How babies transform Dharma plans

Brandy, 29, met the Dharma when she was 21. She is now the single mother of a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

After a five-week retreat with Jetsun Kusho-la, I had asked her if I should do long retreat before I had children or after. She said, "After you have children. They will teach you patience and suffering." That was a couple years before I got pregnant.

For the first four or five months of my pregnancy, I freaked out and could only think about the things I couldn't do anymore. I wanted to finish the second year of studying Tibetan with Alan Wallace, and go to different teachings and do other retreats.

Now that I'm a mother it's an amazing chance to have incredible love for someone - the great love of really wanting them to have every happiness; it's also great compassion of wanting them to be free of suffering. It's instinctive - if they're going to fall down, you dive to protect them.

On a daily level you're always giving up your own attachment to things to serve their needs first. It wouldn't even feel right to serve your own needs before theirs. They always have needs, and they have needs when you're tired, when you're busy and have other agendas. You're in a hurry to get out of the house, and they have a huge poo - it's just constant!

I don't think I've ever felt that way about anyone. I've had passing feelings of gratitude and love towards some people, like my mother, but it was never so continuous, and I was never in a position to do that for them.

But, oh man! My sitting practice sucks, basically! It's really hard. I get inspired during teachings and get up early to practice, but my daughter inevitably wakes up. Fortunately she takes long naps, so I can do practice then. It's not ideal, though, because it's usually around two in the afternoon when I want to be taking a nap, too!

Sometimes when I see great Dharma practitioners and what they're doing, when I want to do a retreat, or when there are a lot of teachings that I can't go to, I feel really left out. I feel heartbroken. But it passes, and I really love being with her all the time. I wouldn't trade it; it doesn't feel right to send her off with a babysitter so I can go to teachings.