Keep Meditating
“Shut up! Can’t you see, Dad’s meditating,” my 11-year-old son Henry yells at his 8-year-old brothers William and Michael. The noise stops and soon I have two little boys racing to sit in my lap.
A lap perfect for an 8-year-old to snuggle into.
William pulls my hands off my knees and pulls them around his body. He remembers it is more fun if he has his blanket, so throws my hands off and runs to get the blanket. Michael sees his opportunity and quickly climbs into my lap. I will not be able to focus on breath alone with all the commotion pulling my mind away and I move from watching my breath to a mantra. I say to myself silently chakra sounds “La, ba, ra,” just as I learned in a funeral crypt emptiness meditation in Indonesia. All this is happening on the couch in the “office” I share with my wife, a printer, books, some storage, and a dining room table I use for my desk.
William is not happy to find his brother in my lap but sees the opportunity to fit in by shoving his brother over and moving into my left side. They scuffle a bit, knowing this is supposed to be a quiet meditation, then settle down. Michael, to show his brothers and me his elegant ability to meditate, starts singing “Omm” at the top of his lungs. William, not to be outdone, starts chanting chakra sounds, and my mind wanders to advice given 32 years earlier when my daughter Akasha was born by a meditation friend. His advice, “Paul, your children will find your [zazen] posture inviting and come sit in it. Smile and relax into this. It is good for your children.” Akasha would climb out of bed when she heard my footsteps at 6 AM and come sit in my lap, her long blond hair would catch on the scruff of my beard and tickle my face. My Samari, don’t move training would set in. “Be still” I would say to myself as I remember the master’s words, “Only I can move you. Even a mosquito or bee should not allow you to move.” Certainly, I would say to myself, I can stand the tickle of hair on my face. But I could not meditate with my face being tickled. As taught, I would mindfully straighten Akasha’s hair off my face and move back into stillness and watch my breath. In Dharma lecture my Samari teacher would explain how our mind likes to jump from place to place and our body aches, tickles, needs to pee, discomforts and tics need to be acknowledged mindfully but not used as an excuse to move, or leave our breath. While he did not warn of mindfully having a meditation dance of movements from itches, to butt cramps, to shoulder spasms, we must stay on breath and realize those spasms and cramps are just inviting our monkey mind away from our practice. My experience: don’t move! You will find that you can go 20 minutes without movement. The itch and cramps will subside.
He was a tough, stomach scratching tradesman turned Samari arts trainer and called me the pillow guy because I would stack pillows to sit on before our long meditations. To this day the one thing I seem to do okay is to not move my body much. My mind used to resist the children climbing on me, but now it brings a small smile to my thoughts as the children bring blankets and pillows to help build a space on or next to me.
No Excuses
I have taught meditation over my 38 years of practice, and when chatting with students have heard a dojo full of excuses. No time, no place, can’t concentrate, too noisy.
Depok Chopra is known to have said, “If you don’t have time to meditate 20 minutes the cure is to meditate for 40.” I would think of his words when I shared 20 square feet of noisy, cramped living space with my wife and four boys, and tried to meditate during a 42 state RV camping trip. My solution was to get up at 5:30 each morning before everyone was up to have my quiet time and meditate. To the “tired” excuse I say, “Get more sleep,” by limiting screen time, but still get up and sit even if you sleep through the 20 minutes. I also remind them the best thing we can do for our health is get enough sleep. Happiness takes self-discipline. Kindness and expressing love does too. We don’t feel much like being compassionate when we are hungover, tired, sick, mad about something or feeling overwhelmed by the news flow of the day. It will pass but it still can be depressing. When I was young, if I hit one of my four brothers, I always had an excuse ready if I was caught by Mom or Dad. “He hit first,” or “He pushed me!” were common. They would dismiss my excuse and say, “There is no excuse for bad behavior.” Often when we are tired we become cranky and expect those around us to forgive our less than helpful or kind actions or words because we had a tough day, got bad news, or got yelled at by someone. Excuses are a slippery slope to a life centered around yourself. We can always find an excuse for bad behavior. But if we have chosen to be radically loving spiritual examples of compassion, we must get our minds off ourselves. Two stories bring this to light elegantly. Years ago, I was a speaker at an omega seminar featuring Maya Angelou and others. We had all come from somewhere and were sitting in the speaker’s area and the great poet was chatting about being tired when she would get home from school and have to help out at her grandma’s store. “I’m tired’” she would say as her grandma would tell her to sweep the floor. “Guess what my [nice, sweet, kind] Grandma would say?” The poet asked. I shrugged. She smiled and said, “Grandma would say ´Tired ain’t lazy.´ And I would go sweep.”
When I was going through a triple play tough patch in my 30’s (health, financial and emotional) a good friend, a therapist by training who was living in Germany, would call me on her lunch hour waking me up each morning. She would, when I said anything about my tough circumstances, say to me in her kindest voice, “Paul, I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes. But then I met a man with no feet.” She would then get me thinking about how to create the future I wanted, solutions to my little problems in the scope of things, and help me concentrate on what I could do, and would remind me of the serenity prayer. She also lovingly would say she was on my side but this was my journey, and I must choose how I wish to respond to it, and own my behaviors. She would remind me that if I started to do that “American self-pity, entitlement, lazy excuses for bad behavior, self-absorbed crap that people from the USA think is okay,” she would point it out. She was a tough German with chronic pain from a deformed back. A fact, well hidden, and only discovered much later in our relationship. Part of our happiness experience comes from allowing ourselves to be in relationship with all of our life experiences, without labeling them good, bad or neutral. Just accepting them with love and maybe a bit of humor. Her back pain and chronic headaches were not going to mess with her happiness, the relationship she had with me, herself or anyone else.
One day while sitting in meditation, as I recall fully dressed & showered for work, one of my six children arranged themselves comfortably on my lap, put their thumb in their mouth and fell back asleep. A few minutes later I felt a warm rain of moisture streaming along my calf and onto my socks, emanating from my not yet fully potty-trained sleeping child. My teachers said, “Don’t move. Be mindful. Let the thoughts, stimulus or feelings be like a river; you as observer mindfully watching your breath,” was the thought that came to my mind. Then thoughts of a new shower, bath for my child, a load of laundry, what will I wear to the office, how do you wash a pillow and should I wake the beautiful creation of God in my lap flooded my consciousness. I smiled. I started to laugh; it was my choice on how I would be in relationship with this event. I chose happiness and humor.
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