<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Vipasanna experiences with toddlers</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_thread?p_l_id=&amp;threadId=5605054</link> <description>Vipasanna experiences with toddlers</description> <pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2014 01:51:11 GMT</pubDate> <dc:date>2014-10-19T01:51:11Z</dc:date> <item> <title>RE: Vipasanna experiences with toddlers</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605426</link> <description>This is a cool topic. My son is turning 6 in December. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think there is a really interesting balance between simply creating a safe place for him to learn to regulate himself and learn to implement the values of our family and culture, and planting little dharma seeds. In some cases these things really dovetail: like impermanence and the equation clinging=suffering are pretty easy for a kid to grasp, in practice, and appreciate the significance of in terms of being happy and kind. Your example with the plastic toy and song is great and i think just being able to sow a seed with a little phrase like that is an excellent way to do it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No-self IS more difficult in this context as at this stage of development I think it&amp;#039;s really important for kids to develop a stable sense of being someone. So how to let that happen in a more porous, flexible way is an interesting question. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That said, I also think that individuals are born geared to having very different styles of identification. For instance, I&amp;#039;ve always felt my identity as more of a complex of partially overlapping situational identities and I&amp;#039;ve always had a sense of how my actual being exceeds my identities. Some folks have a much more solid stable identity from the get go, and my son appears more like this. He&amp;#039;s very hard-headed whereas I am more dreamy. He&amp;#039;s very physically handy and can allready provide actual help with little tasks around the house and I&amp;#039;m pretty bad at handy household things by nature. He&amp;#039;s attracted to sports and I never was. All these differences in ways of being mean that I simply don&amp;#039;t know what&amp;#039;s the &amp;#039;best&amp;#039; way to raise him to be a healthy, reasonably happy adult much less be his dharma teacher (which is a role I don&amp;#039;t take with anyone else, either, anyway!). So for me there are obviously plenty of lessons as well in terms of adjusting expectations and providing a space for him to develop in his own way rather than trying to direct his development. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So ultimately I think I look at it more in terms of giving him a sort of baseline of internal skills around being aware of his own states, being responsible for how he acts those states out, but basically being OK with whatever feelings are coming up and learning that feelings, impulses, etc. don&amp;#039;t have to automatically be translated into action. I think this plants seeds of seeing that &amp;#034;I am not (limited to...) whatever is coming up at the moment&amp;#034;. There is an interesting parallel between the psychoanalytic concept of &amp;#039;ego strength&amp;#039; and the Buddhist concept of &amp;#039;mindfulness&amp;#039; in that ego strength simply means the ability to non-reactively be aware of one&amp;#039;s own feelings, thoughts etc in real time without defensiveness. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I think rather than trying to teach him insight practice or principles for me it&amp;#039;s simply about raising (reasonably) healthy happy kids with good ego strength. This will naturally lay foundations that will be optimal for them if they later choose to pursue insight (such as a stable mind with low reactivity, good ability for delayed gratification, self-awareness without excessive self-judgement, a sense of the difference between co-dependance, a fantasy of hyperindendence, and the actuality of interdependence, etc.).</description> <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2014 12:51:18 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605426</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-15T12:51:18Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Vipasanna experiences with toddlers</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605083</link> <description>Father of three checking in here. I have a 4 year old son with autism, a two year old daughter, and a newborn. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Having kids is like super-morality training. It is an experience of surrender and love that is beyond anything I have ever encountered before in this life. Training in morality is obviously very beneficial, as it provides a basis for powerful sitting practice. Metta is ridiculously easy with kids.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for the insight aspect of things...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Impermanence-- this one takes time, but it is easy when you tune into it. Your children get older every day. They outgrow diaper sizes, clothes, they learn to speak, they develop new habits as they grow up. It feels like just yesterday I was watching my son being born, and now he is four. The older they get, the faster they grow, and experiences transfigurate into memories faster than you can comprehend, becoming only mental images and feelings of the past.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Suffering-- this one is fairly easy as well. Babies cry a lot. Toddlers fall and throw tantrums. The cry of my children prompts an immediate quivering of the heart-- profound compassion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No-self-- the trickiest, as it tends to be. The only experience I can offer here is looking into the eyes of a child and seeing sentience staring back at you.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 23:42:27 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605083</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T23:42:27Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Vipasanna experiences with toddlers</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605053</link> <description>I have a 3.0 year old child (no siblings yet) and I&amp;#039;m interested in bring the dharma/vipasanna into the way I interact with him.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am fully involved in my own Vipasanna meditation practice so that I am more present and responsive in a helpful, authentic, playful, perceptive and expressive way when with him.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This post is about specific situations that always come up with kids, and how to shape his environment and respond and model in ways that experientially informs the little guys understand the truth of the world he lives in.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For example, a friend said to me: &amp;#034;having a sibling is worth a million meditation classes&amp;#034;.  His point of course is that having a little sib enhances entropy in a way that is very &amp;#039;impermanence&amp;#039; informing.  Also, he would see plenty of examples of compassion for suffering, cause those new babies have a lot to be uncomfortable about.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another much simpler example is: we listen to a music CD in the car and there are some tracks that toddler does not like.  He says &amp;#034;I don&amp;#039;t like that song, would you change it?&amp;#034; (He&amp;#039;s a very good talker for his age).  I used to figure, just change it (or delete it from the song list).  Now I do something different, I say &amp;#034;It will be over in just a minute, I&amp;#039;ll turn it down just a bit&amp;#034;, then I turn it down a noticeable but not muting amount.  I think this is a way of having the experience of choosing the non-suffering option of hearing a song he does not like.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another: it occurred to me that plastic toys (they break) is a frequent lesson impermanence; I say something like &amp;#034;you never know how long something is going to last&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No-self:&lt;br /&gt; This is a hard one for me to understand myself, let alone help a child understand.  But I do have one idea: that is to look for situations where a tangible thing that is desirable and needs cultivation is utterly dependent on a shared effort.  For example, keeping a ball in the air in beach ball.  For myself, I find that I do better at keeping the ball in the air by recognizing that no one person has ownership of the results, but every-bodies participation is required.  This is hard with the 3 year old because beach ball is really about chasing the ball as it rolls away.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not looking for scriptures here, I&amp;#039;m looking for other parents or relatives of kids who have found ways to interact with a child in a way that fosters natural awareness of impermanence, imbalance, non-self.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matt</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 22:38:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605053</guid> <dc:creator>the real matt</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T22:38:55Z</dc:date> </item> </channel> </rss> 