MotherLove

You’d think I would have gotten the hang of practicing compassion towards all people a long time ago. My mother has practiced Integral Yoga and Buddhism for decades and instilled in me at an early age the importance of treating all living creatures with loving kindness; that all sentient beings are endowed with divine light and deserve to be treated as such. I tried, I really did, and mostly I think I did a decent job. But there's always that kind of day, or that kind of person that just makes me want to start yelling. Okay, sometimes I do yell.

But it wasn’t until I became a mother, and particularly a mother of a newborn, that I found the key, for me, to practicing what some call "loving-kindness" towards all people (okay, disclaimer, I'm still working on it, but it's getting easier. Read on). The day my son was born was the best day of my life, a day I could relive over and over. Before he arrived, I had seen birth videos and I just couldn’t believe that all the messiness wasn’t going to bother me, that I wouldn’t insist someone hose him down before he nestled into my arms. If you know me well, you know I don’t handle mess very enthusiastically. Whenever there is a drain backup in the basement, it’s my husband goes down with the rubber gloves and the bleach. But when my own child was born, I don’t even notice how messy he was, I just wanted him right up against me, in my arms.

The love that most mothers feel for their new babies defies description. New babies are so entirely helpless, so small and precious and magical that it is hard to put them down, lest they stop working or disappear. Most babies need very few things to start out, but the one thing they do need more than anything else, besides nourishment, is love. Love helps babies grow and learn and it teaches them how to see the world, whether to be open to it, or to be afraid and closed.

Moreover, babies are cannot yet make judgments or choices for which they ought to be held accountable. The newborn baby, or the 9 month-old, for that matter, cannot be held responsible for all-night drinking binges, cannot be blamed for hurt feelings or for writing bad checks. So your love for your baby can’t be diminished by, say, that time he forgot to tell you he had to go to detention for being sent to in-school suspension so many time. The love mamas have for their new babies is total and unblemished.

Now, I don’t know why I had to have a child to appreciate these things, but it might be pertinent that before I had my own, I didn’t much care for children. These days, however, every baby and young child I see I love. I want to pick them all up and hug them and tell them I love them, especially if I know there isn’t someone doing that already. I can hardly watch TV for all the orphans and displaced children on the news, or on Red Cross commercials. It just makes me cry as if I was seeing my own child suffering, waiting for me to come find him and make everything better. After the earthquake in Haiti, I wanted to go pick up all those beautiful crying children and hold them and never let go (unless their families came to get them, of course).

These new emotional experiences have brought an unexpected gift: an easy way to get in touch with feelings of compassion for all people, even people I can’t stand being around. Here’s how it works: Look to the person closest to you. He or she was once a newborn baby. He or she was brought into this world totally naked, totally un-knowing and vulnerable. Every single one of us has been pushed or pulled out into the bright world, not knowing the difference between Democrat or Republican, black or white, Jimmy Chu or off-brand Keds. We have all been new and afraid and seeking comfort. Even Dick Cheney needed to be rocked to sleep at one time. When I see Dick Cheney on television, I try remember that he too was once an infant, calling for his mother or needing his diaper changed.... Okay, try to forget that last part maybe. The point is, realizing that even people we think of as un-compassionate, irksome or cruel were once vulnerable and helpless, wanting and waiting to be held and loved. When I can realize this, my heart softens and opens.

This is not to say that I love Dick Cheney’s personal or political choices, but it does present for me the possibility of looking at him and seeing that even he has divine light deep (deep, deep) down inside. It makes it possible for me to be able to say to him, or the rude driver in rush-hour traffic, “Namaste,” and actually mean it. Maybe I don’t say it out loud, but I can feel it.

I don’t know if imagining someone’s “inner baby” is the equivalent to seeing his or her inner light, but being able to tap into a thought that allows me to see that person before he made the decision to go to war (or pull in front of me without signaling), has been at least important for me in my effort to be more open and loving to all people, no matter who they are or how much they bother me.