I know I've talked a bit about this before, but I was a practicing Buddhist for over a decade and I miss it. I miss the shiny Buddhas, I miss all my friends, I miss teaching and listening to teachings, and I miss the quiet and peace of mind! Oh boy do I miss that.
Today, they had a celebration at the temple for 20 years of this lineage being in Seattle. It was a big deal. I never go to the temple anymore, but despite my migraine I knew I couldn't miss it. I wanted to take A, of course, because those friends were such a big part of my life in my journey up until she came along, and they are all curious about why I disappeared to be a Mom.
So, as they do, they started with some prayers and then a series of speakers, people who were instrumental in developing the center talking all about the history. I don't know why, but I thought it would be fine to bring A into the temple. I was so determined that I just didn't think it through. She can't sit still for five minutes for any reason, so there's no way she was going to do it for an hour or more. I didn't even consider that bringing her out in public sometimes can be downright harrowing, and this place requires even more discipline than the average public situation.
As I'm sitting there with of all my dear friends and teachers, in front of an eight foot Buddha, I'm just white-knuckling it, trying to relax, while my sweet child engaged in the following activities:
- Began to cry when I closed my eyes and sang prayers
- Talked, out loud, the entire time. A running commentary.
- Took my phone and enjoyed getting into my work email, trolling through my contacts, texting a friend (who was also in the audience), purchased an app, did a number of extensive Bing searches for who-knows-what, updated both my Facebook photo (twice) and my status, and looked up the location of neighborhood bars.
- Announced that she was looking for pictures of Muppets (loudly)
- Took off my necklace and swung it around
- Dug in my purse and got out a mirror, put it on her face and declared it a mask (loudly)
- Harassed the woman in front of us (who was very kind and sweet to her)
- Put her hands on the stained glass windows
- Walked to the front to stare at/charm the speaker
- Fell out of her chair
- Laughed out loud when the monk was talking about building more Dharma centers around the world (the crowd LOVED this)
- And, finally, took the keys out of my purse and attempted to stick them in an electrical outlet
When the keys were ripped (as delicately as possible) out of her hands, she began to whine in her monster voice. That's when I decided we've had enough and we both busted out the door with as much grace as I could muster.
For 45 minutes, I'm thinking about the quality of my mind. Buddha says to be patient, compassionate and practice contentment. I'm sitting right in front of Buddha, and I'm starting to get super tense and irritated with my kid's antics. I'm also pretty self-conscious about not being "that mother", who lets her kid run wild at inappropriate times. I'm desperately trying to find a balance here, and I'm running out of luck. She's either going to cool it, or she's not. Either way, I need to stay calm and respectful about the situation, to my fellow Buddhists, and to her. Maybe I don't get to hear the whole thing, and that has got to be ok.
I'm thankful for being able to be there as long as I did. I'm making a note about bringing A to the temple when she's a little older, and maybe trying to sneak in some time to go by myself. I'm also unbelievably grateful that I had over a decade of practice training my mind, because without it, my messy toddler-raising world would be way more out of control than it already is.
No comments:
Post a Comment