off the cushion
Years ago, when my wife was pregnant with our first child, I went to the local meditation center to make an appointment with my teacher, Madeline Klyne. “How on earth am I going to maintain my meditation practice, let alone be a good parent?” I asked over a cup of lukewarm green tea.
Maddy paused and then laughed. “Don’t even bother!” she declared with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Let your meditation cushion collect dust for a while, and just focus on what you can do off the cushion. Focus on the paramis—the ten perfections of the heart.”
The paramis—generosity, ethics, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, honesty, determination, kindness, and equanimity—are concepts from a number of Eastern philosophies that I believe anyone can get behind, regardless of spiritual (or nonspiritual) background. These days, words like virtue and values can garner an eye roll given the hypocrisy of so many self-appointed virtuous folks. But perhaps we’ve thrown the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. I mean, who can really say that they’re against such values as honesty and patience? Different cultures may have their own ways of teaching virtues such as these, but what intrigues me is how neuroscience soundly backs not only the benefit of such concepts in achieving lifelong happiness and resilience but also the ability of such concepts to spread virally from person to person.
After the birth of my son, life was undeniably happening off my cushion, and my spiritual life had to change—but I believe it was for the better. I dove into this new form of practice, deliberately acting with kindness toward strangers, practicing patience with my family, and simplifying my life by speaking more plainly and honestly about my needs. I was following and living the paramis inside and outside of my family life—or at least I was trying to. I also dove headlong into books and lectures about Eastern philosophy (in addition to the parenting books I was frantically reading). Gradually, I began to piece together a new way of approaching parenthood, spirituality, and the drastically altered landscape of my life as a parent.
These ten virtues might seem straightforward, but they’re not always so easy to follow in today’s world—neither for ourselves nor for our children. To make matters more difficult, the paramis are often translated as “perfections”—a challenging word for those of us, like me, who compulsively consume parenting books and blogs to make sure we get it all “right.” Thus, it may be more helpful to think about these virtues as qualities that we (and our children) are forever perfecting, just like meditation, yoga practice, or even our golf game. We are looking for practice and progress, not perfection. To paraphrase psychologist Elisha Goldstein, we can turn these values into verbs and live them.1
What’s more, practicing the paramis triggers tremendous benefits in our brains and promotes behaviors that improve the quality of life for us and those around us. Yet each of the ten virtues actually comes hardwired into us. We can understand this fact in various ways: We could use the spiritual metaphor of seeds (karma) that need watering by parents and caregivers. Or we could see it through the lens of evolutionary biology, which asserts that these traits are inscribed in our DNA for survival and that, when we practice the virtues, our genes express themselves in different ways in a process known as epigenetics. Or we could examine the neuroscience and learn that toddlers have three times the neural connections as adults—connections that are “pruned” as children grow. We adults can influence which networks are pruned and which are cultivated, so they use it and don’t lose it, with these kinds of values and behaviors. Lastly, we can look at the exciting research in emotional and behavioral contagions—that is, how behaviors and emotions spread from person to person through our mirror neurons and other parts of the brain that we are just now discovering.
As you’ll discover in this book, robust research supports the cultivation of these ten values in yourself and your family. For example, generosity rewires the brain to release antidepressant neurotransmitters, and generosity is literally contagious—it positively affects people three degrees of separation away from the giver. Practicing ethical behavior helps children build strong attachments and promotes emotional and physical safety, as well as happiness. Renunciation (meaning fewer activities and less stuff) teaches kids how to compromise, concentrate, and creatively solve problems as those problems arise. Ancient practices for cultivating wisdom mirror what modern scientists recommend for healthy brain development, integrating all parts of the growing brain in order to be flexible and agile. When we encourage our kids’ independence and when we teach them to focus their energy on effort over outcome, they grow up to be resilient in the face of life’s inevitable challenges.
Of course, we could all use more patience. Learning to delay gratification has been linked to improved executive function, happier relationships, and higher educational and vocational achievement into adulthood. Likewise, practicing honesty leads to more happiness and optimism—not to mention it keeps us out of trouble! The benefits of determination and grit are particularly well known these days, and we can use the power of mindset to cultivate them. Kindness actually changes the shape and structure of the brain, boasting evidence of improved health, happiness, and thriving. Lastly, equanimity—the ability to take life’s inevitable challenges in stride—may itself be the very essence of thriving and resilience.
In this book, you’ll find a lot of idealized scenarios, as well as some parenting flops of my own. (In case you haven’t noticed yet, parenthood doesn’t usually work out according to plan.) What this book does not offer, however, is a magic three-step technique or formula, though it does share the causes and conditions that science and spirituality tell us lead to happy, thriving families. I once heard someone say that raising a child is more like tending a garden than creating a flower. As this book illustrates, all we can do is create the conditions under which our children are likely to blossom; we can’t force them to bloom in the exact way or time we wish.
Although we tell our kids to do as we say, not as we do, we all watch as our kids imitate us—whether it’s the positive, when they say thank you, or the negative, when we realize we need to cut out some of our more colorful language and less-than-healthy behaviors. Research also illustrates, time and again, that behavior is far more contagious than mere words. Thus, you are your child’s most important model for behavior. The bad news (or the good news, depending on your viewpoint) is that the best way to teach these virtues to your children is by practicing them yourself. You can talk all you want about generosity with your kids, but if you don’t model giving and encourage that behavior in your family, it’s unlikely to take root.
In fact, the more you live these values in your life, the easier they become. If you’re kind today, it becomes easier to be kind tomorrow; if you’re unkind today, you are more likely to be unkind tomorrow. As with any physical training, we can build our mental and emotional muscles with practice, but building anything must start with a solid foundation. In addition, it’s easier to promote these values in ourselves and our children when our bodies and brains are healthy with the sleep, nutrition, and feelings of safety they need. Remember this when things are going south: if you’re hungry, angry, anxious, lonely, or tired, your ability to be at your best will diminish. As Lao-Tzu said, “Put things in order before they appear.” In other words, the wisest use of our energy is to cultivate these qualities from the beginning—not just when something goes wrong. So take care of yourself—it will make all the difference down the road.
Is this a spiritual book? Yes and no. If you are a spiritual person, this book will speak to you; but even if you’re an avowed scientific atheist, you’ll find research aplenty. I understand that any book on values and virtues can easily come off as self-righteous (you likely have enough judgmental friends, relatives, coworkers, and strangers telling you how to parent). My intention here isn’t to add to your to-do list. In fact, you may want to consider all the creative ways you are already helping your kids live these values through your family traditions. This isn’t intended to be a book telling you what you should do; rather, it’s a book of ideas for what you could do as a parent. My hope is to offer a few more ideas. I examine both Eastern and Western wisdom traditions, weigh them with modern science, and share the surprisingly large overlap of the best practices for raising thriving kids. Here, you’ll read stories of the Buddha’s helicopter parents, alongside references to Judaism, Christianity, and some of the world’s other sources of wisdom.
As I mentioned earlier, although the paramis may be referred to as “perfections,” please go easy. In fact, when you push yourself to be too perfect, that effort often backfires in an effect known as “moral licensing,” which we look at more in the ethics and honesty chapters (chapters 2 and 7). So set a course for a middle way between not trying enough and trying too hard, knowing that you’ll be blown off course from time to time. These are not commandments to make or break; they are aspirations, representing our best selves at our best moments, and we can create the conditions to live up to them. The paramis are about celebrating and bringing out your best; they are not about beating yourself up emotionally for falling short. Likewise, not every suggestion in this book (and these are meant to be suggestions) needs to be clung to blindly. If it works for you and your family, great! If not, let it go. Science and the wisdom traditions tell us to experiment and see for ourselves, and I encourage you to do just that.
I hope it’s apparent that the values explored in this book aren’t just for kids; they’re also meant to help us become better parents, a job that often pushes us to become better people—or, perhaps more accurately, imperfect people who are just more effective. Someone recently pointed out to me that we put more effort into parenting than ever before, so here’s some advice: Don’t just try to parent; be a parent. Better yet, enjoy the lifelong process of becoming a parent. It reminds me of the spiritual axioms that say it’s better to be Christ-like than to call yourself a Christian and better to be more Buddha-like than Buddhist—and while we’re at it, remember that it’s better to act like a saint than to act sanctimoniously.
If you’re not familiar with my work, you might be wondering who I am to write a book like this? Well, for starters, just like you, I’ve been a kid, and I didn’t feel like I was very good at it. As I got older, I was a difficult teen who had some challenges and rebellions (some of which you’ll hear about). By the time things improved in my mid-twenties, I’d largely returned to the values that my parents had instilled—the seeds had blossomed. My parents (as well as several other important adults in my life) helped plant those seeds in me as a younger child, and they continued to water them during my difficult times until I learned to water them myself. I grew up to become a special education teacher; then psychologist, researcher, writer, professor; and now father who teaches around the world. I’ve brought all of these experiences into my writing and teaching; in this book, you’ll find anecdotes from my own personal and professional life alongside references to the latest science of child development.
Lastly, I want to emphasize that this book is not a formula for greatness. It does not guarantee your child Ivy League admission, a seat on the Supreme Court, or spiritual enlightenment. What it is, is a guide to goodness. Specifically, this book examines how goodness can thrive and even spread through generosity, ethics, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, honesty, determination, kindness, and equanimity.
reflection In what ways are you already teaching and practicing these values in your family? What from the list of paramis jumps out at you as challenging for you or your family? What feels natural given your upbringing and values? How can you cultivate goodness in your growing children?