Ageing and Ahimsa
Someone asked Woody Allen what he thought about growing older and he said: "I find it a lousy deal. There is no advantage to getting older." Raising some laughs, he adds: "I'm 74 now and you don't get smarter, you don't get wiser, you don't get more mellow, you don't get more kindly - nothing happens. But your back hurts more, you get more indigestion, your eyesight isn't as good and you need a hearing aid. It's a bad business getting older and I would advise you not to do it if you can avoid it."
Similarly, a student once asked Shunryu Suzuki: “Why do we meditate?” and he answered: “So you can enjoy your old age.”
To me this illustrates the differences between our Western and conventional way of seeing ageing and how our practice can become more relevant and valuable as we age. It shows me why growing older can be one of our biggest challenges - being (subconsciously or otherwise) influenced by media, we automatically fall into thinking of ageing from a Western culture point of view. The media doesn't show ageing as a positive; no one celebrates old age in our culture, in fact often older people are gently ridiculed and portrayed as being frumpy and grumpy: ineffectual, behind the times, sickly and miserly.
At the same time I see how our meditation practice comes into its own as our Zen practice provides us with the ability to look at things from the opposite point of view, encouraging us to transform our discomfort or dissatisfaction into something positive.
Zen practice offers us an interesting perspective on ageing, working with the view that our entire life is a preparation for old age. It offers us an opportunity step away from the self-absorption of our younger years - and all the anxieties and stress that comes along with that. We have time to become gently at ease with ourself and soften into the world we live in.
One of the practices we learn while sitting is to work with present moment awareness and using that to transform our experience. And if we are going to make an art of growing older, we do need to practice this skill and learn to apply it. This can be difficult because it’s not necessarily always comfortable. Living in a world with a “fix-me-quick mentality”, many people depend on others to provide instant and external solutions to our problems, so our first response to ageing is not usually to turn inwards and look at the process. Getting older can be very uncomfortable because it challenges our self identity. Perhaps forced into retirement, no longer earning, or suffering from failing health, we no longer feel in full control of our life. It also exposes many of our fears, which is at the heart of our suffering.
Of course it's difficult to sit with the idea of ageing - or anything we prefer to ignore - because we each have our favourite evasions when something pushes our buttons. Often it’s finding something to lay the blame on: “Oh, this big problem out there.” Or in the case of full blown denial I can use the hackneyed example of buying a faster, sporty car and trading in our partner for someone younger, which shouts: “I’m not really old at all!”. Anger projected on the world in general might be a grumpy comment, complaining about “the young people of today”.
Meditation sittings offers us a very practical point of view or skill so we don't fall into those categories. To be at ease with ageing, we first need to identify and define what it is that makes us feel uncomfortable. There might be more than one thing. This applies to anything we wrestle with, not only facing old age. Once we have identified what bothers us, we need to remember that our sitting practice trains us to realise directly that it’s not the difficult feeling itself, but how we experience those difficult feelings, what it feels like in the mind, which is our problem.
Some people find it difficult to make the distinction between the two: the difficult feelings and how we experience those difficult feelings. It may seem nit-picky, but it's a really important distinction, and we can use it to help us through difficult times. It's definitely worthwhile trying to find a direct understanding of it. The distinction between pain and suffering from pain is described in the ancient writings like this:
“When afflicted with a feeling of pain those who lack inner awareness, they grieve and lament, beating their breasts and becoming distraught. So they feel two pains, physical and mental. It is just like being shot with an arrow, and right afterwards being shot with a second one, so that they feel two arrows."
It is our mind which creates the second arrow of pain. We often forget that we don't always have to follow our minds, even if it shouts loudly, but if we are not trained in controlling our mind, we may not know how to stop listening to its shouting. We do ourselves an unkindness by not learning to control a mind which stampedes like an elephant.
And kindness towards ourself is important. Ahimsa. It can be translated variously as non-injury, respect for all living things and avoidance of violence towards others. Or kindness.
"Our Meditation practice grows out of Ahimsa spirit. It’s a central expression of our practice. And the application of meditation and Ahimsa to ageing is another example of ahimsa spirit: our fragile bodies and minds are worthy of our greatest kindness. To respect our ageing at every stage is the greatest kindness we can offer ourselves."
When religious leader and peace activist, Thích Nhất Hạnh, was once asked to summarise the Buddhist teachings in one word, he said "Ahimsa". It’s one of the first precepts of Buddhism and also central to yoga practice. The 14th Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, means the same thing when he says “My religion is kindness”. Shunryu Suzuki said “When you realise everything is connected, when you feel the oneness in everything, naturally you don’t want to harm anything.
As practitioners, I believe we can see ageing differently to how it is conventionally seen and experienced. It’s our age which opens us up to our practice and it’s potential: we have weathered our storms, we gain a strength from that, we can appreciate how complex and unexpected life can be, we soften, we become more tolerant, (hopefully) have more wisdom, which we probably didn’t have when we were younger, and hopefully can look at growing older and the world around us with a sense of humour.
Instead of thinking of being old as being a negative, trying to cover it up, we could be proud of our age, celebrating having lived this long, using and sharing everything we’ve learnt and achieved.
Metta
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