My three month old son is my teacher. Watching him unfold to the world in these past 12 weeks has reminded me that the experience of being human is not easy. At first, newborns exist as though they are still in the womb. You can see this by the way their bodies remain curled up and their senses remain focused on finding food and ensuring security. Their eyes do not focus and they seem largely unaware of the world outside. Sometimes, this means that they sleep and eat and seem very content to largely ignore the world beyond their mother’s breast. My son was not like this. He came awake to the world fast and in the process, his senses were on overload. The wind on his face was felt as a trauma. Being touched was an intrusion. It was as if he was trying desperately to relocate that world of calm and peace that existed in the womb, but instead, he found himself full tilt in a reality that he was not ready to inhabit.
As the weeks have gone by, he is growing into his role as human being and in the process, I am reminded of some essential teachings. As he experiences sensations, his human mind attaches emotions to them and he suffers. The first Noble Truth, that human life involves a degree of suffering, is proved right. To begin with, it was wind in his belly that made him suffer. Now, as his brain learns that it does not need to attend to that sensation with so much energy, his suffering has moved on to express itself when experiencing other sensations. He doesn’t like the intrusion of having his nappy changed in the middle of the night. He doesn’t like it when he’s wet and cold after a bath. Sometimes, he just doesn’t like anything and when this happens, his whole body revolts as if the experience of being human is not one he can fully tolerate yet. He has no way of filtering out his discontent. He must face it head on, devoid of any means of distraction, for he has not yet learned that the tinkling rattle held to his face is a way out. He doesn’t know that the person stroking his face is a possible diversion or that the lullaby he hears offers a place of solace. He is lost to his suffering until it passes of its own accord.
I watch as he teaches me the second Noble Truth, that the cause of suffering is craving, ignorance and aversion. He wants what he does not have. He does not know what he wants. He does not want what he has. This othering and the emotions that are attached to it drive him to call out his discontent with his world loudly and as he cries, his body writhes as if in torment. He cannot shop away his troubles. He does not have the ability to bury his pain in alcohol or drugs. Until he learns the gentle art of distraction that as adults we utilise to dull our reality, he must be fully present to each passing sensation and the discomfort it causes.
He is just now beginning to show me how the third Noble Truth works. As he nears the three month mark, he has started to learn that there is a way to end suffering. Although the tinkling rattle and soothing lullaby have begun to distract him from his discontent, he is most content when he is paying moment to moment attention to the experience of being a baby. He watches enthralled as his hands make contact with each other. He calmly observes the pattern of sunshine as it ripples its way across a wall. He likes stripes and dots and things that make surprising and unexpected movements. Unlike adult humans, he is able to fully inhabit the space of watchfulness, unfettered by interfering thoughts that try to make grand narratives about what his relationship is to what is happening. He is reminding me that paying attention is the way out of suffering.
He does not need the practice of the fourth Noble Truth yet. He has no use of an Eightfold Path and does not need the discipline of systematic practice to reconnect with moment to moment awareness. He has no use of right livelihood or right speech. He doesn’t need to be cautious of what he says or does. He requires no ethical code. But he will do. As his life moves further and further from observing with clarity what he is experiencing in the here and now, he will become fully human, attempting to attach stories and explanations to the sensations he feels. He will grow his ideas of who he is and use this overarching framework to make sense of what he experiences. And when this happens, he will cycle back to the first Noble Truth again, suffering when things are not to his liking.
In the process, he is a powerful teacher, inviting me to drop out of my head and inhabit the moment. I sit on the floor and hold his tiny toes for him to see. I poke out my tongue at his invitation. Nothing else matters but this moment and in this moment, all is well. Sometimes, staying in this moment means holding his tiny body as he cries. My human brain wants to make sense of his tears, to try and find a logical explanation. My human emotions rally as if in battle, jumbling together a collection of angst and fear and confusion, as he continues to revolt against whatever it is that is bothering him. The more I lose myself in stories of explanation and feelings of aversion to his cries, the more I suffer. Better that I remember what he is teaching me – that staying present requires no additional mental chatter or emotional outpourings. I hold him while he cries and practice awareness. He will stop eventually. I will provide comfort in until he does.
At another end of this process of being human is my teenage daughter, who has been my teacher for nearly 15 years. Like her baby brother, she once inhabited the peaceful space of moment to moment awareness, watching ants crawling along a path, playing in a blanket of fallen jacaranda leaves, covering her naked body in red texta. As an adolescent, she is back at the first Noble Truth and greatly in need of the Fourth. For her, much like myself at her age, life is suffering. She has left behind the ability to simply observe, giving way to the human need to attach stories and emotions to each experience. She does not choose to dull her pain with alcohol and drugs, but instead walks head on into it with a ferocity that I fear will not allow her an easy path in life. I am comforted by the knowledge that those of us that allow ourselves to feel our discomfort, eventually seek out a method of finding a better way to live in the world. She will need to find her own Eightfold Path, to search out a method of making sense of her world and allowing space for contentment and joy. She will need a code to live by.
My children are my teachers and without them, I may have strayed too far from the path to learn all that I have learnt so far. Life is suffering. There is a cause of suffering. Suffering can be ended. The way to end suffering is to find and practice a code. In this way, a human need not be at war with themselves or the world. Instead, they can watch the path of the sun as it makes its way across the bedroom wall, and in this moment, all will be as it should be.
