Impermanence–anicca–is one of the three characteristics of existence, according to Buddhist teachings. I have been thinking a lot about anicca, and as far as I can tell, it can be summed up with the mantra “the more things change, the more they stay the same…”

I hung out yesterday with Debbie, a new friend who is also a meditation teacher and lived as a nun in Burma. Our babies were born two days apart. She has such interesting and heretical views on motherhood. At some point during our visit I babbled on and on about how different my life is, how everything has changed since I had Sami, how I look at my life in a “before” and “after way.”

“Really?” she said, “I don’t think things are so different. Yes, my life has changed, but in superficial ways. And everything’s always changing anyways.”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that she was right. Yes, Sami is here, and most of my time is spent caring for him rather than doing my own thing. But I’m still the same self-centered person I was, in many ways. Most of my concerns about Sami are not really about him, but about me. What am I doing wrong? How am I failing as a mother? This is basically the same pattern I’ve always had — anxious, relentlessly self-critical. I’m what they call an aversive personality type. That is not to say that I am not changing at the same time.

My friend Vicki told me that dharma teacher Joseph Goldstein calls this constant self-evaluation (usually negative) the “defilement of conceit,” and assured her that it is one of the last to go before arahatship. So I may be closer to enlightenment than I thought– ha! He told her in an interview not to take all that mind-stuff personally. I love that: don’t take your mind personally…

Here is a change: I am through with the experts. No more lactation consultants. I’m done. I’ll take those $85/hour fees and buy a new sling or add them to Sami’s therapy fund. (OK, I will still read Dr. Sears — I love him.) Here are the objective measures I will be concerned with: is my son gaining enough weight? Is he peeing and pooping? Is he meeting developmental milestones within a rough time frame? And that’s it.

The experts have all been helpful in some way, but I think I am actually ready to let go and try to start really trusting that Sami and I are OK. I think all the changes that they have suggested are to make life easier for me — such as “cut him off after a 45-minute feeding.” I just can’t do that. I think he must need to nurse all the time for some good reason, unbeknownst to me. I mean, it takes him an hour to finish a 2 ounce bottle! The kid is just a conaisseur, he likes to savor his meals. He sure didn’t turn out like his dad, Mr. Wolf-it-Down, in that regard. Anyway, he won’t be nursing around the clock by the time he is in college. Everything changes, right?