My firstborn reads some really interesting books at school. I often find myself reading them and thinking that I wish I had had the chance to read, discuss and make sense of books like these at his age. They all focus around that oft-mis-quoted saying: What you think, you say, what you say you do, what you do, you become. The next time you think of something, you are laying the seeds for the action. Acting creates the habit and you lay down pathways in your brain – samskaras or habitual neuronal pathways.
The book he is reading now, called Wonder, is about a boy who is different. His difference manifests in his facial features being upsetting enough that people are disturbed by his appearance. The book is about August’s transition from homeschool into 5th grade. The author wrote it as an exploration of her feelings about this after seeing a child like August (the main character) with her children and her not being comfortable with the response that both she and her kids had (cry and leave).
What this book does well is to introduce little rules for living, or precepts as they are called in this book. These include: “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind;” & “…Your deeds are like your monuments. Built with memories instead of with stone.”
The third precept that my son mentioned is this: “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses,” (A. Lincoln), which is all about the importance of focusing on the positive – you have the power to change you mind. This notion was deeply explored in the first book my son read this semester which was called Hatchet and detailed this 13 year old boys personal journey of finding himself, as a result of a plane crash and his drive to survive for over a month using his own skills. What struck me about this book was how he the author gave a very good description of how to work with your mind – what we practice in meditation on a daily basis. What do I need to focus on, where is my mind going, these sorts of thoughts are not helpful and so on & how to rise about the fear & loneliness. The message from this book was that you have the power to change your own mind.
These precepts move my son deeply and introduce ways of interacting with the world that are grounded in Yoga, in a way that makes sense to him. They focus on looking for gratitude – and the power we have to change the way we think about the world. That being kind – the Golden Rule – if you will, has great power in this world and that what you do, every day, however great or mundane effects those around you as well as yourself. He mentions them constantly and has written them down for my quotation wall. Grounded in the book, these precepts make sense to him in the way that they might not if I just lobbed them out at him as a precepts for him to live by and allow us to start the conversations about how to engage in the world in a really meaningful way. Keep reading and talking to your kids!
©Tamsin Astor-Jack, Yoga Brained LLC