Children, Families, and American Zen

This morning, three of our high school students at zen center gave the dharma talk. Each of them grew up in the Youth Practice program we have, and are now preparing to take jukai along with the adult group this fall. It brought to mind this old post I wrote for Buddhist Geeks a few years ago that considered children and teens (or often the lack there of) in American convert Buddhist communities.

Here's one of the points I made in the post, an issue I feel my own sangha has gone to great strides to not fall into.

2. Uber-Individualism—Buddhists in the “West,” especially convert Buddhists, struggle with building long lasting, sustainable communities. Children and teens aren’t always welcome, let alone considered vital members of the sangha. But beyond Buddhism, community in general is quite challenged in places like the U.S. Whereas in the past, friends, neighbors, and community elders were all to some degree or another considered part of the extended parenting family, today for most children, these people are often viewed with suspicion. Teachers, spiritual leaders, and other community leaders are also viewed as much with suspicion as being potentially good influences on children. Now, certainly there are valid reasons for some of this suspicion, and I think it’s quite important for parents to be careful and minimize risks, but how much of the breakdown in community in general is due to obsession with the nuclear family, and an excessive focus on individuality?

Several years ago, I taught the 2nd and 3rd grade class in our program, and all three of the high schoolers that spoke today were in those classes with me. It speaks volumes that not only were they able to come before us this morning to offer what they have learned on the path, but also that we - the rest of the sangha - provided that space and sought to uphold them as we do our teachers.

Integrations like this haven't always been easy or smooth, but it's been worth it. We aren't the only ones doing this sort of thing, but it's still rare amongst convert communities.

I hope many other lay sanghas follow suit.

And Happy Mother's Day to you all!

Louis CK's "Boredom" Routine Meets the "Mindful" Parent

I've never been one to look to celebrities for great wisdom, or profound opportunities to learn something about life. However, they're still people. Living on this planet. Which means they need not be ignored, or treated as all fluff and emptiness.

Skewering pop culture icons is a favorite past time of hip spiritual types these days. It's usually a different flavor from the fire and brimstone condemnations of religious conservatives, but in the end, both groups tend to display an "above it all, holier than thou" attitude. Something I'd argue derives from a false sense of separation, as well as an allegiance to some form of "transcendence" from the muck of this world.

I say all this because I have been guilty of such hip skewering. And recognize the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) superiority complex that lingered beneath those criticisms. It's a form of criticism that moves beyond examining particular people and social structures, and goes into the territory of "don't bother looking for wisdom or insight here. Because you won't find any." And by here I mean from this person, or this form of pop culture, or in such and such activity. No doubt, there are plenty of tried and true paths for humans to embark and wake up on. However, it's also the case that every last one of our paths to awakening is unique, with points of awareness and wisdom discovery coming from all sorts of unlikely places.

By now, many of you have probably seen the clip of comedian Louis CK talking about boredom with his young daughter. Specifically, in response to his daughter repeatedly saying she was bored, he says:

“I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.”

It's not exactly the response of a heartfelt, gentle parent. I don't think I'd say it exactly that way myself. In fact, I kind of wonder if some of the extra bluster there is simply Louis playing it up to get us to laugh and pay attention to how we feel about such interactions with our children.

Anyway, fellow 21st Century Yoga author Matthew Remski doesn't care much for Louis CK's humor on this one. In fact, he basically rejects the idea that CK's comments are a point of spiritual wisdom.

his now-famous admonishment that his daughter shouldn’t be allowed to be bored is not a borderline-spiritual encouragement for her to seize the day. It’s a transference of anxiety. If we’re laughing, it’s to protect ourselves, as he does, from the most difficult question a child will ask: “What should we do now?” The truth is that nobody knows. If we wanted we could let that soften us, but that softness won’t make anyone laugh.

What to make of this? Even though I'm not a parent, I have had more than enough experience with children and their questions to agree with him that questions like "What should we/I do now?" when you don't have an answer can be anxiety producing. Uncomfortable. In part, I think, because the lack of a ready made answer blows through the idea of being the "all knowing adult." Which is great in one way, because it's an instant opening for co-creation between child and adult. On the other hand, it can leave both with a sense of confusion or even heightened fear. The child thinking, "If he/she doesn't know, then what do we do? Who can help us find the answer?" The adult thinking, "I'm useless here." Or "This kid is seeing through me now." Or "How long will it be before they reject me as trustworthy or as an 'authority figure' all together?" Which eventually could lead the adult to the same question as the child: who can help us find the answer?

However, is the laughter about protection? Or is it, at least for some folks, about recognition of the mucky challenge of that situation?

After making what I would call an unfounded character assumption about Louis CK, Remski goes on to offer this:

Let’s focus instead on the fact that his answer is both untrue and ineffectual. On the untrue side, every four year-old knows that the world is great, big, and vast. And no four year-old has seen none of it. In fact, her entire being is trembling at the threshold of the all of it. The four year-old has had plenty of time to navigate her internal worlds. She knows that stories, dreams and fantasies go on forever. So yes, Louis. She understands these things, and feels much more than she understands. “I’m bored” doesn’t mean “I’m uninterested”. It means “I don’t know who I should be. I feel empty and full. I feel confused and sad. What should I bother doing?”

On the ineffectual side, the answer pretends to kindle the girl’s wonderment, but it actually burns the tenderness of her question. She’s asking a question about how to manage emptiness, and his answer is to overwhelm her with stuff. Instead of letting it be an open moment in which the parent can share in the revelation of uncertainty that the child makes new for him, Louis crams irritated gumption and panicked work-ethic down her throat, guilting her with what she already knows but was too innocent to accept, guilting her for naming a condition to which we dare not confess, guilting her for being so rude as to ask for help. We laugh because he releases the valve on our own guilt over doing the same thing.

My initial response to this is that Remski over estimates the "knowing" of a young child. Personally, I'm not convinced that every child, or even most children, fit the vision he's putting forth. It feels like an adult projection on children. The whole children are adults in small bodies kind of thing. Regardless of whether that's accurate or not, I think it's more useful to come from a place of not knowing here.

CK assumes that boredom means uninterested. Remski assumes the child knows and understands a whole lot about the world and is interested, but confused. Both are assumptions. Assuming the latter might be more expansive and helpful, but it still creates a limited story around the situation that limits the possible responses. Sometimes, children are flat out uninterested in the current situation. If you say otherwise, you've totally forgotten your own childhood.

The problem is that adults are far too prone to coming from a place of knowing in general with children. Because we're supposed to know. Because they usually expect us to know. And because our social structures reinforce the idea that the only right way to interact with children is to be the authority, the leader, the one who knows.

What I see in these pair of responses (from Louis CK and Matthew Remski) are the flip sides of the "adult as knower" coin. One is the gruff, no nonsense side and the other is the soft, tender side.

Where is not knowing in all of this? How might it look different (even just a little bit) if entered into without managed scripts?

As a side note, the feeling tone I get from Louis CK's comments is kind of hostile towards children. Whereas Remski's comments feel hostile towards adults. He goes on to speak about how adults often shift their own self criticism and doubts on to their children. Which is totally true. And yet, his commentary feels devoid of compassion for the struggles of parenting (or being an adult role model) adults face everyday. There's also a particular skewering of Louis CK that in my view seems almost a desire for us - the readership - to see him as an untrustworthy narrator. Someone we'd never look to for wisdom, and also someone who is probably a poor parent to boot.

The way I see it, the brilliance in some of Louis CK's commentary about parenting is that he deliberately unearths all the contradictory, mucky thoughts that adults feel when with children. Especially children who ask lots of questions that have no clear or ready answers. Questions we've been struggling with our entire lives. Sure, if it's true that he's saying all of this stuff to his daughter, that wouldn't be too great. However, I'm not convinced that his comedy stick is a verbatim blow by blow account of his interactions with his daughter. It feels like a compressed version of those moments when the well of energy, caring, and compassion have dried up. And no matter how much you want to be the "best" parent or role model, you just can't offer much. So, a little of that inner crap spills out. Maybe the words sound good, but the tone is standoffish or curt. Or maybe the tone is right, but the words aren't so helpful.

I agree with Remski that Louis CK only offers one side of boredom to us. However, his response to the whole thing feels like a rejection of adult struggles, and also perhaps a subtle rejection of adulthood (beyond being a mentor/parent to children) itself. He writes:

We have to let our children be bored, so they can explore safely the endless horizons of time, and softly confront the abyss. If we take their lead, we can also let ourselves be bored, but not with resignation or apathy. We can be comfortably bored with the endless Big Red Dog, the counting of spaces on board-games.

On the one hand, yes - we can totally share boredom with children. Without trying to come up with some great answer or resolution for it all. And furthermore, there has to be space for kids to get bored and not know what to do in the first place, something the hyper scheduled world we more and more seem to inhabit is failing us - all of us, children and adults alike.

And yet, boredom need not always be shared. In my view, there's a bit of the sacrifice mentality behind these words, and this article as a whole. As if an adult is always selfish or guilty of poor role modeling if they opt to not read the Big Red Dog for the 1000th time today. Or if they respond to "I'm bored" for the 50th time by saying something a little like what Louis CK did. With much younger children, there's definitely less room for this without also doing some harm, even if unintentional. But part of learning how to deal with issues like boredom involves having the space and time alone to face the unknown of it all. And also learning, little by little, that adults have lives beyond you. That you aren't the only person in their world in need of something, even if they are your parent. And that they, too, have needs, which sometimes conflict with yours.

I may be wrong in reading it this way, but Remski's commentary sounds like the flip to the opposite extreme of adult children whose parents frequently sounded like Louis CK's comedy routine. The distant, dismissive, authoritarian, gruff parent, is replaced by the soft, self sacrificing, doting, parent who idealizes their child, in large part out of fear of "damaging" them in some way or another.

Odds are I will get some flack - either written or unwritten in some reader's minds - for writing so much about this as a non-parent, but I'm convinced that both of these extremes are pretty damned common in our society, and neither is leading to more enlightened children, nor healthy, fulfilled parents and adult role model figures.

Mindful Community Building

What we let fear do to us. The list is endless, isn't it? Petteri has an excellent post on the topic, of which I'd like to take up the following:

I read a bit of news reporting a few months ago where they had interviewed three people, one born in the 1950's, one in the 1970's, and one in the 1990's, in a certain part of Helsinki. They'd asked them to map out the physical territory they roamed as children below the age of 12. The 1950's kid was all over the place, shooting rats at the harbor with a BB gun, climbing the rocky vacant lots in Kallio, getting into scraps with the kids from the neighboring neighborhood, taking long walks to Seurasaari, and so on. The 1970's kid's map covered the general quarter of the town pretty well, but had none of the 1950's kid's expeditions. The 1990's kid went to school, some friends houses nearby, and was driven by his parents to do sports and other hobbies. His map had a few disconnected spots on it.

It's really similar here in the States. And there are many reasons behind this shift. A heavy emphasis on the privatized, nuclear family model as the "best" way to raise children. A huge increase in reporting about child abductions and like situations, to the point where people think there's a bad guy lurking behind every tree, waiting to take their kids. Another factor is the increased reliance on cars and other motor vehicles, to the point where our towns and cities are constructed to compliment motor vehicles, and often at the expense of safe places to play, bike, and recreate.

Petteri goes on to say that while Helsinki is a safer city now than it was in the 1950's, people live as if the opposite were true. Which is something I've seen here as well.

And like Petteri, I also feel that there are various fears underlying these attitudes, some maybe legitimate, but also some completely concocted and reinforced socially.

However, I can't help but think about, for example, the ways in which how we choose to structure communities impacts our heart/minds. Or how we choose to group ourselves, such as our family structures, and how that also impacts our heart/minds.

Actually, when I read Petteri's post, the first thing that came to mind is something I have thought about off and on for years.

How do we mindfully build communities? How can we shift both physical and social structures in order to live together in a more awakened way?

Because having more and more people living in securitized, suburban-styled places where the only safe way to move in and out is by car is a recipe for disaster. And while there are signs of different models of community development gaining traction, it's amazing how much fuss putting a single bike lane on a city street causes, or how much resistance there is to efforts to create a park out of a stretch of a shoddy freeway access road (both things I've seen here in St. Paul, Minnesota). Because so many people have structured their lives around driving quickly between various points, that still seems to trump nearly everything else, even in this age of higher gas prices and assumptions that the oil age is slowly (or even quickly) on it's way out.

Over the years, I have watched the planning processes unfold for a series of inner city bike trails, for a light-rail train network, and for creating more "green space" within our two cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul). And while some great strides have been made, I have noticed that even the planners are at odds with themselves. On the one hand, sharing the visions they have for what probably would be a healthier, more integrated community, and on the other hand, saying and doing anything and everything to appeased the pissed off people that show up complaining about reduced speed limits, reduced car parking, and any general loss of ease in getting around quickly.

And yet, as someone who has never been a car driver, I look at wonder when people claim to "know their community." How can you truly know your community when you spend the majority of your time whizzing through it in a plastic and metal bubble? When you don't even know your neighbor's name?

Again, I know this doesn't describe everyone. I can even think of counter-examples in my own community here, like the highly connected block where my mother lives. I also think of all the community gardens that have sprung up in the past decade, sometimes bringing together large parts of entire neighborhoods. However, these examples haven't really translated for the most part into how we collectively handle the larger communities we live in. Big business, the whims of building contractors, and car-centric design still rule most of the day, even in fairly progressive places. It's like there are these little enclaves tucked away here and there within a sea of people living in the same space, but sharing little if anything else.

Which just leads me back to the question: how do we mindfully build communities?

Buddhist Children? - Thoughts on Children in Buddhist Families and Communities

Over at Cheerio Road, Karen Maezen Miller has a post entitled "not teaching children to meditate" that kind of gets under my nerves. I actually agree with some of what she's saying, and appreciate the experience she has had leading a children's program at a Zen Center, and also as a parent. I'm not a parent, so I sometimes feel like stepping in on issues like this aren't my territory.

At the same time, I have had multiple jobs working with children, spent three years as a teacher in our zen center's children's program, and am currently in the middle of a lot of discussions about the place and role of children and youth within our sangha. All of this gives me a small window of perspective. I'm not expert, but I'm also not someone who has no experience with kids, and just wants to pontificate. So, whatever I will say is coming from a somewhat outsider position, and I'd encourage parents who are Buddhist practitioners to chime in on this issue.

Of the comments in the Cheerio Road post, these are the one's I probably most bristle at:

About the spiritual training of young, my view is a bit of the same. How you behave in your home is their spiritual upbringing. I think we have to be careful with all forms of ideological indoctrination, and that is what spiritual training is in children: the imposition of a set of abstract beliefs and ideals. Children will take these from of us, but I don’t think dogma serves anyone for long. After all, I was a very good Sunday School student, the star of my confirmation class, and yet I had my own spiritual crisis to resolve later in life. We all do.

I always remind myself that I’m not trying to raise a Buddhist child. I’m trying to raise a Buddhist mother, and it’s taking all my time! Not only my family, but also everyone everywhere will be served by my devoted discipline in my own training. Not because I’m self-important, but in recognition of the one true reality: no self. We are all interdependent, which means we are all one.

Before I speak about my disagreements, I will say that above all, the behavior of adult mentor figures, whether parents, extended family, teachers, or others, IS of most importance. So, we agree there.

Now to the areas of contention.

1. The Sunday School example - it's no secret that many convert Buddhists grew up and/or had significant contact with Christian or Jewish communities. They have parents and/or grandparents who are, or were, devout Christians or Jews, and who forced them to attend regular religious instruction as a child, instruction that was often about feeding children a worldview that had to be accepted as true. So, there's an understandable desire to not repeat those experiences with their kids. However, how much of this concern over indoctrination valid, and how much is a reaction to what they experienced in Judeo-Christian settings?

2. Uber-Individualism - Buddhists in the "West," especially convert Buddhists, struggle with building long lasting, sustainable communities. Children and teens aren't always welcome, let alone considered vital members of the sangha. But beyond Buddhism, community in general is quite challenged in places like the U.S. Whereas in the past, friends, neighbors, and community elders were all to some degree or another considered part of the extended parenting family, today for most children, these people are often viewed with suspicion. Teachers, spiritual leaders, and other community leaders are also viewed as much with suspicion as being potentially good influences on children. Now, certainly there are valid reasons for some of this suspicion, and I think it's quite important for parents to be careful and minimize risks, but how much of the breakdown in community in general is due to obsession with the nuclear family, and an excessive focus on individuality?

When I think of the Karen, Korean, and Vietnamese Buddhist students I have had, all first generation immigrants, the picture is different. The children are cared for by extended family and neighborhood elders, they regularly attend Buddhist services with their families, and they are considered to be an important part of the sangha. This doesn't mean that these children have perfect lives - sometimes far from it - but whereas native born Americans struggle with community, immigrants and refugees tend to have thriving communities, religious and otherwise.

3. What does a healthy lay practice look like? One of my favorite questions these days. Adam over at Fly Like a Crow also has children, and his commitment to practice looks quite different than Ms. Miller's. I don't think one is right, and the other wrong. What I'm more interested in is about the different ways people can manifest deep practice while having a family and/or living in the world. It's wonderful that Karen Maezen Miller is a devoted Zen priest who not only helps lead a center, but also shares writing regularly about her practice with the world at large. But I think devotion will take different forms, just as how people raise children takes different forms. Even if more people examine the issues I spoke of in points 1 and 2, how they decide act on those examinations will look different in each case.

In other parts of Ms. Miller's post, she argues that children have a natural ability to be present. That they already "practice single-minded attention." And about Buddhist practice in general, she states:

The aim of all Buddhist practice is to return to our natural state of wide-eyed wonder and unselfconsciousness that we can observe in our children many times a day.

I don't agree. Childhood openness is wonderful and beautiful, but is it what "the aim" of Buddhist practice is? First of all, when I think of my own childhood, that wonderful openness she is speaking about was there, but sure as hell not always. And sometimes, rarely. Some of the time, at least, I was completely trapped in fear or anger, which stunted any curiosity or openness. I often acted out of convoluted views about both my own life and the world around me because I was - a kid. I didn't know any better. That's what kids do. And when I was in that more open, perhaps "pure or "natural state" - well, I was there, but I had no idea how to bring those experiences to bear on the rest of my life. Perhaps if I had been in a class where things like meditation and basic Buddhist teachings were taught, things would have been different. Or maybe not. But from what I have seen with the children and teens in my own sangha, they're ability to handle life's difficulties, to transfer that natural openness into the areas where they get closed down, is more advanced than what I displayed as a kid without a sangha.

This gets to my final point. In our sangha, we have a children's and youth program that not only teaches meditation, but also some of the basic Buddhist messages, such as the Four Noble truths and Eight Fold Path. The kids learn variations on the Buddha's life story, and have opportunities to explore it all through arts, crafts, discussion, meditation, yoga, and sometimes service projects. Some might say this is indoctrination, but my own experience as a teacher in the program was that it was about exploration, providing some structures and support for exploration.

And that is probably the main reason why I felt compelled to write all of this. Structures like zazen, chanting, and bowing can be offered as opportunities to explore ones life at an early age. Basic Buddhist teachings can be offered in the same way. If you are a Buddhist parent who is more in line with what Ms. Miller says, I'd like offer the following question: What is motivating your views? I don't ask this because I think you are necessarily right or wrong. It's more a question I think is worth exploring.

A few weeks ago, I spoke of our center as developing a "lifespan" practice field. We have always attempted to program not just for adults, but also for children. And in recent years, we have been starting to think more deliberately about what this means, and how we might better support people in all stages of life. So, I'm interested in what parents think out there. How do you work with children? How should sanghas work with children? How does your sangha in particular work with children?


*The image is of the banner of photos for our center's children's program. I thought about finding something else after I saw the distortion, but actually think it fits well as a visual with the discussion at hand.