October 27, 2014 Monday Afternoon, Geneva Retreat
Being with Aging as It Is, Finding the Gifts in Aging
Aaron: Once again I greet you in love and in light. We have an hour and a half to do what we had suggested we would do in 2 ½ hours. We’ll leave some of it out, giving you some of the exercises that you can do yourselves.
Let’s start with a question: who and what ages? Look at an infant, one day old. Twenty-four hours later, two days old, doubled in age, just like that. At what point do we look at someone and think, “Oh, they are old.”? And yet, I’m sure you each know people old in years who are so young in the heart, who have so much delight in life, are playful and active. Think about those people who seem to suffer most from their aging. They are not necessarily the ones who are the oldest. They are the ones who are suffering most because they cannot let go into things as they are.
My original plan was to have Barbara speak to you, but that’s one of the things we’ve cut out. So I’ll sum up what she was going to say very briefly. Some of you have read her bookCosmic Healing. In the opening chapters she talks about losing her hearing and how terrifying it was, how painful it was. When I came to her she was so caught in grasping, “I must hear. I need to hear,” rather than simply investigating the experience of not hearing. What is not hearing?
You have sense organs: ear, nose, eye, tongue, body that touches, and the mind; they each touch an object. When the eye makes contact with an object, seeing consciousness arises. When the ear touches an object, hearing consciousness arises. When the mind touches an object, depending on whether it’s a memory or a plan or a judgment, judging consciousness or planning consciousness or remembering arises. When the object passes away, it’s no longer predominant in your experience.
Do you hear everything that goes past you? There is a lot of background sound. How many of you can remember if you heard a bird when you awakened this morning? Was it likely there was a bird singing, but you may not have heard it? Because mind was immediately someplace else. So while the ear organ was intact and the sound was there, there was no hearing consciousness. Attention must be directed toward that object. Then the object passes away. It’s all impermanent.
Some things that arise are pleasant, some are unpleasant, and some are neutral. When it’s pleasant, you want more of it. “Oh, a plate of nuts and candy! Oh, good!” Some things are unpleasant. “Get this away!” Some things are neutral and don’t hold your attention much at all.
So we have contact, consciousness, and the feeling about it, and then you either go out to it because it’s pleasant or you pull back from it because it’s unpleasant. But liking and disliking are not directly related to what’s happening externally in this moment, but to what is happening in you. Let me say that differently. What’s happening in you IS happening in this moment, but it has little to do with the object. It has to do with your own old long-held beliefs, opinions, judgments, and so forth.
In your culture there is a strong judgment against aging. Nobody wants to be limited in their capacities, but certainly you all know it happens. The body will age. Your body strengths will diminish. Your mental strengths will diminish. This is how the body is.
So Barbara had such a strong feeling, “Ishould be able to hear. If only I do something right, I’ll be able to hear. What did I do wrong to punish me so I can’t hear?” I simply said to her, “Can you just be present not hearing? What is the experience of not hearing?” She realized mostly it was unpleasant mostly because of the grasping, “I want to hear,” and the feeling, “If I don’t hear, I’m isolated. I’m cut out of what’s happening.” But she had a son whose band practiced in their basement room adjacent to the room she used as an office and meditation room, a hundred decibels roaring with only a flimsy wall divider. She could feel the floor shake sometimes, but it certainly did not interrupt her meditation. I asked her, “Is it unpleasant not to be able to hear?” She would go in and see them all playing and, “Yes, I really would like to hear them.” But after a few minutes she was ready to go back to her office and meditate again. “Do you miss not hearing them now?” No. Starting to see that not hearing is just not hearing.
Now let’s talk about the various capacities that diminish as you age. There are a few younger ones of you here, but I would guess for most of you have found yourself growing a bit more forgetful, yes? Even the younger ones may find yourselves more forgetful. I’d guess many of you have aches and pains you didn’t have ten years ago. Can you climb a tree as you could ten years ago? Can you run as fast?
You can dwell on what you have lost, thinking, “Oh, why me?” But you can also choose to move your attention to that which is positive for you. The body can’t run as fast. It sits still more. What do you notice in that stillness? Are you able to be more present now that you can’t get up and run around? Some of you still get up and run around, I know.
What I’m after here is to invite you to look at the gifts that you receive from this process of slowing down, and that you can enhance the gifts by slowing down in a compassionately way rather than saying, “It’s not fair.”
For much of her life, Barbara’s truly greatest joy in life was to canter a horse across a meadow, or down a beautiful wooded path through an autumn woods,. She was an excellent rider, she trained horses, and she loved to ride in the autumn. Every autumn, craving starts to come up. “Oh, if only…” And she starts to think, “Oh, how can I replicate this?” This year she was thinking, “Maybe I could find a horse and carriage, a horse and buggy, and go for a horse and buggy ride.”
I asked her to simply go out on her back deck, and instead of thinking about the beautiful wooded trail she can’t ride down, to feel the immense gratitude for the great colors of her backyard. She has a big yard, lots of trees, very colorful, very beautiful, very private.
She had not been meditating as much as usual, because of the pain of loss and sadness that was coming up. So I emphasized with her the importance of being honest with herself about the loss, because only when she was honest with herself about that could she also be honest with herself about the joy, and what was really an enhanced ability to experience that joy, that beauty.
How many of you have paused for more than 5 or 10 minutes in a wooded place in the past week?(a few hands raised) Only a few, considering how many of you there are. And yet this is the season of all that colorful beauty. How many of you gave the story, “I’m too busy. Next week I’ll do it.”? You’re aging–next week may never come. Do it today. In fact I’m tempted to cut short my talk and all of the teaching I was going to do this afternoon and simply send you all outside in silence to enjoy this beautiful day.
Amy, is there a path that goes to the lake, and is it accessible?
Amy: There is a lookout that is accessible, and then stairs down to the beach. (directions)
Aaron: So we’ll talk here for a while, but instead of the exercises I had planned to do, I’m going to invite you all– because the weather forecast is for cloudy tomorrow– I want to get you out there to enjoy this beauty.
The exercise I wanted to do with you was focused on letting go. What supports letting go of grasping, of clinging, of fear, of the old stories, “Poor me. Not fair.”? What invites you into the already present open heart? How deeply can you experience that loving heart and let yourself rest in it? What supports that? Gratitude is one thing. Feeling deep gratitude for simply being alive in this moment, with this body that doesn’t work the way it did when you were 10 years old. But it still works. If nothing else, you can at least get to the lookout and look out over the lake. All of you can see. All of you but Barbara can hear the waves. You can see the colors, the light, and the water.
Sit on that observation deck or down on the beach. Meditate and feel the elements. The sea in front of you, vast lake. The sand. The wind, the sun. Meditate with joy and gratitude for how much you have been given.
I want you to look at that which feels unwhole, aging, broken, “not as good as I was,” and any sadness or resentment about that. And the sadness is honest. You’re not trying to get rid of the sadness, but simply to remember what you have–not the diminished capacities, but the capacities that remain. How wonderful it is that you can see, can walk, can hear. Or if you can’t hear, you can see. If you can’t walk, you can be pushed in a wheelchair. You’re still mobile. You’re alive! What a gift!
It is this wisdom that leads you into becoming a compassionate and wise elder. Blessing what you have. Each time mind turns to, “Oh, but I don’t have this,” just note it. Note any sadness. Not pushing the sadness away. That which is aware of sadness is not sad. Resting in this loving heart that truly knows joy, even in this moment of pain.
I would like you to reflect on letting go. What does it mean to let go? One of the exercises I was going to do with you, and for those of you who make it out to the platform or to the beach, I’d like you to try it with each other. Just find a partner. Person A, close their eyes. Person B, take their hand and lead them. Or you can do it as a threesome, A with eyes closed, B and C holding A’s hands. Person A with the eyes closed, watch resistance. What allows you to let go and trust? Trust your partner that they’re not going to lead you off into deep water in Lake Michigan or off a bluff. Trusting. Opening your heart and being with things as they are.
How does it feel to not see? What is the fear that comes? It’s part of aging. Your hearing may diminish, your vision may diminish; how does it feel? Can you trust to allow yourself to be guided? What enhances trust? What diminishes trust? It’s the same trust that will allow you in your later years to trust your life and move ahead with things as they are.
I’ll speak here for a minute of Barbara’s mother, who passed on this last summer at age 97. Until just a few weeks before her death, she was walking with her walker. She was laughing and smiling and enjoying her friends at meals, talking on the telephone, watching television; enjoying her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She had an immense zest for life.
Barbara asked her once, do you ever feel depressed that you no longer can do the things that you could 10 or 15 years ago? Remember, 97, we’re talking about things you could do at 82 or 87. And she said, “No, because there’s still so much I can do. I love life.” What allows you to nurture this in yourself, this true zest for living? This true gratitude and enjoyment?
Coming back to letting go. We’re speaking here of letting go of all the stories, “I wanted to.” “It’s not fair. I wanted to be able to canter across a pasture one more time. I wanted to be able to climb a tree.” Barbara and John were in a Thai restaurant last night and there was a statue of an elephant. She said, “I always wanted to ride an elephant. I guess I never will.” And then she thought about it and she said, “Well, that’s okay. I’ve ridden horses. Maybe if I need to ride an elephant, next time I’ll come back and ride an elephant. For now, I can just be content.”
Life is so filled with riches. And if you say, “I must have this one,” you forget to pay attention to that one. What are you forgetting to pay attention to because you’re grasping at something else? What sadness and resentment are you dwelling in?
So I’d like you to try this exercise. I’m going to ask two of you to stand up here, one of you with eyes closed. R, I want you to just lead her around in a circle a little bit… (leads her in circle) Thank you. That’s what I want you to do. And then stop and talk about it. How did it feel? If it was scary, it’s okay that it was scary. If it was fun, wonderful that it was fun. Were you able to let go of that immediate fear? As you started, I saw you tense, just for a moment, and you let go of it so quickly and started to laugh. What supports letting go?
(Aaron gets a game, Jenga, from a box?) I said I would invite you to do some of these things on your own. Barbara has two sets of this. Have any of you ever played this game? What I’d like you to do is, we’ll put it on the table there. It’s okay if the two sets get mixed up. Take blocks and build it as high as you can. Watch the intention to build it high. Watch any tension, “One more block…” It’s a good idea to do it with a partner, or many partners: one person, second person, third person, so it’s not just you. And you feel a sense of, “If I’m the one who makes it topple, I’ll be disappointing my partners.” Pausing, all three of you, hold hands. Breathe. See if you can find that spaciousness. Are the instructions clear?
(pause, Aaron retrieves another game from the box?)
These can go out on a table. The same thing with these. You can either try to make it into the cube it’s meant to fit into, or you can just stack as blocks. What I want you to watch is tension. “I’ve almost got it. I’ve only one more block to put on. Can I get it on?” Crash! And of course it’s a game. It’s different when your life crashes than when a pile of blocks crashes. But I want you simply to be aware of tension. And pause: breathing in, I am aware of the tension; breathing out, I smile at the tension. Then present with that which is free of tension, right there with the tension.
Life is a game. It’s a serious game, yes, but it’s a game. Play it with joy! You’re not meant to get it perfect. Nobody’s asking you to stack 150 blocks on top of each other. You only believe that’s what you’re supposed to do.
So, we’re going to stop now. Thank you and I will talk to you all after dinner. I’ll be happy to hear what you experienced. Enjoy the beach. I think Barbara will go there, too.