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Buddhist Insights for

Modern Parents

By Andrea Miller

Andrea Miller is the editor of Lion’s Roar magazine Benny: You are from Canada where Buddhism is not
and the author of Awakening My Heart: Essays, a significant religion. What got you into Buddhism
Articles, and Interviews on the Buddhist Life as well initially?
as the picture books The Day the Buddha Woke Up
and My First Book of Canadian Birds. She’s also the Andrea: I first learned about Buddhism in university
editor of several anthologies: Buddha’s Daughters: when I took a class called “Chinese and Japanese
Teachings from Women Who Are Shaping Buddhism Religions.” Funnily enough, of all the religions we covered
in the West, Right Here with You: Bringing Mindful in that class, Buddhism struck me as the least appealing.
Awareness into Our Relationships; and All the Rage: Looking back, I can see that my lack of interest mostly
Buddhism Wisdom on Anger and Acceptance. Miller had to do with how the professor was framing it. I was
getting stuck on Siddhartha’s period of asceticism and the
holds an MFA in creative writing and undergraduate first noble truth, “there is suffering.” I didn’t want to hear
degrees in journalism and English literature. about suffering! I wanted spiritual bliss!
Before joining Lion’s Roar, she taught English
as an additional language in Mexico, Korea, and A handful of years later, an acquaintance gave me a
Japan. Now, she lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, with copy of the Shambhala Sun; which was what Lion’s Roar
her husband and two children. When not reading, was called at that time. I immediately fell in love with
writing, or editing, she enjoys cooking, travelling, the magazine and the dharma. I saw that Buddhism
and hiking. She sits on the board for CrossCurrents, wasn’t the stodgy thing I’d thought it was. It’s actually
a socially conscious, interreligious journal. revolutionary. Normal human society is dead set on

grasping for the desirable, pushing away what is not,
Benny Liow corresponded with Andrea and invited and attempting to solidify the self, and it’s this modus
her for an on-line interview regarding how she operandi that causes our suffering. In contrast, the
practices the Dharma as a lay Buddhist, the buddhadharma gives us a radically different perspective
relevance of mindfulness for young children and and points the way to true freedom and happiness.
teens, her role as a young Buddhist parent, and her
recent book Awakening My Heart.