Better Whatever We Are

The Dalai Lama once said, "Don't try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are."  I am a Christian, a wife, a patient, a daughter... and I am motherless.  Strangely, through last night's hard time, a Buddhist principle came to mind that actually helped me to be a better, well... a happier, motherless daughter.

Feeling the emotional and physical misery that accompanied what I now suspect was a fever, I was longing for a mother's comfort.  That longing just added to the misery I was already feeling.  One of you responded that you had been feeling this way recently as well and that the decision to care for a rescued dog lifted your spirits.  My husband was having a miserable day and focusing on cheering him made me feel a bit better long before I realized that I likely had a fever and took some Advil.  I remembered two jobs that I had that made me exuberant on a daily basis, both of them focused on giving social services to those in dire need of them.  All of these things have in common putting the focus off ourselves and onto improving the lives of others.  All of these things had the byproduct of improving our own lives in the process.

This line of thought reminded me of a TED talk given by Uma Thurman's father, Robert, the first American to be ordained a Tibetan Monk by the Dalai Lama.  This talk, one of the talks focused on the Charter for Compassion, implores us to practice compassion beyond our inner circle of friends and family and discusses how that benefits ourselves as well as the rest of mankind.  It occurred to me that, perhaps, this is one way that we can learn to be better, happier, motherless daughters.  Perhaps this is one way that, though we don't have mothers to model or who can teach us how to deal with the difficult parts of raising girls into women, we can proactively decide to model the type of behavior that we want our daughters to emulate.  It is probably not that perfect of a band-aid for everything, but every little bit helps.

So that you can listen for yourselves and see if any of it helps your situation even a little, I have included Robert Thurman's TED talk below.