Daily Dose of Hug

KH often tells us "Daddy / Mommy, I need my daily dose of hug!" and she just comes and hugs us and asks us to give her "a proper hug." Isn't that just adorable?

The mythologist Joseph Campbell once said,
"I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life
as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive."
I think there is profound truth in this insight.
For a parent, one of the most ordinary yet most profound experiences of being alive is precisely when one is hugged or when one hugs one's dear child.

I savour and cherish this!

Pet Dog as the Buddha

I was reading in Elizabeth Drescher's Choosing our Religion about the "spiritual" connection between people and pets. One Linda Olson considers her dog Sheamus her most important spiritual sensei. She calls him "Mr. Present Moment" aned "Mr. Loving Kindness." These are the values the dog teaches her everyday. The dog teaches her "to pay attention to the present moment, to really be in it, and to approach everyone as though they're going to be awesome, wonderful friends. I don't think the Buddha could do much better than that." (p. 140)

The Sutra on Totality

I was just really awestruck, even flabbergasted by this very succinct expression of -- what I think is -- the core of Buddhism: focus on the here and the now! It just stopped me in my tracks!
Of course, it's been years now that I've been convinced that what Buddhist masters such as Thich Nhat Hanh have claimed is profoundly true: True happiness lies when you can really live to the full the present moment, the here and now!

"Monks, I will teach you the totality of life. Listen, attend carefully to it and I will speak.

What, monks, is totality? It is just the eye with the objects of sight, the ear with the objects of hearing, the nose with the objects of smell, the body with the objects of touch and the mind with the objects of cognition. This, monks, is called totality.

Now it anyone were to say, "Aside from this explanation of totality, I will preach another totality," that person would be speaking empty words, and being questioned would not be able to answer. Why is this? Because that person is talking about something outside of possible knowledge."

(From the Samyutta Nikaya, trans. by Gil Fronsdal)

Teachings of the Buddha (Pocket Classics), p. 57

/jkk

Mindfulness and Elephants

(Jan Chozen Bays, Mindfulness on the Go, pp. 20 ff)

In the Buddhist tradition, the practice of mindfulness can be described using the analogy of elephants. In the Buddha's time, elephants were used in war. They had to be trained in order to follow orders and accomplish vital tasks in the midst of the din and confusion of the battle.

When an elephant is untrained or wild, it runs away; it attacks when scared. In short, it is of no use but can rather cause great damage.

The untrained mind is just like that: When confronted with problems and challenges, it might just run away, go numb, engage in disastrous behaviour or even attack others. It needs mindfulness training in order to remain calm in the midst of the different stress factors in life and in order to continue really life to the full every moment in life.

"Daddy, I want to be like you"

I've heard this line a few times from our 8-year-old in the past few months. She says she wants to earn a PhD, teach in a university, and be "like me." My standard response to that is: "You don't have to be like me, honey. You have to be yourself!"

Of course, even when I consider that this is just a phase of "daughter thinking daddy is a 'Superman'," it still touches and moves me at a very deep level. My wife has even told me that DD (dear daughter) idolizes me. That is very flattering.

As I look with much love at my eight-year old daughter, I see that she has indeed gotten many things from me up to this point. I'm immensely proud of that. I hope though that I'm not just trying to shape her into an image of myself - that would be idolatry. I hope I can really give her the freedom to discover who she really is and help her to grow into that person.

Still, what a joy to a father's heart when he feels his daughter is proud of him. I savour, cherish and treasure this!

"Savour", "Cherish", and "Treasure"

In our consumerism-driven culture, these three words "savour", "cherish", "treasure" seem to have little or no space in people's lifestyles. We are so accustomed to "consuming" something--be it a thing, an event, a person, an experience--and moving so thoughtlessly and unmindfully to "the next thing" that could titillate our consumeristic instincts with something like a new "high."

In an age or a lifestyle that had/has fewer "things" and fewer "stimulants," someone could in principle "savour," "cherish," and "treasure" each and every experience--both positive and negative--better, learn what needs to be learned and emerge from it a richer, more whole, more mature person.

This is why these three words could potentially be some of the most important keywords of a lifestyle that is necessary, especially today in our crazy consumeristic and frenetic world.

Worship Together with my Darling Daughter

Since D (my wife) started working at a nursing home, it happens often that only Hajime and I go to Sunday morning worship because D has a shift or has to rest from a shift. One of my favourite moments of this unique daughter and dad bonding is during the Eucharistic prayer when H. is seated beside me and she leans her head on my shoulders as we both follow the prayers on a shared prayer book. My heart is just filled with joy as I savour this special moment when both of us join the liturgy to worship God. Ahhh... such a sweet, precious experience. There is something so sacred and profound when you pray with an innocent little angel who worships God with such a pure, unsullied heart like this my little girl.

It will not always be like this. Life will become more complicated and challenging. Prayer will also become more grown up as she herself grows up. It may even become a "wrestling with God." But today, I pause and savour this pure moment when I can blissfully worship God and be thankful that this little girl is somehow imbibing the sense of the sacred and the profound which, I hope, she'll carry all her life.

I cherish and relish this experience!