Do or do not

There is no “try”…

Back in the days when I was still pregnant, I read a book called “Buddhism for Mothers.”

In the book, a Buddhist mother of a newborn likens parenting to the mental and physical rigors of spiritual training:

And at the center of it was the crazy wisdom teacher in diapers, who assigned more demanding practices than I had encountered in all my travels in India. Like "Tonight you will circumambulate the living room for two hours with the master in your arms, doing a deep-knee bend at every other step and chanting, ‘Dooty-dooty-doot-doot-doo, dooty-dooty-doot-doot-doo.’”

At the time I read it, I thought the analogy rather cute; but on the night I spent a full hour rocking Milo and singing, “The Rainbow Connection” in a desperate attempt to get him to sleep, I realized how apt the observation really was.

Yoda’s got nothing on this kid, I tell you.

Every single interaction with Milo is a learning experience, and many of the lessons require a great deal of time and effort before the “Eureka” spark is finally ignited. And all these lessons are serving to illuminate the chinks in my character – the weaknesses I’ve struggled with my entire life but have never managed to overcome.

Again and again I find myself butting heads with my own ego (ME ME ME, look at ME, aren’t I GREAT?!), my impatience (I want everything to be perfect right NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!), my overly judgmental nature (There’s only ONE best way to do it and THAT’S NOT IT!), and my tendency to dwell obsessively on the gap between reality and some idealized state of perfection that simply doesn’t exist (But if only you TRIED HARDER and and weren’t SO SELFISH and SACRIFICED more and were an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PERSON altogether...) -- Shaddup already!

I had rather been hoping that I’d be able to continue coasting through life without ever having to confront these weaknesses head on. I've become very good at putting my hands over my ears and humming, "La la la, what glaring character flaws, I can't see them!"

All my life I have looked away -- to the future, to the horizon. Never my mind on where I WAS.

But thanks to Master Milo, I'm learning to live in the moment, to focus on the now, on what IS instead of what was or one day will be.

And you know, it ain't half bad.

Ready, are you? What know you of ready?