BALANCING RESPONSIBILITIES AND PRACTICE | Zen Wisdom

QUESTION:
Practice requires a lot of time and effort, and most people who practice are lay people. It seems there would be more time and fewer obstacles if our lives had a minimum of responsibilities. Could Shih-fu address this issue of freedom and responsibility, using marriage and children as examples?

SHIH-FU:
For a Ch’an practitioner, accepting responsibility is part of practice. If you are a householder, you have to accept the responsibilities that go with that. If you are married, whether your spouse is Buddhist or not, you have to fulfill the responsibility of being a wife or husband.

In married life there is the aspect of practice and the aspect of family life. For a practitioner, family life should also be part of practice. If your spouse or partner is not Buddhist, and does not understand why you spend so much time and effort practicing, then you should see your spouse as a bodhisattva who is helping you to cultivate patience and tolerance.

This attitude, however, is quite difficult to maintain. Because you are not a bodhisattva, you will probably not be able to recognize and accept someone else as one. Most people under such circumstances will try to evade their responsibilities and problems, or they will avoid them before they arise.

Earlier, one of you mentioned that it was difficult to practice while your marriage was failing. Of course, I do not know the reasons for the break-up, but in most cases the failure of a marriage is the result and responsibility of both individuals. If you want to have as little responsibility as possible so that you will have more freedom, that is the wrong attitude.

You may think that the only type of practice is sitting meditation. This is wrong. Meditation helps you to become less vulnerable to the swings of moods and emotions. But you should also see every other aspect of your life ─ work, relationship with your partner, family life ─ as a form of practice. You must accept those responsibilities as practice.

Even if you were a monk or nun, you should not think that your only practice would be sitting meditation. I don’t sit all day. The important thing about leaving home and becoming a monk or nun is to let go of your own problems and spend your time and effort receiving and helping others. All this is the practice. Yes, as a Sangha member there is no family responsibility. But in fact, monks and nuns have taken on an even greater responsibility ─ all sentient beings.

STUDENT:
What about the responsibility of having and caring for children? How difficult would it be then to practice? As a serious practitioner, would it be better not to have children? If you followed this direction, would it then be shirking the responsibility of being a householder?

SHIH-FU:
First, from a Buddhist point of view, if you give birth to a child, you are creating the occasion for another sentient being to begin yet another cycle of birth and death. On the other hand, if you do not give birth to this child, the sentient being will still be born through other causes and conditions, because it has the karma to be born again.

If you do not have children, it might be because you cannot, or because it simply does not happen. Perhaps you take certain precautions ─ using birth control, or in the extreme case, abortion. If you use birth control to avoid having children because of your desire to practice, the question of intention arises. If it is because you truly want to spend most of your time practicing, and you are not desirous of having a family, then that is quite alright. However, if you say “I don’t like kids. They’ll interfere with my practice, ” that attitude is self-centered and wrong.

The first attitude is that you are spending most of your time practicing and has nothing to do with grasping or avoiding. The second attitude implies a feeling of aversion toward children, with the thought that they will interrupt your practice. The second attitude is incorrect.

There is also a realistic question. If you do not have any children, does it really mean that your practice will be better? And if you do have children, does it mean that your practice will be distracted? If you don’t have children, you may spend your time doing other things anyway. On the other hand, if you do have children, you will have to cut out many other interests to care for your family, and you end up with more time to practice.

One of the members of the Center has cut down on her practice because of her children, but is it because of the children? In her case, it has to do with the way she arranges her time and priorities. She spends much of her time working, earning extra money so that the children will be able to go to college. In the meantime, she has to hire baby sitters to take care of the children while she works, so the children aren’t interfering.

STUDENT:
But if the parents don’t work so that they can practice, and then they discover that their children can’t go to college, is this right?

SHIH-FU:
When you have children, how much do you have to do in order to fulfill your responsibilities to them? It depends on you and the situation. You may be limited by your capabilities and your resources. If you are poor, you may not be able to send your children to an expensive college, or any college. In the case above, the mother wants certain things for her children and she is working for them. She cannot practice as much. That is the reality of the situation. It is her choice, her karma.

However, there is another member of the Center who has a child, and she is doing quite well with the practice. She sits every day, she contributes a great deal and she attends nearly every retreat. She is still able to set aside the time. That is her choice and her situation.

Another point. Householders should have children, because if they do not, especially after a few years of marriage, it will be quite difficult for them to have a happy relationship.

STUDENT:
Why?

SHIH-FU:
With children, if there are conflicts between the couple, the children act as a buffer. With such a common bond, such a shared interest, a couple cannot make a big deal of trivialities and they will not split up because of minor differences. Of course, it is easy to get divorced in the U.S., but as practitioners, such an extreme situation should rarely arise.

In China in the old days, there were well known household practitioners who did well in their practice while raising a large family at the same time. It never was the case that their children stopped them from practicing. I see that trend in China and this present trend in the U.S. as transient periods. Now, people here are involved in many activities, and they are keeping their families small, but in the future things will change, and perhaps they will change to something similar to that of old China.

Of course, realistically, children take up a great deal of your time, and with few exceptions in this Center, people who have children find it difficult to come to many of the functions here. My opinion is this: if you are just beginning to practice, not having children is a good situation to be in.

STUDENT:
So, you are saying that for beginning practitioners, it would be best not to have children?

SHIH-FU:
I would not say it that way, because if that were the case, then people might consider themselves beginning practitioners throughout their lives, and they’ll never have kids. Realize that the main function of having children is to strengthen the tie of the marriage and family. If there are no difficulties whatsoever in a marriage, if a couple is progressing in a happy, productive relationship, then not to have children is fine. And, if it seems that the relationship is starting to drag, well, then it is easy to remedy the situation. Have a kid. In the U.S., people might think differently, but in Taiwan, when couples seek my advice concerning marital difficulties, most of the time I tell them to bear a child; and, most of the time, the problem is solved. This is true when the problems are superficial in nature. However, when there are fundamental problems within the marriage, I would not advise them to have children. That is a different situation.

STUDENT:
So, you are saying that the main function of having children is to strengthen the tie of the marriage. Then it’s not that you feel that the expecting parent owes the sentient being who is about to be born some responsibility?

SHIH-FU:
In a general sense you have responsibility for all sentient beings in the world. In a specific sense, if you do not want to have children at the present time, but feel that you owe something to the sentient being who might be born in your body some day, do not have the child. Pay him or her back later.

STUDENT:
Going back to your comment about having children to resolve marital problems. What do you mean by fundamental or superficial problems? In my mind, having a child to resolve a marital problem would be the worst possible reason to have a family. It is unfair to the child?

SHIH-FU:
Do not think of having children as a means of solving the problems of a marriage. It’s that when you have children, your enhanced responsibilities will naturally help to strengthen the tie of the marriage. In this case, the children are helping out. On the other hand, if a couple accepts the responsibility of having a child, they are also helping the child. Do not view this as the utility of a child in a selfish mode.

A couple who quarreled a lot had a child. I asked them how things were going. The husband said, “Things have changed. Previously we argued all the time. Now the kid keeps our hands filled with his own difficulties, so we have no time or energy left over for our own arguments.” So, if you want to calm your marital relationship, having a child may be a wise choice. He or she will take all your energy.

STUDENT:
You mentioned energy. In Carlos Casteneda’s books about the teachings of Don Juan, Don Juan advised his followers, both men and women, to avoid having children if they wanted to be on the warrior path. When a child is born, it takes away a lot of the life energy from the parents, making them weaker. He said that if you want to maintain personal power, then do not have children. What is your opinion?

SHIH-FU:
Ch’an does not believe or recognize such ideas. Sure a child takes away energy from the parents, but in a natural way. The child is growing, and demands attention and care. Devoting such time and energy drains you.

As I said earlier, if you are a beginning practitioner, it is difficult to practice and have children. It would take an enormous amount of power, energy, time and effort to put your mind together and concentrate. But, even being married without children might give you problems. You might create your own interference and obstacles. In this case, it would be better to live the life of a monk or nun, or at least that of a single person.

From a Ch’an point of view, I must stress again that practice is not just sitting meditation. All aspects of life should be part of practice.

STUDENT:
When I was single, my practice was erratic at best. Now I’m married, and I practice every day. In my case, marriage helped my practice.

SHIH-FU:
It’s not that getting married helped you in the practice, but rather it’s your change of attitude. As a single person, you might have had many different interests, and probably did not know how to spend your time properly. Now that you are married, you are mentally prepared to settle down, and as a consequence you can channel your energy better.

STUDENT:
You say that meditation is not the only aspect of practice, but if one wants to attain deeper levels of practice, then meditation is important. In this sense, can marriage and children have an adverse affect on one’s practice, and would it prevent one from becoming a master?

SHIH-FU:
When the Buddha taught the Dharma, he knew it was impossible for all people to become monks and nuns. Leaving home helps to cut off one’s desires. This is possible for only a small minority of practitioners. For this reason, the Buddha had separate teachings and prescriptions for lay people and Sangha members.

There are many differences between lay practice and left-home practice. Lay people are more connected to family, career, possessions and personal affairs. Monks and nuns have taken vows to abandon these things. Ideally, they should have no belongings, including their own bodies.

The strongest attachments of ordinary people are to other people. A young girl is most attached to her parents. Later, her boyfriend or husband becomes the most important person. When she has children, they become the most important. In time, her children will leave to start their own families. Even so, she will continue to have deep feelings for them and their children. An ordinary person’s life is filled with attachments which derive from relationships.

It is difficult to have all these attachments and still devote oneself wholeheartedly to practice. Sex may not even be part of it, but if it is, it too becomes an extremely sticky attachment. Sexual activity makes it difficult to cultivate samadhi.

Love and marriage can become a source of all kinds of vexations, but they are not necessarily obstructions to being a good practitioner. However, love and marriage would make it difficult to become a good master, although it would not be impossible. The person may be a good teacher, but it may be difficult to cultivate a deep, pure wisdom.

Of course, there are exceptions. In the Tibetan Nyingmapa tradition, there have been exceptional masters who were married. However, these masters relied as much on the blessings of their yidam, or spiritual guide, as on their personal practice for power.

If you have a supportive spouse or partner who will practice with you, that is an excellent arrangement. That would be a life based on mutual care, respect and love, without over-reliance on sex to define the relationship. Such a life is a good foundation for achieving liberation.

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