A WISE MOTHER’S INHERITANCE
Ummon addressed the assembly and said, “I am not asking you about the days before the fifteenth of the month. But what about after the fifteenth? Come and give me a word about those days.” And he himself gave the answer for them: “Every day is a good day.”
—Blue Cliff Record, case 6
There comes a day in the life of a child when he or she exits the confines of the world you have so intelligently chosen and resurfaces in a world of his or her own. When this happens you might cringe and resist, bemoan and protest. You probably had your own game plan for firing up your child’s synapses. You intended to have the final say in what she loved most of all and wore four straight days and nights without washing. You were going to steer clear of all plastic and crassness, for starters, and never utter the words french and fry in succession. All for naught. Now your child loves nothing else, plays with nothing else, wears nothing else, and demands nothing other than your own worst fears.
When this happens, step lightly and listen up. In your child’s devotions, the gods may have a message for you. They did for me.
Late in her second year, Georgia went to the mall in a pair of sensible Stride-Rites and overalls. She came home in a blue ball gown and cheap heels. She had entered a new universe, the Magic Kingdom of the world’s second-largest media conglomerate. She had arrived at her princess years. Instantly our household was transformed into a churning cog in the greater scheme to maximize earnings and cash flow and allocate capital profitably toward growth initiatives that will drive long-term shareholder value. That is to say, we bought a lot of stuff. We bought a lot of stuff for the princess that wears blue, then the one in pink, then yellow, then the princess with the falsetto voice and seven short roommates. We dabbled in smaller collections for the red-haired princess with fins and the tiny lime green fairy with wings. We were caught in a vortex of discovery, passion, delight, and the desperate need to prevent tantrums in public places.
Being the mom described in this chapter’s first paragraph, I decided to piggyback on this obsession and score at least a few stray points in the reading category. I bought the full suite of princess read-aloud storybooks. Bedtimes were given over to endless recitations of “once upon a time” and “happily ever after,” with an assortment of entirely inappropriate crimes and misdemeanors in between. Reading these stories was itself an athletic exercise—leaping over words like evil, hate, and kill without losing the beat, eliminating whole scenes without skipping a page.
Still, they were happily-ever-after stories, one after the other after the other, and most days I was anything but. I was not, for the greater measure, living happily at all.
A few hundred readings of this stuff and it might get through to you. Finally it did to me. I had sat in the same rocking chair, reading the same books, for bedtimes upon bedtimes, and one night I realized where I was. I was the one with the book in my hand. I was the one hearing the words. I had, indeed, one day found a prince; I was the one who had fallen in love; I was the one with the fairy-tale wedding; I was the one at home in a castle; I was the princess, wasn’t I now, with a junior princess on my lap? Do you think this message could possibly be for me? Could I give a go at living happily? I know it’s just make-believe, but who makes it real? I could, by being happy.
That’s a mighty leap, you could say, to extract the sublime from the ridiculous. But it was true for me. It was a bull’s-eye hit. I was unhappy a lot of the time. When I wasn’t, I might be annoyed or impatient and intermittently resentful. This was obvious to everyone. My daughter could read between my furrows and inflections. She would break my troubled silences with a stunningly simple question, “Momma, are you happy now?”
Gasp. And from the mouth of a two-year-old.
Happy now? Yes, I would snap awake, realizing in that moment that I could choose and change, and by changing my attitude, change everything. Being happy is worth everything. It is my heart’s desire. Isn’t it every heart’s desire? It’s what I want most for my child. Being healthy is great, kind is sweet, smart is convenient, but happy matters most of all.
Happy matters most of all. And here’s the surprise ending. You don’t have to wait for happiness, because there’s no time but now to be happy. You don’t have to go somewhere else, because there’s no place but here to find it. You don’t have to do something else, because there’s nothing more to it. You don’t have to get something else, because everything you already have is enough. You just have to be happy.
Is it really that simple? Yes. Is it really that easy? No. That’s how we all arrived on this page.
And yet there is such a thing as happiness. There is such a place as bliss. When you drop your expectations, lose your selfishness, forget your grievances, give up your worries, abandon the plan, stop your striving, let it out, let it go, let things pass, take a breath, take a break, quiet down, be still, empty your mind, open your heart, and come alive, what else is there to be but happy? If you can answer otherwise, it’s time to read this paragraph again and see what you’ve overlooked.
My mother had been happy. It was how I would always remember her. “She was so happy,” I said in her eulogy. “It drew people to her, to her comfort and ease.” Hers was a life with so many more aches and breaks than mine. So many hardships, so little gained. There was hardly a reason for her to be happy, but I remember her first, last, and most as happy. Now I wonder. Perhaps she had been happy as a gift to me, to a child that wants and needs and loves a happy mother above all else. Happy is the sign that all is well and will be. It is the seed of faith, optimism, and commitment. It is such fertile ground. Everything thrives there.
The last time I saw my mother, she sat upright in her bed and took me in without flinching. “I guess it’s time to say good-bye,” she said. “Be yourself and take good care of your family.” I swallowed hard and nodded my farewell.
It was a prescription for happiness; it was my inheritance. Taking good care of your family is no different from taking good care of yourself. There is nothing more gratifying. There is nothing more immediate. There is nothing more available. Every day is a good day to take care. Every moment. This moment.
Master Hongzhi wrote, “The house of silent illumination is the hall of pure bliss.” The house is yours. The hall is you. It can sound trifling, but attaining pure bliss is no mere trivial pursuit. It is no pursuit at all, because it is already abiding within you.
We think bliss magically arrives or mysteriously eludes. Perhaps it will come after the fifteenth? But happiness is, all along, in abundant supply within us. We can survive the wicked witches, the fire-breathing dragons, and all of our dire imaginings. We can escape the locked dungeons, unscalable towers, imprisoning judgments, and self-limiting fears. We can outlast the poisons, curses, misfortunes, and unforeseen perils. We simply have to be what, in our silent depths, we already are. We simply have to do what, in our inexplicable wisdom, we can do without a second thought.
This is your new spiritual practice: cracking a smile.
Queens and princesses, storytellers and teachers, wise women and sages, had given me final instructions. Here in my own house, in my own rocking chair, with my baby curled close and held fast, I had heard them at last. All of it, every bit of it, comes down to this:
May we all live happily ever after.