“Mamma, What Are You Doing?!”
One morning, my 3 year old daughter Alice woke up early, wandered into our darkened living room, and found me sitting quietly in the middle of the rug.
She asked, loudly and worriedly, “Mama, what are you doing?!” She’d never seen me meditate before and was truly puzzled.
I told her, “I’m sitting and paying attention to my breath. Would you like to join me?”
To my surprise she did, and decided to sit directly on my lap, — her small back to my belly, her legs a miniature crossing on top of my own crossed legs. The child was sitting meditation with me! On top of me! It was very cozy, of course. I was now meditating not on my breath, but on the sound of this child’s breath, and on the feeling of her being cradled by me. She found stillness at a certain point, and I heard her soft breathing in the quiet of the morning.
A few minutes later she wandered off again, on to a new activity, and I was left feeling changed.
For Alice in those minutes, meditation was an activity like any other. No big deal, no drama. She just sat still and paid attention to her breath like I told her to. Easy. It was a good reminder to me of how natural meditation can be. We adults often contrast meditation to what we consider more normal human activity, but she just did it. And then she walked off to get her bear with the same sense of focus. One activity was not markedly different from the other.
Of course, I did think, well, she is a child. Maybe it’s easier for her in a way. I was reminded of how we often revere children for their ability to be present, to be precisely who they are, where they are, and when they are. I hadn’t linked kids with meditation, but now I did. I remembered how Buddhist monks are sometimes said to be child-like. Or the way in yoga how we admire the way children, as well as youthful people of all ages, so fully enjoy their innate flexibility.
There’s the Buddha, the Dharma, and also the Sangha. They are each considered one of the three jewels of Buddhism. And there I was, holding and surrounding her the way I feel the Sangha holds and surrounds me. My legs grounded her sits bones. My upright posture indicated to her that she should keep her back aligned. My soft belly expanding into her low back reminded her to keep to her breath. My quiet fed her quiet. She was in the palm of my body.
As she walked off my lap that morning I felt the presence of previous generations of meditators, of people meditating in their own darkened or light-filled rooms in all countries of the world, even of all the people who will meditate after our bodies are dust in the air. I knew in that moment how much I am encouraged and uplifted by this community, almost all of whom I will never meet, and the support and warmth I felt was unmistakable. Just as Alice sat supported by me, I am in the palm of the Sangha. We all are.