By Mushim Ikeda

Everyone who attended our wedding has remarked at what a happy, intimate, relaxed, and welcoming atmosphere it was. I think this was because so many friends helped make it happen— the feeling of community was very strong. We chanted a Metta Meditation near the end of the ceremony, and even people for whom this was a first exposure to Buddhism were chanting vigorously!

A week before the ceremony, my son Joshua, who had been apprehensive about "losing" me, said, "Mom, I want you to get married. Getting married is interbeing." After making this spontaneous announcement, he seemed happy and accepting from then on. I was interested in how he had reached this conclusion on his own, at the age of four. It's another example of how Thay's teachings really do make sense to children, and help all of us in our everyday lives.

I have been proofreading for Parallax Press for five years now. It's been wonderful watching the line of books grow and expand into new areas, and the work has provided a Buddhist education for me which I could not have received otherwise. Integrating the work with taking care of a household and young child is a challenge for which my monastic experience was excellent preparation. Making peanut butter toast and picking up Legos may have replaced scraping wax off the altar and morning prostrations, but it is only the next step in the adventure.

Mushim Ikeda, a former nun in the Korean Buddhist tradition, is an editor, proofreader, and mom living in Oakland, California.