Liberation

One way of achieving enlightenment in ancient prescriptions is striving for emptiness. Emptiness implies letting go of ego and a cluttered mind. Meditation is a traditional method for practicing emptiness of mind and liberation from suffering.

While I understand these concepts, I feel the ancient concepts of enlightenment and liberation are relevant in a very different way in modern society. As we become liberated from religion through science, our minds can open to many other ways to achieve liberation from suffering. For example, some would see pharmaceutical technology as a substitute for meditation or psychoanalysis in the pursuit of personal insight and evolution.

The problem with technological substitutes or alternatives for meditation and reflection is simple. Most of us cannot develop our own technological substitutes for these activities. In other words, liberation in a full sense is impossible, since we depend on a factory to make the pills which may take the place of practice. Capitalism fosters this dependence on product as a substitute for practice.

The beauty of practice as an approach to liberation from personal suffering is its empowerment. It requires no dependence on pills, gurus or mentors. By emptying a life of dependence and taking full responsibility for its suffering, a seeker who develops a daily practice of meditation and mindful investigation of being achieves one first step toward liberation.

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.