Awaken in Motherhood. Yes, we can!
Dear fellow mommy, please join me in M.V. Seon: Mama Bodhi Retreat. It is a 100% free and highly customizable program meant to adapt to your one-of-a-kind family and unique life circumstance. You don’t need to go anywhere or make any logistical arrangements. This retreat is designed to help reframe your mindset in everyday life so that you can sustain spiritual growth and discover your innate wisdom wherever you are.
Like you, I am also a mother. I spent a good chunk of the last four years bearing and raising my two young children who are almost exactly two years apart. Still in the middle of new motherhood, I dedicate myself to spiritual vows and practice ever more sincerely instead of segregating my spiritual life from everyday life and motherhood. Not falling into the cultural script of over compartmentalization, I committed myself to follow the time-tested Seon teaching of always practicing.
Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic when my daughter was 7-month-old. At the time of writing, she is a one-year-old almost toddler, and we are still in the middle of it. The day-to-day struggles of keeping the two young ones healthy and safe make me feel like I become a decade older in 2020. It also makes me even more grateful for my practice and Seon’s wisdom tradition. My mindset of treating pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood as a spiritual retreat is the single most valuable preparation I have for this crisis and any future life challenges. As author and teacher Anne Cushman puts it, motherhood has all the elements of an intensive retreat. It has “the long hours of silent sitting; the walking back and forth, going nowhere; the grueling schedule and sleep deprivation; the hypnotic, enigmatic chants [of nursery rhymes].”
The Mama Bodhi Retreat is so valuable that I simply cannot keep it to myself. I have organized my experiences and practices into a self-guided program and invite you to join me on this spiritual journey of fresh new life.
How?
The M.V. Seon: Mama Bodhi Retreat is self-guided. You can start whenever you are ready and participate for as long as you want. To embark on this journey with me, all you need is an openness to spiritual growth and determination to do it with baby in tow.
Yet like most things, some planning can help. I put together the following four-item and three bonuses workbook. I gave examples with my experiences and the words of wisdom by some of my close friends. Please feel free to read through and work with it to prepare for your spiritual retreat as a mommy. It is also available for download if you prefer to use a text editor, and here is a finished example of my retreat (in rich text format). You can also send me an email to rnie at mvseon dot com with your address if you don’t have a printer, and I will mail you a copy of the workbook.
1. The first step is to write down your intention in a personal vow and post it somewhere you can see frequently. The version I use is as following:
I vow to turn the challenges of
motherhood into fuel for my spiritual growth.
I vow to transcend the sufferings
rooted in my ignorance. I will not pass their unconscious seeds to my baby.
I vow to ignite the awakened mind
under all circumstances.
2. Decide on the retreat’s length and write it down. The Mama Bodhi Retreat is a self-guided program. Pick a period that makes sense for you to integrate your spiritual practice and your everyday life. It can be for three weeks, several months, or even a year. I practiced in this fashion for about 6 months with each child. Each time, the retreat gradually became a part of my everyday routine, deepening my spiritual practice and enriching my life. Since your time can be highly scattered with very young children, I recommend giving yourself ample time to ease into the program. For example, try starting with a 3-week-retreat and extend it if you want.
3. Aspire to an attainable amount of daily meditation and write it down. The quite inwardly gaze of daily meditation was my refuge during the mayhem days of newborn care. It is still my energy-warehouse now that I’m in the toddler chasing stage. It’s crucial to adopt the mindset of integrating practice and everyday life, and daily contemplation is its cornerstone.
We both know it: life is anything but routine for mothers with young children. The best I could do when caring for little ones was to set an aspiration of meditating for 20 minutes a day. More often than not, circumstances didn’t allow me to do it all in one stretch either, so I squeezed in the practice time whenever I can. If they tally up to 20 minutes, I call it a victory.
On a day where the baby graces me with a little more time, I might do more and give myself a pat on the back. There are also days, especially towards the beginning, where all I could do was baby care, eat, and sleep. That happens. Don’t be too hard on yourself. During those days, I gave myself extra compassion, practiced mindfulness while falling asleep, and renewed my aspiration for a daily practice the next dawn. You get the spirit. Now, how many minutes a day do you aspire to meditate? Write it down.
4. Brainstorm ways to integrate meditation practice and kiddo-care and write them down. Here are some that worked for my friends and me as examples:
a. Standing meditation while putting the baby to sleep.
b. Walking meditation when taking baby on a stroll.
c. Loving-kindness meditation while nursing.
d. Body scan meditation helps me fall asleep. (I don’t include it in the daily tally, otherwise I can’t fall asleep.)
e. My friend Lilu uses a chant to put her babies to sleep.
Now we have a custom retreat’s program tailored just for you! Print it out now or proceed to the bonus items.
Downloads:
Bonus Preparations:
Oh, here you are at the bonus material! I have more observations and anecdotes to further prepare you for this most exciting and rewarding spiritual journey
It is easy to fall into the “perfect mom” trap by trying to do everything right for your little ones. That is exhausting and not necessary. It is easy to fall into the “perfect practitioner” trap too, which is also exhausting and counterproductive.
Let’s face it: we all mess up. I have “messed up” hundreds of times on the meditation cushion. “Wasted” weeks of retreat time, but in the end, it does not matter. To have inner development is like walking. When physically moving forward, we get out of balance, regain it on the other foot, and repeat. When turning our gaze inwardly, we open to where we struggle the most, embrace it, and grow from it.
Fortunately for us new mothers, the reality of imperfection is ever more prominent. You can use this section to write down circumstances where you might slip out of your spiritual aspirations and how you could get back into regular practice.
Here are some of my imperfect circumstances and work-arounds:
Circumstance: I had too much pain in late pregnancy to sit cross-legged like the “perfect meditators.” I couldn’t even sit in a chair.
Solution: I sat on an exercise ball.
Circumstance: I was too sleep-deprived to meditate sometimes.
Solution: I slept and renewed the aspiration after some rest.
Circumstance: Emotional melt-down.
Solution: Embrace whatever comes and try to be mindful of the hormonal rush.
Impermanence is everywhere. This fact is in our face when, as mothers, we create and nurture new life. Our bodies transform, our mood swings, and our babies grow every day! I lost count the number of times when I thought to myself, “this is a nice routine to settle into.” Only to have the baby outgrow it the next day.
You can use this section to write down some changes that might happen and how your practice can adapt. For example, I used to chant a mantra when nursing, but
then the baby got too distracted to feed when there is any sound. I switched to silently practice loving-kindness meditation during nursing.
It takes a village to raise a child, and chances are that someone in your community is happy to support you and your baby. You can use this section to write down areas to let others support your inner well-being. As examples, somethings I did that are helpful are:
- Get into the mindset that it’s okay to let someone else, like daddy, other family members, friends, or paid nannies take care of the baby while you take care of yourself. Remember, it takes a village to raise a child. For us, I went into the woods to meditate and let my partner bond with the baby.
- I am a member of an online Dharma forum. Even when I don’t have the energy to participate in any conversations, reading other people’s posting about related issues once in a while helps me feel connected.
- My friend Ying says, “For me personally, sharing a regular video call with two other moms who are spiritual practitioners during our pregnancies, and sharing writing occasionally in the couple years following, was tremendously helpful.”
You Are Ready to GO!
Our aspiration to transcend all suffering for ourselves and our babies is as powerful as any previous women who attained Buddhahood. We can do it, and let’s do it together. Give me a shout, join our Facebook Group, and let me know where you are with the following form as you become a part of the global community of enlightened mommies. I am happy to be your guide if you don’t feel quite ready for independent meditation practice. Send me an email to rnie at mvseon dot com or join the Mama Bodhi Facebook Group to stay connected!
As the 11th Century Seon Master Dahui Zonggao puts it, “This practice treats men or women, nobility or commoner, and adults or children equally, all the same. How do I know? The Buddha only brought a woman to Buddhahood during the Lotus Sutra teaching assembly.”
Let me end with a Classic story: Jiangxi Mazu was at first attached to sitting meditation. Then his teacher, Venerable Nanyue Huairang, brought a brick to polish where he was sitting. Mazu came out of mediation and asked,’ Why polishing the brick?’
‘To turn it into a mirror,’ Huairang said.
Mazu laughed and said, ‘How can polishing a brick make a mirror?’
Huairang said, ‘If polishing a brick can’t make a mirror, how can sitting make a buddha?’
Mazu got up, bowed, and asked, ‘So what to do?’
Huairang started teaching, ‘It’s as if an ox is pulling a cart, and the cart doesn’t move. Do you beat the cart or the ox?’ And followed with, ‘you study by sitting Seon meditation to imitate the sitting Buddha. If you study sitting Seon. Seon is not sitting or lying down. If you imitate the sitting Buddha, the Buddha is not in any specific manifestations. Do not pick and choose from the non-abiding dharma. By sitting like a Buddha, you are killing the Buddha. Being attached to the appearance of sitting is not understanding the principle.’