Beginner's Mind

I preface this post with the acknowledgment that these concerns of boredom and how to entertain a toddler without leaving the house pale in comparison to the harsh reality of life in a pandemic for many others - sickness, death, anxiety, hunger, and financial worries. Not to mention those people who were already experiencing so many of these sufferings and now have the pandemic compounding their stresses.

Things are really hard right now.

However, I also imagine that there are millions of other parents in a similar position to my own, and I want to offer what I can to help. I’ll save my posts on sickness and death for another day. For now, here is how I’ve been doing my best to respond to what appears to be our new normal these days.

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My husband has been keeping track of our days in isolation with some tally marks on our kitchen chalkboard. At the end of the day yesterday with ALL the legos scattered around the living room floor, mingling with the marble set and the wooden puzzles that were inching into the toppling pile of clean laundry, it was hard for me to not view his tracker as a jailhouse tally of my time served.

Please don’t get me wrong, our situation is nothing like jail nor are we facing any real hardship beside the struggle to meet our own minds with compassion as our world dips deeper into chaos and suffering. But I bet I’m not alone among those of you for whom things are mostly ok. Sure we’re healthy and have enough to eat, we even have a back yard, but this is a really trying time mentally and emotionally. This time in the world is WEIRD - full of ups and downs, and loads of uncertainty. On top of everything happening in the outside world, in our own household daddy is home everyday now and we don’t go to school or the park anymore! This just feels like a recipe for mental and emotional turmoil - not to mention the anxiety from the fact that we may all be just one eye rub or face itch away from infecting ourselves with a deadly disease. Talk about tricky!

But back to the tally marks… last night it was hard for me to look at my pile of brown rice, frozen veggies and the legos at my feet without questioning how long I’d be able to maintain this. One day after the next, one bowl of rice after the next. Then I remembered where I was five years ago around this time. I had just come off of a monthlong silent retreat. I remember the same trepidation and concern about boredom and monotony after my first sitting practice that month. How would I ever get through four more weeks of meditating all day everyday?!

Thankfully mindfulness practice is just the antidote for that boredom, because a key element of mindfulness is in paying attention to each breath, each moment with the same loving curiosity a toddler has when watching a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Can we have a toddler’s rapt awareness of even the littlest detail during our day? This is often called beginner’s mind. We approach each moment, each breath as though it is the first time we’ve experienced a breath, like we’re just beginners at this whole game. When we get into our routines things can get a little boring, and a bored mind tends to miss out on the excitement going on all around us.

While on the one hand I’m facing a seemingly unending pile of brown rice in my future, my daily routine has also been turned on its head. This is the perfect time to work on honing my beginner’s mind. What does a grain of brown rice really taste like? How does my son’s hair fall as he concentrates on his legos? What does our apple tree look like today?

Remembering that everything is always changing, there is so much new to discover each moment. If I get caught up in my pity party about having to repeat the same habits, routines and boring meals each day, then I miss out on so much beauty and joy taking place right in front of me.

Maybe instead of seeing our chalk tally marks of isolation as a count of how many days we’ve been holed up under house arrest, I can start to see them as a record of how many times I got to meet myself as someone new.

I hope the following practice gives you a little relief and offers a new take on the same old thing. ;)