Fading

Graceful and natural aging in Western industrial culture has been corrupted by commerce and the pharma-medical industry. Hedonism has ruled the day. From Joan Rivers to Nip-Tuck, neurosis about aging has evolved into mindless and vacuous self-mutilation in the wealthier classes. This is occurring in a society which begrudges basic medical care for everyone. In fact, the same tax-evading seniors who are spending fortunes on growth hormone and plastic surgery resent supporting government programs to end porverty and provide a basic social net for all people in the society. This is narcissism of the worst kind, plain and simple.

I have come to see my own experience of aging as a gentle and appreciable fading of many of the urges and impulses which made my former life so complicated and frought with struggle. By accepting age and letting go of these habitually perceived necessities, my life has become simpler, calmer and less stressful.

The key to this method of aging is embracing the changes, physical and emotional (also physical in the sense of hormonal), which are inevitable, despite any measures taken to fend them off. For me, this does not entail letting myself go to pot, by any means. In fact, I exercise more regularly than ever, but more gently. I set goals and projects for myself daily, but I do so realistically with my most basic needs at the top of the list.

The Middle Path entails balancing these seemingly contradictory concepts and actions. The Western mind thinks in dichotomy. It is best to reject this mode of thinking , if you wish to age well. One must learn to think inclusively with an acceptance that many things, some contradictory, can be happening at the same time to achieve balance and wisdom.

Letting go, fading gracefully, is the key to dignified aging in my opinion. This is a keystone of my practice.

Heat

The sudden onset of hot days in the high 80s and low 90s is an opportunity to feel and understand the automatic systems that really keep our bodies alive. We do not 'think' our bodies alive, as much as we like to take credit for our state of being. Turn off your mind by lying down in comfortable and quiet place. You can then tune into what is really happening within the complex cellular machine you usually take for granted.

Learning to find the balance of working within and with the body's machinery is what wellness is all about. It is not easy, if you have been raised in an urban, industrial society. It is worth the effort.

Gardening

A garden can be created in a 12-inch pot.

The point of gardening is gardening. It is practice. Design a space for the garden. Plant seeds or seedlings. Tend them. Meditate upon them. Watch them flourish. Watch them mature. Watch them die back in Winter.

The garden is a simple and accessible lesson about life on Earth. The good gardener holds the precious understanding of happy labor, beauty, ecology and the transitory nature of all life.

Possession

Possession is always a two-way process. There is no possession of goods without a reciprocal possession by goods. This is the essence of Buddhist admonitions about materialism. It is a core precept lost entirely by Christianity. It has little historic correlation in Judaism. Islam preaches a socialism, pertaining to possessions, which is never concretely followed in Islamic cultures. The economic divide between rich and poor in all cultures permeated with these religions is a glaring indictment of the messages of those religions, as they pertain to greed and possessions.

Buddhism (the core sutra philosophy, not the cultural religious forms) advises a realistic approach to possession. Detachment entails the constant mindful understanding that all things and beings are transitory, illusory. Liberated consciousness, that mental energy that supersedes its origins in personality through practice and meditation, enables its source to be detached from all possessions and ties to the material world.

Detachment is an acquired skill, in other words. As someone who recently bought new appliances, I can attest to the seduction of shiny new things. However, I have been struggling with remaining detached from these machines, despite their efficiency and time-saving benefits. Remaining detached from people is much more difficult, of course. To love unselfishly, to be compassionate and to be detached simultaneously are the skills of a Buddha. Perhaps this is beyond the capacity of most, if not all, human beings.

Practice is the daily conscious attempt, moment by moment, to strive for this Buddha state, a state without possessiveness, even of oneself.