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A Buddhist Approach to Aging Well
DaltheJigsaw
Mountain View Veteran
This March I turned 64 -- one year away from Medicare, two years away from Social Security. So there it is: I'm a baby boomer, a Buddhist, and one individual face to face with his own aging. But I'm not alone. Each day and every day for the next twenty years, 10,000 boomers will turn 65. This is a fact with enormous implications for our politics, our society -- and, I believe, our spiritual life.
Forty years ago, when my Buddhist teacher Shunryu Suzuki was in his mid-sixties and the students around him were mostly in their 20s and 30s, someone asked him, "Why do we meditate?" He replied, "So you can enjoy your old age." We all laughed and thought he was joking. Now that I am the age he was then, I realize he wasn't joking at all. Some aspects of growing old can be hard to enjoy, and a spiritual practice can definitely help. This isn't just theory; the Handbook of Religion and Health by Koenig et al. presents research showing that people who have a regular religious attendance or practice live, on average, 7 years longer than those who do not. That research result is even more significant when we remember that for the first time in human history, people will be living in relative good health into their 70s, 80s, and even 90s. What are we all going to do with that extra gift of time?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lewis-richmond/elderhood-buddhist-aging_b_879850.html
Forty years ago, when my Buddhist teacher Shunryu Suzuki was in his mid-sixties and the students around him were mostly in their 20s and 30s, someone asked him, "Why do we meditate?" He replied, "So you can enjoy your old age." We all laughed and thought he was joking. Now that I am the age he was then, I realize he wasn't joking at all. Some aspects of growing old can be hard to enjoy, and a spiritual practice can definitely help. This isn't just theory; the Handbook of Religion and Health by Koenig et al. presents research showing that people who have a regular religious attendance or practice live, on average, 7 years longer than those who do not. That research result is even more significant when we remember that for the first time in human history, people will be living in relative good health into their 70s, 80s, and even 90s. What are we all going to do with that extra gift of time?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lewis-richmond/elderhood-buddhist-aging_b_879850.html
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Comments
Thank you!
My father passed away this year and was cremated on my birthday (but I was unable to attend due to a hurricane). Yesterday, his brother, my uncle, was buried, on my sister's birthday.
At the grave site, as all mourned placing flowers on the coffin (my poor mother broke down the most of all, crying out loud: "Bye Cecil, Good-bye Cecil"), I was chanting quietly to myself:
"Sankharam paramam dukkham: Fabricating is the supreme suffering"
"Nibbanam paramam sukkham: Nibbana (non-fabricating) is the supreme ease"
If our mind can know the peace of non-fabricating, then life will be lived with ease and death will not be something unknown, frightening & distasteful.
The end of fabricating is peace.
Best wishes
that mantra could be great for a headstone.
Not “about aging well” but about feeling unwanted.
(I mean; I know what I can do in support of my physical and mental wellbeing: keeping a good diet, exercising, remaining active, and yes, also meditating.)
I’m unwanted now.
My employer would rather see me go and replace me with someone who’s twenty-five years younger. He tells me so.
Every other company would rather hire the younger guy, though.
Age simply is a factor on the market and it works against me.
And nobody wants me to retire any time soon.
Politics is working hard to raise the age for retirement; in order to reduce the costs of an aging population.
My pension fund is not going to be happy to see me “aging well”.
Much of the political debate is about the costs of aging population.
The costs of pensions and the cost of medical care are about to explode.
I am (or soon I will be) in the way. I am walking and driving too slow and I am holding up traffic. I am (or soon will be) a burden too society; taking resources without contributing.
I don’t look forward to being in this position.
The way I deal with it is to focus on the logistics of whatever I am doing. If I am making toast I make the toast. If I am thinking it is JUST thinking. If I am sad then I am sad and I try to do something nice to take my mind off of it. Like toast with butter and sugar.
I don't know whats going to happen to me when my parents pass away and I am mentally ill. It is important to make some planning but for the most part I need to be where I am now and tomorrow I will wherever I am then.
The story I always liked was the one about the old Zen teacher who was dying. One of his students came to him and asked, "Would you like to say any last words." And the teacher replied, "Yes. I am afraid of dying." The student was taken aback. Here was a man who had devoted his life to matters of birth and death and the best he could do was to be scared. The student expressed his surprise. The teacher looked at him sadly: "You don't
understand," he said. "I am afraid of dying really. I am afraid of dying ... really!"
The aches and pains, the slowing down, the loneliness, the illnesses, the medicine chest filling with prescriptions ... it's all enough to piss off the pope from time to time. But it also has the effect of making what has passed for spiritual endeavor more down-to-earth. No need for chipper, up-beat encouragements. No need for dutiful regurgitations of wisdom. This ... is ... it ... just as it always has been.
Pretty kool.
I hear you. I am in a similar place. Chronically ill, still working (for which I am thankful!), but sometimes have to work when I am not well enough to, money is very tight and the government is reducing my pension even further while also increasing the retirement age. I won't carry on because I've posted enough on my own thread. But the advice that my spiritual life is one that I can live fully and without anxiety is very helpful to me!
May all beings be well and happy!