Children can be so wonderful, even in their challenging and demanding
ways. Very early on they learn to say no with a surprisingly
self-assertive tone. They pepper conversation with question marks,
often after the word why.
Someone said, "Living with a child is like having a Zen master in your
home."
Both require patience-quiet reflection before speaking. They remind us
of all our good-parenting intentions. They put us to the test; we want
to get it right.
The student of Buddhism is presented with koans--riddles in the form of
a paradox used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation, requiring deep
reflection. Quick answers aren't accepted. The koan is used to help
the student gain intuitive knowledge.
"What is the sound of one hand clapping? If a tree falls in the forest
and there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound?" Those are two
famous koans.
At twenty three, when the stork delivered my daughter Susan, my first
Zen master arrived. Jonathan, my second Zen master, came four years
later. Zen masters present different koans. They won't accept the same
answers. Each is unique.
Even when these Zen masters grow up and move out on their own, they
remain teachers, presenting us with koan-like questions that require
deep reflection. Being a good parent is, after all, simply being a good
person. What's the right thing for a good person to do and say? The
age of these Zen masters doesn't matter. The younger ones may be more
innocent, but the koans keep coming.
With grandchildren it's different. They visit. We visit. We have
fun. It's different from the twenty-four-hour-a-day task of parenting.
Grandchildren become your Zen master's Zen master. It's just what they
need. When your children become parents they come to understand what
it's like having a Zen master in the home. It's their turn.
Parenting is an active, hands-on process, like the dialogue (mondo)
between Zen master and student. The goal of Zen training is buddha
consciousness-to free the mind from the assumption that the distinct
individuality of oneself and other things is real. Buddhism, in all its
schools, holds that separate things exist only in relation to one
another.
