{"id":2075,"date":"2007-10-15T21:13:22","date_gmt":"2007-10-16T04:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2007\/10\/15\/sadness-and-the-magic-question\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T14:51:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T22:51:03","slug":"sadness-and-the-magic-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2007\/10\/15\/sadness-and-the-magic-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Sadness and “The Magic Question”"},"content":{"rendered":"

One time I went to see Maezumi Roshi after a meditation session in which the tears streamed in rivulets down my cheeks.<\/p>\n

“I’m sitting in a field of sadness,” I said to him. I was a tiny bit pleased by my poetic expression. I thought we might talk about it, rooting out the cause, and apply a kind of treatment.<\/p>\n

“When you’re sad, be sad,” he said. And that was all he said. I confess I found it abrupt, considering my experience with other kinds of counselors. He didn’t criticize me, he didn’t correct me, he just didn’t dwell. He didn’t dwell.<\/em><\/p>\n

In life, nothing dwells. The wind blows and then stops. The blossoms burst forth and then fall. Things come and go. The melody drifts back onto an aching E-flat and then back to E again. The song of your life is played on white and black keys<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I won’t linger but I am likely to post again about sadness as a cornerstone of Buddhism, as an essential truth of human life. I won’t dwell. I won’t build a hut. Promise me you won’t build one either. Not while the song is still playing.<\/em><\/p>\n

–Karen Maezen Miller, Cheerio Road<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This morning I was sad. This afternoon I was also sad. It started at 4 a.m. when Husband had to get up every five minutes because Bean will not<\/em> stay asleep in her crib, and I began to worry that I am doing something wrong. Then it was my turn with her starting at 5 a.m. She ate well enough, but became fussy which turned into scream-crying so that by 10 a.m., we were in tatters. I’d called the doctor to ask questions about infants and sleeping habits, and when she returned the call Bean was in Dolby surround scream. I had to put her down in the crib and go to the next room to carry on the conversation, and Bean screamed bloody murder the entire five minutes of the call, while the doctor in her calm demeanor said, Well, it does sound as though she has colic.<\/em> Which told me exactly nothing helpful. She said switching formulas won’t hurt but probably won’t help. She said she thinks the cause of the gas is that she’s crying so much she’s swallowing a lot of air, which switching formulas won’t help.<\/p>\n

By the end of the call, Bean had exhausted herself and lay spent in her crib, not crying. I had never left her to cry alone before, because I haven’t been able to bear the idea and until that moment, was able to avoid it. (You know what? It didn’t kill her. That’s not to say I think it’s a good idea to do it all the time, but the experience removed one brick from the irrational foundation of Supermom Expectations upon which I have constructed my mother identity.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, I went upstairs and rousted Husband from his too-short sleep shift, frantic about the colic, the baby, and myself. I returned to her room and picked her up, and she immediately began to drowse. Husband came into Bean’s room to listen to me rant and cry. Then he took Bean in his arms, which woke her and began the screaming cycle all over. Then my friend (one of the Emergency Backup Parents) came to get me and go to lunch. I wasn’t hungry, so we went back to her place while she ate leftovers and I drank coffee and sobbed. That helped, as did talking about the experience.<\/p>\n

We stopped at Safeway on the way home to get lactose-free formula (since Husband is lactose intolerant, that seems a good first step). Upon arriving home — two hours later — Husband was still with Bean in his arms, and she was calm, but as soon as she heard us she began to cry. K hung out with us for a couple hours and held her. <\/p>\n

The point is, I felt much less sad by the end of the day. The love of my friend and spouse and the change of scenery helped. After K had to leave, I took Bean and she slept in my arms for two more hours, until I had to put her down to use the bathroom. She awoke, began crying. I changed her diaper, and still she cried (she was hungry by now), at which point Husband (who’d gone for a nap) was awakened and offered to take charge. He fed her some of the new formula, and we’ll see how it goes. At the moment she’s asleep in her swing. <\/p>\n

So often when she’s in the swing or her crib and I hear her mewl, I want to leap up and pick her up. I don’t give the situation a chance to play out a little longer, to see if this is a momentary disruption that she can settle for herself. This is also why I rarely sleep when Husband comes to bed after the 3 a.m. feeding and turns the monitor on. On some level I’m unable to let go and sleep deeply, and as soon as I hear a moan or movement I’m alert.<\/p>\n

Now, I’ve written this to Karen: <\/p>\n

Why am I afraid of my child\u2019s cry?
\nWhy am I afraid to allow<\/em> my child to cry?
\nWhy am I afraid of leaving my child crying while I do something else?
\nWhy does her crying upset me so much?<\/p>\n

Karen’s response was:<\/p>\n

This is an answer that is more of a question. The questions you ask in all variations are simply, “why.” Maezumi Roshi called this the “magic question.” Not because it has an answer, because the only kind of answer to any question that begins “why?” is simply something you make up out of threads of logic and reasoning. (The whole of psychology, actually the whole of science is just this kind of made-up “answer.” And that’s why the answers of science keep changing!)<\/p>\n

No, the reason Roshi called this “the magic question” is because the question is precisely what you have to overcome. The question points precisely to the limitations of intellect. It leads you directly to what you don’t know. You need to face this question yourself, Kathryn, and you need to stare it down, not answer it, not play with it, not wonder, surmise, imagine, deduce, reason, rationalize, probe. You need to face this question and see how much difficulty it causes you. And then you need to get over it.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, you have associated a baby’s cry with the message that something is “wrong.” That something must be “fixed.” And you recoil from your interpretation of it as such. But a cry is just a cry. Yes, it’s a form of communication. But it’s not a judgment or a repudiation of you. Babies cry! Dogs bark! Engines roar. (And some people respond the very same way to dogs barking, or horns sounding, or thunder, or any of the world of sounds and events that occur in this wide world.)<\/p>\n

Now you can’t think your way to any of this. It seems to me the best way to overcome all this is to let it bother you. That means, when the baby cries, don’t be afraid to cry with her. Perhaps you will see that crying is only crying, that it can feel good to cry, that in and of itself it is harmless and necessary, like breathing, and your crying baby will seem less like an adversary and more like the companion that she now is… for the rest of your life and beyond.<\/p>\n

Believe me, when you can cry with your child you’ll have a much better chance of laughing with her too. One is neither better nor worse than the other, but by all means don’t cheat yourself out of the whole of human experience.<\/p>\n

I wish I could fix it for you, like a mother always wishes, but our true job is just this: to keep company with our children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am pondering this, and applying her suggestions. <\/p>\n

It occurred to me, today, that this crying bothers me because I’m terrified of failing. Failing what? Failing at motherhood and mothering. Failing my child. Causing my child psychological damage because I’ve got this irrational fear that crying is damaging. (I’ve read too many attachment parenting sites that say “crying it out” leads infants to become despondent, since they learn that no one will answer their cries and then they become withdrawn. Then I’ve interpreted it extremely — i.e., any<\/em> bouts of unconsoled crying are damaging — and told myself I must not <\/em>do<\/em> this to my child.) I’m also afraid of my child, of not knowing, of the future, and of myself. So much fear.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve taken big risks before, risks other people admire and wish they too could take, risks that allowed me to seize Life and have more of it: quitting my job of ten years and moving out of my hometown of 31 years to a new city 1800 miles away with no job or place to live waiting. Going back to school full-time to get a graduate degree. Starting my own business. I’ve “felt the fear and did it anyway.” I’ve stared my fear down and moved through it. But this? This is a different type of fear. The risk and vulnerability I felt before applied only to me<\/em>, to my life. Now I’m responsible for this little person’s life. She didn’t ask to be born. She’s vulnerable. She has no control. I took a risk that resulted in the creation of another being and for whom I’m responsible. There is no going back, only forward, and there are a billion variables at play. I am not objective or detached in this.<\/p>\n

I used to babysit my friend’s child when he was about two, and he would cry hysterically when his mother left for work. I’d hold him and be his companion through it, and the storm would pass, and he’d cheer up and we’d play. We had a fine time. I was able to handle his emotions calmly and to be with him. Why can’t I do this for my own child? <\/p>\n

Oops. Pointless question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One time I went to see Maezumi Roshi after a meditation session in which the tears streamed in rivulets down my cheeks. “I’m sitting in a field of sadness,” I said to him. I was a tiny bit pleased by my poetic expression. I thought we might talk about it, rooting out the cause, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,16,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motherhood","category-nature","category-quotes"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2075"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13653,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075\/revisions\/13653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}