Motherhood as Bodhisattva Boot Camp

(I've decided to make public some passing thoughts on the spiritual path as related to motherhood, as a few friends and I try to start a community of women for discussions and support in Portland, and since I have felt in my own pregnancy, birth and early postpartum that there is a dearth of positive stories and models in our culture. Sharing some honest reflections maybe is a step I can take towards more realistic, and affirming, understanding.)

Glimpses of a Spiritual Path from My Wanderings in the Deep Postpartum Forest, or, Motherhood as Bodhisattva Boot Camp

Labor and birth are easier than the third week postpartum

In labor, there is a very clear goal, only one ‘right’ result and one job to do. When the baby cries, there is no one answer, or maybe there is no answer, for ‘what’s wrong?’ or ‘what do I do?’ Unlike labor, when the baby cries, there is no team of cheerleading experts coaching, supporting and, once on the other side, congratulating me on a job well done. The exhausting efforts of birth are less than 24 hours of exertion, and followed by life-altering emotional (and hormonal) highs! But the cries of her painful yeast infection, endless diapering and sore nipples last for days and days and bring only more sleep deprivation.
For a spiritual practice, surely there is no better place than motherhood, where there is no more place for attachment to results, rewards and praise.
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Heartbreaking Love

Pema Chodron and others have spoken of the heartbrokenness of the bodhisattva path, the wounded, tender heart. I have never really understood this presentation; loving-kindness, compassion, and virtuous interactions with others are feel-good things. The presence of lamas and their tangible good qualities is restorative and inspiring to me, and in my imagination my future self who has cultivated compassion and generosity and the other paramita emits joyousness without clinging. ‘Heartbreak’ has sounded too much like suffering.

But when my baby has cried, and I mean really from her depth expressed some utter misery and appears as utterly inconsolable, I have had a taste of this heartbroken state. I cannot but sob with my urgent, intense need to end her suffering, impervious to any other considerations.

I think it is the other side of the spontaneous, uncontrollable, immediate, unwavering and un-diminishing intense love that is ignited in that sacred first week. I felt blessed, fortunate, full of joy to have experienced such unselfish and unmediated love.

These moments of purely spontaneous feeling of love and compassion for the other must be akin to those attributed to the bodhisattva. I am awed when I think of beings like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, whom I have seen stop mid-sentence to weep, so moved by his practice of Shantideva’s teachings on compassion and bodhicitta in this world, who have this kind of spontaneous, selfless feeling for all beings, not just their own child. It now seems, in comparison, as though any past experience I have had moved by suffering or motivated by compassion has been merely cultivated, generated, produced through some process of thought and cumulative reflection. I also acknowledge that the spontaneous, genuine response of the new mother in me is fleeting, limited to this one little being who has never harmed me or been selfish, and is subject to my degrees of sleep deprivation and patience. Nonetheless, it is a tremendous gift to cultivate, and I am sorry that Ayla offers me such precious opportunity for growth at the expense of her own comfort. Perhaps my attempts at awareness and contemplation will go some way towards re-paying her.
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Bonding and Letting Go

The birthing process is showing up in reverberations elsewhere. In Ayla’s struggle to get out a poop there is strain, possibly pain, and discomfort, holding her breath and panting, movement to ease or stimulate the process: labor. The co-existent dichotomy of intense bonding and letting go is sure to be another throughout our lives together. In giving birth, the yearning to bring out the baby is not merely as an end to the physical torment but too the desire to finally cradle, see, hear, smell the little being that’s been occupying my belly, dreams, thoughts and conversations for most of a year. The ordeal resolves with that fulfilled desire only through surrendering, letting go, refusing consciously and deliberately again and again to give in to the instinctive reaction of wanting to avoid displeasure and seeking self-protection. I have struggled to allow moments of letting go of the intense attachment I feel to Ayla just to let others, even her father, hold her. I know she needs some undisturbed time ‘alone’ to discover her body and her world for herself, requiring me to let go of my need for her, even as that bond gives her the security and confidence to explore.
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Detached or Overly Identified, It’s Still an Ego Bruising

When Ayla cries, I feel proud when I can quickly and calmly and tenderly soothe her. More often, my ego gets challenged by feelings of inadequacy when the cries ratchet up rather than fade away. I feel guilty and cold when I react as a detached witness, analyzing possible causes and alleviations of her situation, hardening to her sounds of distress to preserve my own capacity to respond, my own emotional stability. I feel too vulnerable to be her protector when I become too identified with her, and her wails are met by my own unleashed flood of tears. I have to ask myself how much my motivation to get her to calm down is to alleviate my own annoyance, frustration or pain, and to what extent I genuinely care only for her happiness. I don’t expect to only feel the later 100%, but I am embarrassed to catch myself weighted to the former sometimes.
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mama in training, october 25, 2008