Margaret is downstairs making coffee and breakfast for Jim and the kids. Jim wakes to the giggles of his young children, tugging on him to play. He tosses them in the air, big smiles on their faces as they bounce off the mattress, tickling and roughhousing they joyfully begin their day.

Mom calls up the stairs that breakfast is almost ready and it’s time to set the table.

Everyone scrambles downstairs and into the kitchen to the smell of home made waffles. They all pitch in to set the dishes on the table, grab the milk and orange juice and sit down to eat. The breakfast conversation is easy and everyone is eager to participate in this delightful family ritual.

Happy, smiling parents and siblings working together to create a family life we all dream of. Those were the days, or at least I like to think that there were days like that.

Fast forward nearly sixty years to the rush and hurry of modern life where convenience and instant gratification are the new paradigm. Breakfast, what breakfast? And coffee, well that’s something yah grab at the convenience store, or if you’re lucky your local ‘Dunkin Donuts’. We don’t have a ‘Dunkin Donuts’ near our house, so I settle for the almost warm jolt of my local Circle J’s coffee, jump in my car and speed off to work.

As I travel down the road not fully engaged with the task at hand (driving), it occurs to me that once again I didn’t get up early enough to meditate.

I try to shake off the disappointed feeling with a little self directed love and kindness, but it just doesn’t do the trick.

My mind goes over all the excuses, searching desperately for the reason for my undisciplined transgression. Maybe I didn’t sleep well with all the pressure and demands of my job, or maybe it was the hangover from the millionth argument with my ‘So much smarter than me’ teenage daughter about why it’s not ok for her to sneak out the window.

The life of a monk cries out to me, ahh to live in a cave somewhere in Tibet with only my thoughts and the odd moon bear to distract me.

Returning from this fantasy, my mind begins to question how productive such a simple life would be. After many years of living alone and recently getting married to a woman with three children of her own, I’m not sure it would benefit me.

It certainly was easy to believe that I had achieved a higher level of peace until the chaos of our new lives together began to unfold. It’s amazing how easily the mind is convinced of an illusion. The fact that conflict was not as present in my life had me believing I had become better at managing it. This confusion in my mind was quickly remedied with the help of several raucous teenagers.

I’m really not complaining, I realize how wonderful my hectic life is, how wonderful all the distractions are. The opportunity to work with my stuff is very exciting to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to sit back, relax and enjoy the ambiance of the 50’s; blame our crazy, out-of-control society for my inability to discipline my own mind.

But maybe there has never been a better time to be a Buddhist, maybe ‘now’ with all of it’s distraction, hatred, and self gratification, is the best time to actualize patience, tolerance, and compassion. Maybe now is when emptiness is most evident.

So I stop struggling, stop pushing back all the annoyances of my modern life and breathe.

Breathe it all in, feel the pangs throughout my body, watch the anger and resentment bounce around my mind. I look at all the drama I created feeling guilty for not meditating, smiling at the idea that my reason for meditation is to feel peace.

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