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Written by Eve
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I have been meaning to write this for some time now, but you know how it is with kids. Somebody is always interrupting, asking something, needing your help or just simply wanting you. Well, that is just the way it is with parenting. One needs to put oneself on the background, on hold. As with many moms, my mind is filled with ideas and thoughts that I never seem to have time to write down. So now I take a moment for myself…
Since having my first baby some years ago—which was, by the way, a totally unplanned yet most joyful event—I have come to believe that mothers are blessed with a special gift.
The idea of compassion (agape [Greek] in Christianity and maitri [Sanskrit] or metta [Pali] in Buddhism) plays a key role in most of the spiritual traditions all over the world. While the former represents Christ’s love towards people, absolutely unconditional love and equal loving care for all human beings, Buddhists included all the living (sentient) beings, such as animals, in the realm of maitri. Buddhist traditions have a vast number of methods and meditational techniques that aim to enhance this feeling of loving kindness and compassion. I believe that mothers have an innate insight into this caring and compassionate unconditional love. One believes that one knows something about “love”, loving another adult in a deep, even spiritual way, but wait until your baby comes out to the daylight into this planet Earth, Mother Gaia… That knowledge and understanding about “love” one thought to possess, it all seems now unrelated.
Don’t get me wrong here. The love that a mother feels for her baby has nothing to do with possessiveness. Once a mother has recognized the love she has for her baby, it usually happens that she suddenly realizes the very same love for all the babies in the world. Every single child in the playground, on the street, in the television gets a portion of her caring awareness. And soon she will remember that each of us, every single one of us, has once been a helpless baby, just needing love and care. And at that moment agape starts pouring out of her to all possible directions.
The mental and spiritual—even physical—place or situation where a fresh new mother finds herself isn’t really just love. It is more like an insight into the essence of existence, into the way “things really are”. The love that one feels isn’t just towards one’s baby or other babies, it is towards everything. And actually it isn’t even towards anything, it just is. Rather than feeling something towards somebody else, it is a totally new way of being. This love brings a realization of interconnectedness, the oneness of all, and acts as an antidote to selfish ego-based love. In Buddhist terms, one has a deep sense of compassion but also insight into emptiness, meaning that the mother has realized that nothing exists in and of itself. It is all about the web and relation, not about subject and object…
To conclude here… I would reverse the famous old Tibetan Buddhist meditation where one is supposed to imagine how everybody, every single being has at one time in a past life been one’s mother. I would suggest meditating on how everybody has been (or is) your very own baby, whom you’re holding in your arms, heart bursting with love and good wishes.
If we could just love each other in this way, what a real paradise and Shangri-La this Mother Gaia would be! |
