I wish you could hear him, my lama, eyes welled up with tears, arms wide embracing the World, telling us about how everyone, everywhere, are all beautiful ‘Mother Beings.’ Beings who have loved us and nurtured us throughout innumerable lifetimes.

To hear Lama Tulku Tsori Rinpoche tell it, not only sentient beings, but everything in the universe, whether plant, animal, mineral, seen or unseen, all of creation are ‘Mother Beings’ whom we should serve, revere, and bless with infinite kindness. Even with this, we will never be able to repay even a small portion of the sacrifices and miseries they have endured in countless lifetimes raising and protecting us from harm.

Rinpoche says when he was a young monk, his teacher made him meditate on being pregnant himself, so he could appreciate what a woman goes through to give birth. But, being such a hard working and diligent student, his teacher would often find him knocking on the door and crying about this at night. And his Root Lama, being disturbed from his sleep, finally took him off this visualization because when he would ask Rinpoche why he was crying, Tulku would say, “ I can’t sleep, the baby is kicking too much!”

There is no doubt in my mind that my Perfect Teacher sees all beings as his mother and perhaps the entire Cosmos as the ‘Mother of all Buddhas.’ But, then there is me.

A guy who once, sitting on the couch with my Lama discussing these things, pressed the ‘ignore’ button on my cell phone because my mom was calling and interrupting our nice visit. I can still remember the look on his face when I said, “It’s just my mom, she’ll call back later, now, tell me more about these ‘Mother-Beings’.”

The thing about it is I am good at seeing the homeless folks that I work with as my previous mothers, and I’m getting better at seeing the people who cut me off in traffic as my previous mothers, and I’m working really hard to stop calling anybody who disagrees with me a ‘Mother!’

But when it comes to my own real mother, a woman who has never done me any harm or said anything deeper to me than, “You want a sandwich?” or “You want some cake?”, she is the very one that I can’t seem to muster up compassion for. It’s not that she hasn’t been a very caring mother; it’s just that, I don’t know her and can’t seem to know her. She had a very abusive childhood, married young to an alcoholic; and she has been full of anxiety, overcome with fear, and doom ridden ever since.

She is the kind of person that never stops moving. Even with Parkinson’s disease and poor health, when she can’t walk, she stands in one spot swaying back and forth, nervously. Mom seems on the verge of panic at all times, and I’ve fantasized about sneaking up behind her and saying, ‘Boo!’ But then I realize that it would require much effort to get her off the ceiling.

So, I am more than happy to let everyone be my ‘Mother-Being’, but I must view them as I do my own mother. All these beings are panicked, confused, worried, troubled, in decline, and like it or not, in need of my help.

Whether I cuss the whole way there, or not, I do go fix my mom’s DVD Player every time she calls. And I do eat her sandwich and cake, and make small talk.  I do whatever is asked of me, again and again. There is no choice. This woman is my mother, I am her son. It’s not a “maybe, maybe not” decision, it just goes without saying, I come when she calls and do what needs to be done.

So, here I am surrounded by ‘Mothers’, all sometimes, a pain in my ass. But not helping is not an option.

I’m getting closer, Lama, don’t give up on me.