03.01.2024 The Dharma of Parenthood Recently, I attended a program at my local dharma center. This was the first multi-day event I attended in the last five years since becoming a mother. Practicing with a sangha felt energizing — it left me wanting more. If you’re a parent, you know that opportunities to go on retreat or attend teachings are hard to come by. The myriad of commitments that come with parenthood leave little room for “free time” to pursue much else. As a parent of young kids, finding a moment to myself throughout the day seems impossible, let alone taking several days off to go on retreat. This often makes me think about the ways I can incorporate dharma into my daily life. As my kids get older, I’ve tried to involve them in my dharma practice. It’s been such a treat, whether it’s reciting a simple mantra, practicing mindfulness and being fully present while reading a bedtime story, or sitting together and breathing — even if we can only make it through three breaths! However, dharma practice as a parent doesn’t always look like this. Our practice can manifest in various ways, often diverging from the traditional image of sitting on a cushion engaged in formal practice. It may resemble mundane tasks like washing the dishes, picking up the toys in the living room for the tenth time that day, comforting a sick child, wiping boogers away, or taking a pause when you know your frustration is about to get the best of you. The articles below delve into integrating dharma into parental life: Emily Horn shares how we can integrate moments of meditation into the routine experiences of our everyday lives, while Sumi Loundon Kim explores how practice can thrive amid parenthood’s chaos, and Gail Silver shows us how to engage children in meditation in a fun, playful way. As a bonus for Spanish speakers, Nuno Gonçalves, featured on “El Camino del Buda,” Lion’s Roar’s Spanish-language page, talks about how we can lead a dharma-enriched life as a householder, highlighting how family can bolster our practice. —Mariana Restrepo, Associate Editor, Lion’s Roar A More Present Life Starts Now Life and practice don’t need to be separate, writes Emily Horn. She shares how we can integrate moments of meditation into the routine experiences of our every day lives.   Yet if we look closely at the Buddhist tradition, we will see multitudes of practices that are skillful means meant to be included in our lives. Practices such as mindfulness and heartfulness can be brought into everything we do, whether or not we set a timer or take a particular posture. When we can expand our view and include more and more of what happens in life, right now, we realize that meditation only appears to start and stop. Without our ideals about what it should be like, each moment becomes a possibility for a more present, loving, and aware life. Of course, this is easier said than done, so it can help to remember the following. ADVERTISEMENT How Practice Can Actually Get Better after Having Children   Even in the daily insanity of parenthood, your Buddhist practice can thrive. As Sumi Loundon Kim explains, it’s all about how you see it.   As someone who’d prioritized sitting meditation as “real” meditation, this shift toward intentional, applied mindfulness built a critical bridge between formal sitting and performing in a way that had been theoretical before. As parenting and practice develop over the years, that hard distinction between practice time and everything else blurs and, in time, dissolves. We end up going where our teachers were pointing us all along: to the understanding that there’s no distinction between practice time and every moment. Every moment is practice.   The Family That Meditates Together It’s not easy, but getting your family to meditate could be the best thing you do as a parent. Gail Silver on how to interest your kids in breathing, seeing, and being.   Children will come to meditation organically if they regularly see their parents practicing. With this in mind, next time you settle in to sit, you might sink into the family room sofa instead of running off to a secluded room and bolting the door behind you. For added allure, you might position yourself to face a window. Little ones, wondering what you’re watching, will snuggle in your lap and experience the comforting rhythm of your breath. Whether taking in a still blue sky or the business of life passing by, their breath is likely to align with yours.