Buddha Schmuddha

I am reading “If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!” by Sheldon B. Kopp, and it’s really speaking to me. It is about the pilgrimage a patient makes through psychotherapy. The grain of the book, which is told through classic epic stories, is that the answer lies within and that once the patient accepts disappointment, he will finally be free to live a life without the need to seek the word of the Guru. You see I’ve been in therapy since I was 15; without admitting my age I can tell you it’s been a long time.

In my lifetime I’ve had four therapists in three different cities. They each have had different approaches, but basically have all had the same message- at least from where I sit. Whatever is wrong with you, you can trace back to your mother. While this may be true for many people, myself included, it is incredibly alarming, because we all have mothers. Every one of us can actually blame and might get away with displacing any responsibility on what is wrong with us by pointing at our mother. It’s a “get out of jail free” card. What’s even more alarming is that a lot of us in therapy actually are mothers! I mean what were we thinking? Are we continuing the cycle? Of course we love our children and are doing the very best by them. But sooner or later a therapist or self-help book will come along and say “You could have had a better life… You could have won the Nobel Prize… You could have been happy… were it not for your mother.” Gasp!

So we may damn them, the mothers (who now turn out to be excellent grandmothers, by the way) and wonder… “Who is that person in those shoes? That can’t possibly ‘my’ mother? I mean my mother would never be caught dead playing in the sandbox letting a child bury her to her neck in public sand that’s been peed, pooped and spat on?” The horror. The mind reels.

I am a mother, and I try really hard to be the best I can be. And I know I don’t always succeed. But I try. Like I hope my mother did. I know that no matter how much I sacrifice and do on their behalf, one day or two, I will let them down in a way I cannot foresee today or predict tomorrow. But I still try. It is what we do- mothers. It is the most rewarding, painful and sometimes thankless job. But it is also the best job in the world. Because we get to craft these little people who hopefully will do more good than bad, and make the world a better place than they’ll find it. They carry in their little souls the hope that life sometimes extinguishes in adults. They imagine the possibilities and want to be heroes and princesses and knights and divas. They dream while we sleep. Along the way they figure out we don’t know it all and in fact sometimes we are making it up as we go. I pray my children have more patience with me than I had with my parents. I pray I am forgiven for all that I did and all I did not know to do. I pray I meet the Buddha on the way.