Eclectic Muddlehood

Everybody knows the Buddha said Life is suffering.  These days he is practically a pop culture icon.  But as I was listening to a Zencast podcast titled “What Is Buddhism?” yesterday evening, awareness entered my being. I already perfectly understand what it is like to be fully awakened. My thoughts were blown over by this clear and simple, yet almost awesomely unbelievable personal truth.  I have already had a true taste of enlightenment in this life.  

 I listened to the speaker describe some basic Buddhist principles and a feeling of familiarity came over me.  His voice in my ear reminded me that feelings are not good or bad.  They just are.  A feeling arises and it is truth, my truth in that moment.  If I fight it, try to push it away, it is sure to get bigger, scarier, and more painful.  It will take me over.  And this is suffering.  If I can remember to relax, let go with my whole being and just embrace that feeling for what it is– the truth of the moment– it will pass, and I will understand peace.  As he went on to describe this process specifically in the case of a death of a loved one, my mind wandered away from his voice to the opposite end of life’s spectrum.  In my mind’s eye, I saw myself simultaneously at a little over two years ago and a little less than five years ago.  In labor with my children. 

For me, my natural labors required of me the same basic principles of Buddhism.  A contraction would take hold of my body and if I fought it, my entire world would narrow to just that feeling.  It would become overwhelming.  And in the case of my first labor, somewhat scary.  If I tried to control it, I felt even more out of control.  Soon enough, I learned that if my mind and body let go of all control, if I simply embraced that feeling as my truth in the moment, everything changed.  I relaxed.  I felt happiness.  I felt peace.  I felt at one with everything.  In the midst of the sensation, I could see all of life, past, present and future connected to and spread out before me.  Even more inspiringly, during my second labor, I learned to stay in that place.  To hold onto that connection even between contractions.  It was the most holy and most sacred I have ever felt.

 Realizing this yesterday, hands dripping with dirty dishwater, I smiled.  Not to say the Buddha had it wrong, but my personal truth is just a tad different.  All of life is not suffering.  Life is labor.  Life is a cycle of contraction and expansion.  Up and down.  A pendulum of sensations.  If I could remember to embrace these cycles mindfully the same way I embraced my labors, could my entire life be filled with the same sense of connectedness and peaceful bliss I experienced during the natural labor of my three children?  Just the potential of that idea is enough to make my spirit soar.  And yet again, just like that, I discovered another facet of the myriad amazing gifts motherhood and my children have brought me.  With a thankful heart, I finished the dishes, turned off my iPod and went to hug the little hooligans.