Buddha Nature

The first time I drove by this sign - just up the street from my house - I laughed out loud. Imagine if people had to advertise their inner beauty so blatantly! But now, after passing the sign day after day, sometimes up to 6 times in a day, it has become a mantra of sorts. "I'm beautiful inside," I think on the way to dropping Selby at preschool, and again on the way home from the gym, and again on the way to the grocery...you get the picture. All this has led me to think about my Buddha Nature - or higher self - and how to reconnect with it to be a more mindful parent. This means letting go of attachments and aversions. It means being less defensive and less reactive. A challenge, for sure! Here's how it went today:

5:55 a.m. - Sage wakes once and for all from an all-night-nurse-athon, leaving me particularly raw in more ways than one. I try to channel my Buddha nature and release my aversion to 10 months of sleep deprivation...

8:20 a.m. - On my way to drop off Selby I'm reminded "I'm beautiful inside." Thank you house for sale...

11:00 a.m. - Laundry is piled up, dishes are waiting, bills are unopened, work deadlines are looming. Sage has hit the peak of separation anxiety at the same time as she is trying to stand up on her own - I can't take an eye off of her for one second. I try and let go of my attachment to productivity and focus my attention on the patient work of caring for a baby...

1:45 p.m. - On my way to pick up Selby - "I'm beautiful inside." Oh yeah...

4:00 p.m. - I put forth my best effort to give Selby some much-needed interactive play time. Apparently, I don't know how to play Barbies right, I don't understand how to properly make believe I'm a bunny and during dress-up, I get it all wrong. I tell myself there's no need to be defensive with a preschooler and humbly accept my inadequacy as a playmate...

7:45 p.m. - Jeff is working late so I'm flying solo at bedtime. Selby continuously enters the room as I'm attempting to put Sage down; my pleas for her to play on her own go ignored. I remember to be less reactive and breathe through my anger. Eventually, Sage will sleep. Right?

8:30 p.m. - Feeling worn out and beat up, I sit down to reflect on the day. I resolve that living from my Buddha Nature at this point in my life is an unfair challenge - after all, Buddha had no children!

I know my Buddha Nature is in there somewhere. It is the calm, wise parent I strive to be. It is the spacious, clear mind I want to share with my girls. And, like a parent watching the antics of a child, it watches the dramas of my daily life with amusement and detachment and compassion all at once. So while deep in the trenches of motherhood this 'true nature' often feels out of reach, I take great comfort in the knowledge that it is there. And I gently remind myself that, like the house on the corner, "I'm beautiful inside."