The past several years have been all sorts of intense.
I moved to the Netherlands ten years ago, and my partner (The Dutch) and I had a child five years ago. We live in Leiden and this place has now truly become our home. Since the birth of my son both of my parents have passed away, my dad two years ago and my mom last summer. I formed some precious friendships and others that exist more in the rhythm of my son’s playdates. I took a break from work, and now that our child goes to school, I am slowly finding my way back.
I was pregnant during the hardest coronavirus lockdowns yet I felt fine, safe, collected. My meditation practice had been flourishing before I became pregnant, and it continued to grow during the months preceding my son’s birth. I was leading a daily Social Meditation Zoom practice with local folks, and it was truly beautiful.
After my son’s birth I felt so good, it was like a warm wind carried me everywhere.
With the help of Martine, a dharma friend and guide, I tried to bridge my formal meditation practice with everyday activity. Beyond the famous washing the dishes or doing the laundry mindfully image, I tried to chop wood and carry water with an infant. I had some previous experiences to guide me, or remind me what a state of just being, or just doing felt like.
For a while it was relatively easy to ignore narratives, at least the known ones, and to come back to the breath, or the tiny child, or the warm sun.
But, in my mind at least, the lack of formal practice together with the complexities of life, including those of a foreign mother navigating child-rearing in a different country, started to create a different set of conditions.
As I return to formal practice, I want to write about what being a householder practitioner was and is like for me. There are not many accounts in the Buddhist scriptures about what a householder path looks like. And for some reason, that path has always engaged my imagination.
I find this an important conversation, not only for Buddhist or practitioners within (or without) a tradition, but also for people engaged in other disciplines that require the right intention, gentle discipline and space-time. I think for example, of Ashtanga Yoga, which I practiced in Belgium before I moved to The Netherlands. Maybe, this is something we can figure out this century.
The latest turning of the wheel is also driven by householders.
This photo is from Sunday, at the Amsterdam Zoo.
Self-Ethnography 