By Stephen Altair

T

he heart of compassionate parenting is letting the heart and mind be, in the space of compassionate awareness. I often talk about meditation and life with my four-year-old daughter, Maia. We talk together a lot about life through questions. Every dinner time is question time. She asks me and my wife about our day and we ask her about her day. We ask things like, “What did you learn from today?” or “What did you dream last night and what did it show you?”

From these questions comes insight.

We can gain a lot from the clarity and insight of children. My daughter is a natural dream yogi. She had a dream of my wife and in the middle of her dream woke herself up because she knew “it wasn’t the real mama.”

My daughter reminds me often of the simple lessons in meditation. When she was only one, we were at our local Shingon Buddhist temple doing a Goma Fire Ceremony when a camera crew arrived as there were a lot of people there. The temple is revered for the immovable indestructible presence and manifestation of the Buddha.

The interviewer asked Maia to point out the Buddha to her. Maia pointed straight to the young woman’s heart. “Babu (her name for Buddha) is there, inside your heart.”

Meditation is like this, letting the mind and heart be, quite naturally, like a child.

It is simply about feeling the way you feel and letting the mind and heart be as they are and gaining insight into how they are in this moment.

You don’t need to get anywhere, acquire a certain state, or brainwave signature. You actually just need to allow yourself to be where you already are. Free of thought and judgement. Silent, still, and spacious. Compassionate awareness for exactly where you are.

Sometimes where you are can be angry and frustrated like a child. My daughter had some real blowouts and tantrums as a three-year-old. My wife and I struggled to be with them at times. We worked hard to breathe with my daughter and embrace them. Now we are much better at bringing our attention to them and helping my daughter breathe through them and calm down.

My daughter puts things in simple ways. She once asked me why I didn’t get angry like other people. I told her I was practicing compassion. “Oh,” she said, “That makes you a Buddha.” “What about you, Maia?” I asked her. “I’m an angel,” said Maia.

As you sit you take your attention to simple things. Like the breath. All of the universe is within the breath. Your children are within your breath. Your parents are within your breath. Our breath connects us to our heart and mind and our children.

Just as there are currents in the universe, so the universal current of the universe flows in our breath.

Children know in very simple terms this power of interconnectedness. They are related to us, their parents, and by nature also related to everything else through us. So how you help them to see you helps them to see the world.

Everything contains everything else. And everything is changing. From a child’s point of view their rapidly changing world deeply enhances an appreciation of impermanence, as there are so many new experiences.

Children can help us appreciate life and people more as well as seeing that everything can be a portal of deeper connection to the world beyond, just as we are that portal for our children. We know how vulnerable they are, how precious little babies are, yet we often take all that for granted as they grow older.

As we connect to our breath, we connect to that which is precious, every time we sit, like a new-born child.

We can take time to honor each moment for the fullness it contains, just as we honor our children, our elders, and ourselves. When we perceive fullness in the breath, we can perceive wholeness in life and develop compassion for life all around us.

As we connect to our breath in spacious awareness, and teach our children to do the same, we are practicing compassionate parenting.

About Stephen Altair

Stephen-Altair, also known as Altair in healing and lightworkers communities, is a teacher, healer, and mystic guiding the way of love, unity, and harmony for the Enlightened World that we are co-creating. He teaches that we are the way and that our freedom to be our true self is the key to transformation.

“The miracles of God lie within Us. We are the Light. We are the Temple of the One Chakra. Our Awakened Infinite Light Body brings all our dreams into reality.”

Altair’s background in spirituality has at its foundations the teaching of the Christ, Buddha, Krishna, the Archangels and Bodhisattvas, and Divine Mother. He comes to the fields of transformation, healing, and awakening with over 25 years of formal and intensive mindful and heartful training, a background in teaching and education, and degrees and certifications in counseling and alternative health, business, and mindful and heartful education.

Stephen regularly contributes guided meditations to Enlightened World, such as the Divine Mother Light Meditation, the Light Body, and Light Reflection. He has also written about being with the Dalai Lama on retreat.

Website: www.altairshyam.com

Website: www.diaryofayogi.com

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