My Preparations for November 2024

I have just arrived in California and settled into my “grandmother nook” just a few steps away from the apartment where my daughter will soon birth a baby boy, my first grandchild.  There are many details I have yet to attend to to support mom and baby in the first few magical days and these are all delightful tasks!

I always thought being a grandmother would be sheer uncomplicated bliss. As a mother I took on the front line responsibilities of feeding, clothing, educating, protecting from danger and so on. As a grandmother I was preparing for only cuddling, loving and telling wonderful bedtime stories. 

I could not have imagined that, as we focused on the final preparations, we would be so harshly confronted with the deeply painful question of what kind of a world this blessed little boy is coming into.  

My first reaction to that question was one of acute concern about the messages of hate, discrimination, recrimination and confrontation reverberating so loudly they seem to have taken over all public communication channels. Should we intentionally cocoon into our own little world in order to protect this tender newly arrived being? Do we need to disengage in order to keep the terrors at bay? For half a minute my answer was yes, and so I did, until I realized that seclusion only leads to weakness. But what are our other options? 

With gratitude I remembered a lesson offered to me many years ago by my dear friend Roshi Joan Halifax:  “robai-shin”, or grandmother’s heart.  Robai-shin—originating with Eihei Dogen, the 13th-century Japanese Zen master—means a heart of great compassion and equanimity, and the capacity to maintain balance and inner calm in the midst of all conditions, no matter what those external circumstances are.  Interestingly, robai-shin calls upon us to cultivate an inner balanced, mindful response to circumstances of both joy and misery. 

I smiled at myself as I realized that in my preparations for November 2024, I was so ready for the joys of grandmotherhood and so unprepared for the challenges of an even more turbulent world. 

Could it be that I am being invited to extend my grandmother’s heart well beyond the boundaries of my grandchild’s crib, out to the larger world which is also crying?

As though this were a completely novel concept, suddenly I found myself stunned by the realization that I cannot have a grandmothers’ heart only for my own grandson, or even only for those with whom I agree on a particular set of values and principles—those inside my bubble who have also been so painfully surprised in recent days.  

It is easy to love my kindred spirits—personally if I know them, or even impersonally if I have never met them—but robai-shin summons me to also love those whose actions I cannot condone.  Robai-shin challenges me to radically suspend judgment. In contemplating this, I realized how very difficult it is for me!

With humility I am facing the fact that I relate to others through my personal beliefs, preferences, biases, and expectations.  I have long thought of myself as a person not only open to differences, but actively celebrating the differences among us. Today I realize that actually, my openness operates only as long as the differences are within or consistent with my value system. When I encounter a radically different value system I quickly draw up the bridge which surrounds my mental castle, happily justifying myself and leaving many in the moat. 

With even more humility I realize that I am now being called upon to lower the drawbridge, to cultivate an attitude of invitation, of empathy, patience, and understanding, creating a more conducive environment for the deep listening which will be necessary.  

In this journey, and a journey it is, I am aided by understanding impermanence, the incontrovertible fact that everything in life is subject to change and flux. Of course the temptation is to think that impermanence will eventually bring about different external circumstances - ones that would be more favorable to me and my way of thinking. That is true, but it is not the whole truth, and restricting myself to that part of the truth puts me into a passive role with no growth for myself. In this case, the more challenging part of impermanence is the realization that when the mind is not fixed, it can be cultivated. With intentionality, I am capable of molding my foundational mindset.

For years I have known that the delicious title of Mother is not attained merely by physically having a child, but by tending to that child with unconditional love, especially when there are disagreements. Today I have learned that the magnificent title of Grandmother is not reached by merely loving my daughter’s child, but by extending that loving kindness to all beings impartially, without judgment or discrimination.  

At 68 years of age, I thought the hard work was over, that in elderhood I could relax into enjoyment.  I was only partially right.  Alongside the unfathomable joy of grandmotherhood, feeling, thinking, and acting in true coherence with robai-shin is the toughest life challenge yet.   And the one that awaits all of us who feel the call to till the ground for future generations.