Little Zen Teachers

In my 20's I attended an Al-Anon meeting every Friday at 4 p.m. for two years. Like clock work, I would leave work each Friday afternoon and travel to my fellowship of other men and women who were also navigating the tricky domain of a friend or family member's alcoholism. 

Those meetings in that period of my life were invaluable to me. And the lessons learned continue to help me walk through this world with greater compassion, wisdom and ease. 

One such lesson I learned from my time in "the rooms" is this: anyone can be your teacher. Anyone.  

Once I opened myself up to the possibility that each and every person I meet has the potential to teach me something, I swear, teachers were all of the sudden everywhere!

Including in my own home. Including the little guys who still stand below three feet. 

In that spirit, over the past few months I’ve been jotting down moments when my 6 year-old son has taught me little spiritual lessons just through the course of him being himself.

Here are just a few I’d like to share with you...

The Universe Says Yes

It was a hot summer evening and my son and I decided to take a drive to get some frozen yogurt.  On the way, we excitedly discussed what flavors we planned to eat and what toppings we might get.

However, when we pulled into the parking lot, we saw the whole frozen yogurt shop was dark and already closed for the night.

“Bummer,” I said out loud, and let out a sigh of frustration. Then I mused, more to myself than to my son who was sitting in the backseat, “well, sometimes I say yes, but the universe says no...”

But then my son, who so far had said nothing, spoke up:

“Yes, but sometimes we say no, and the universe says yes.  And sometimes, the universe and me say yes, but mom says no.”

In that moment, sitting there in the front seat of our SUV in my “tragedy” of not being able to have what I craved, I truly appreciated my son’s ability to make me smile with wisdom that I did not realize he already possessed.

That moment was far better than coconut frozen yogurt any day.

Letting Go

My son was standing in the doorway of our house with his hands on one wall and his feet pushed up against the other. He was trying to bend his body like a bridge to block my pathway through our small ranch house. 

I stopped in front of him and asked him to move so I could continue on my path of “extremely important” tasks and business that in the moment felt very urgent- I of course cannot remember what any of it was now...

Not remotely responding to my urgency, my son casually looked up at me and said: “what’s the magic word?” 

“Please,” I said rather rushed and curt.

“Nope, try again,” he said totally unaffected by my irritated tone.

“I don’t know, just tell me,” I said getting more frustrated.

But with nonreactive, calm, cool presence my son looked up at me and simply stated, “Mom, the password is ‘let go.”

This stopped me in my tracks as the wiser voice inside of me said,

“Pause. Slow down. Pay attention to what is happening here.”

And with just that one cue, awareness came back to me.

Acts of Kindness

It was a cool day in spring, and my son and I visited the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston with his godmother.

At the park entrance, each child who entered was given a number of pretend coins.  These coins were part of a fundraising effort for donors to see which animals the children would “vote” for at the zoo for more financial funding. Each coin was a “vote” to be dropped into the box of the animal the child liked best.

So, my son and I walked up to the display that held the pictures of the 5 or 6 animals that needed more funding, and we saw that each box had a transparent glass cover so that zoo visitors could see how many “votes” or coins each animal had received thus far.

I stood by quietly as my son took his time standing in front of each box.  He made no rush to put his coins in a box, and I thought he was looking more closely at the photographs of each animal that was posted next to the boxes.

After what seemed to be quite a long time of discernment, especially given that the whole zoo experience still awaited us, he took only one of his coins, and put it into the tiger box which was already nearly filled to the top.  Then, he took all of the rest of his coins, and put them into the animal box that had the least votes.

After doing this act of kindness, he very nonchalantly looked up at me and said, “I wanted to give that guy [he was talking about the animal that neither one of us could even identify] the most because he hasn’t gotten many votes so far.”

In that moment I realized that I had not even considered to “vote” the way my son did- to give the most funding to the most unknown specie that had the least resources.

Acceptance

It was summertime, and my son and I were on a little road trip.

We were only a little over an hour into it, and I was already starting to get restless, so I began to fidget.

First I played with my hairclip (while keeping my other hand on the steering wheel), and then I began to play with the radio.

As a turned the radio dial from station to station, all I could find were commercials.

Not getting what I wanted, when I wanted (I guess in this case it was a song that would quell my restlessness), my restlessness  then took a turn into irritation.

“Ugh!” I said aloud. “There is nothing on!”  I was saying this to myself, and did not expect a response from my son in the backseat.

However, my son, who had been calmly playing on his LeapPad in the backseat, looked up and made eye contact with me in the rearview mirror.  He then said, “mom, just deal with it.”

His statement made me pause, smile, and notice my non-acceptance of reality as it was, and how I was clearly making my suffering worse by resisting it further.

I looked back at him in the rearview mirror with appreciation as he turned his attention back to his LeapPad, and returned to his quiet attention.