Happy Baby

Whether success or failure: the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention. ~ May Sarton

Neil deGrasse Tyson was a recent guest on one of my favorite podcasts, Making Sense with Sam Harris. The episode was called Are We Alone in the Universe? Early in the show, deGrasse noted how the deepest sources of curiosity that exist within humans fire on all cylinders when we’re children. “With a kid,” he said, “every day, it’s: ‘What’s that? What’s that flower? Why is this? Why is that?’”

I often think about this innate curiosity, so his comments struck a chord with me. But it hadn’t dawned on me to put it in the context of paying attention until I started to write this post. Of course! That’s exactly what children do! Babies stare at faces with fascination. Toddlers stop at every dandelion. Preschoolers run and shout as they explore movement and find their voices. The hyper-attention of these children brings them delight in their discoveries, and (unless we’re hurrying them along), we adults can’t help but grin at their capacity for delight.

Unfortunately, our childlike curiosity tends to wane as we grow, but I guess that makes sense: paying potent attention to every face and flower might be essential for learning and growth in young children, but it would leave us adults little time for anything else.

Yet think about the adults you know who tend to be more curious, more mindful, and more delighted in “ordinary” things like flowers and facial nuances. Their capacity for wonder makes their lives rich and meaningful, whether, as Sarton notes in the above quote, “success or failure.” And, like a child’s, the capacity for delight in these adults is contagious. 

But it’s not just what you pay attention to, it’s how. I took a break from writing this post to run to the dump and buy groceries, chores I do weekly and often mindlessly. But because I had this essay on my mind, I paid attention to the cantaloupe I was buying: its texture, its smell, its round shape, the fact that I simply had to reach into a bin, grab one, and it was mine. I thought with gratitude about the forces and hands that brought that cantaloupe to my table. I did the same thing driving home: I noted the smoothness of the pavement, the visibility and clarity of the directional signs, the summer foliage, the blending of nature and culture.

There’s a lot of talk in Buddhist thought about practicing mindfulness while washing the dishes. “Wash the dishes to wash the dishes,” writes Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in Zen Mind, Beginners Mind.

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh pretty much says the same thing in his book, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation:

“Wash the dishes as though each bowl were an object of contemplation. Consider each bowl as sacred. Do not hurry to get the job over with. Consider washing the dishes the most important thing in life.”

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

To what and how do you pay attention? What if you allowed that focus to inspire a capacity for delight in others while rocking your own happy baby?