing how annoying that can be That part, being interrupted by family, taught me a lot about tolerance and patience.

This is great stuff. I've found a lot of ways to do "guerilla meditation" myself. On the bus, on the subway, waiting at the DMV, stuck in traffic, in boring lectures, etc. I never really put it all together, but this discussion makes me realize that that was all very good training for being a parenting practitioner. I found ways to be mindful and do concentration too while getting things done, and those are the tools I need to change diapers while changing my mind.

Ron