This group exists to facilitate discussion and
conversation related to parenting in the context of
contemporary nonduality. Child-rearing philosophies,
approaches, and stories are welcome, as are questions,
suggestions, advice, exercises, tips, tricks, hints,
recipes, poems, or photos related to parenting in a
nondual context. All parents and children of parents are
welcome.
Excerpt from An Interview with Richard Miller By Erin Michie
from http://www.nondual.com/michie.html
EM: Do you have any parenting
tips?
RM: Yes, I do. Every button that our kids push in us is
our opportunity to come back to ourself and inquire:
"What's my belief about myself that he or she is helping
me see?" We must inquire, rather than tell them what to
do. Though ultimately, we have to do that too because
that's part of parenting. But we simultaneously inquire:
"What's going on here? Why am I upset? What's my
expectation?"
One day my family was going to the beach. Everybody was
in the car and my young boy said: "I'm not going." I
said: "Wait a minute. We're all loaded in the car, we're
all going to the beach. You're coming." And he said:
"No." He didn't want to go. I could feel myself getting
upset. But in that moment there was also an immediate
and spontaneous inquiry. I knew he wasn't the one
upsetting me, it was my expectation that was upsetting
me. If he stayed home, I, or my wife had to stay home
with him, because he was too young. That's the
responsibility of being a parent. Realizing my
expectation, I said to him: "Okay. If you're not going
to the beach, then I'm staying with you." I had let go
of my expectation that things should be different. I was
okay staying. Then, after about five minutes, he said:
"Let's go to the beach."
EM: You must have really meant it!
RM: I did because I had let go of my expectation and was
relaxed again. I was back in the now of the present
moment, without expectation. I also told him there
wasn't going to be any TV. So the beach became a better
alternative in his mind!
There was another time... My son has a medical condition
that requires an MRI every other year. We were going to
get the MRI and he said: "No, I'm not gonna go." In my
mind we didn't have a choice. But he didn't want to go.
So I said in all sincerity: "You know, I don't want to
go either." And he immediately said: "Okay. Let's
go."
Again he knew I meant it, that I wasn't playing. I
didn't know what we were going to do, I was just open to
the truth of the moment. And he responded to that
openness. Our children always respond to our openness,
never to our expectations.
It's the "I don't know" that's so vital, where we are
truly open rather than blinded and upset by our
expectations. It's true that the mind needs expectations
to set up a progression of unfolding. I'm coming to
Calgary, I need to get the ticket, and I'm expecting to
go, so the mind has set up all these things. I was
expecting to do the MRI. But then life says: "No."
In that moment of "No," the mind has to tear up the
expectation. Then we're back in the unknown. The ability
to do this in the immediacy of the moment keeps us from
engaging in strong reactions. Upset? What's the
expectation? Tear it up. Back in the unknown. Now we're
open again. To me this is the impact this realization or
understanding of the truth of nondualism has on the
body/mind. It's practical.
There is only one state. When corrupted and tainted by
self-identification, it is known as an individual. When
merely tinted by the sense of presence, of animated
consciousness, it is the impersonal witnessing. When it
remains in its pristine purity, untainted and untinted
in primal repose, it is the Absolute.
Balsekar
[The above is also vintage Nisargadatta.]
Understand the above intuitively without any concepts
blocking the way and you need no other teaching!
ah
fizzy freedom
bubbling beauty
laughing love
juicy joy!
when this is understood then who can judge?!
the drama of seeking ends when the heart opens
then it is seen that there are no others
no separate self
no higher self
no one who is not the universe made flesh
