— Releasing our constrictive fears can transform our angst into awe, gratitude, and deep appreciation for all that we’ve lived and all that we are becoming. Levity about our mortality may even emerge. As Ram Dass once said, “Death is absolutely safe. Nobody ever fails at it.”
In our American culture that often celebrates the young and casts off its old, the fact of impermanence, of certain death, often challenges the old to hold onto their vanished youth. Think of the old woman whose hands reveal her age but her Botoxed face has no wrinkles. It’s unnatural at least, and some would say desacralizes the body, the natural growing younger towards death. Some cultures celebrate wrinkles on an old face as the signs of richly earned experience, the roadmap of a life well-lived. We will all leave our bodies one day. What if we could embrace our waning physique and see the beauty behind the façade?
There is a great peace inherent in simply being, a state in which what we do is less important than simply being who we are.
This reminds me of an old favorite joke:
Two men bump into each other on the street and realize that their sons used to be good friends.
“So how’s your boy Joey?” one asks.
“He can’t seem to hold on to a job, can’t find a good relationship! I hope he finds his way. How is Steven doing?”
The other father looks up and explains, “He’s doing something!”
In This is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor & Dignity, Susan Moon shares the story of a dharma sister, someone who, after 35 years of diligent Zen practice and service, developed Alzheimer’s and began to struggle in her relations with family and friends. When she stayed close to the Zen center, however, and her practice, she remained totally present, meditative, and could simply be. Her beingness took her out of her mind and into the present moment.
A friend told me a similar story about visiting a beloved mentor who had begun to show serious signs of dementia. She seemed herself though she did not recognize the former students who had come to visit her. When they engaged her, however, in memories of their study together, she brightened and tapped into the self that her students had known. Her eyes glistened with aliveness and her ability to be fully present shone through. She did not have to think about it; she was it!
Derived from a Buddhist teaching, “‘wabi-sabi’ is a Japanese expression for the beauty of impermanence, the imperfection of things that are worn or frayed or chipped through use. Objects that are simple and rustic, like an earthenware tea-bowl, and objects that show their age and use, like a wooden bannister worn smooth by many hands are beautiful.”
There’s also the story of the Zen potter who had crafted the perfect bowl but finding no imperfections became very upset, unable to consider his work acceptable. He chose instead to break the perfect bowl and glue it back together to give it the true beauty that he had envisioned through its imperfect being.
I’m remembering an evening at the Rubin Museum in New York that also illustrates inevitable impermanence. I watched, mesmerized, as a group of Tibetan monks completed a gorgeous floor painting with colored sands that they had created over many weeks. They prayed over it, honoring its grand beauty, and then ceremoniously scattered the sand, laughing all the while, as a metaphoric celebration of impermanence.
This story illustrates that in its continual transformation from one state to another, the world is exactly as it should be:
Many years ago a woman called Sono lived in a little town in Japan. Her devout heart and compassionate spirit had won her the respect and admiration of many followers, and fellow Buddhists often traveled long distances to seek her advice. One day a weary traveler approached Sono to ask what he could do to put his mind at peace and his heart at rest. Sono’s advice was simple and straightforward: “In the morning and in the evening, whenever anything occurs to you, say, “Thanks for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever!” For an entire year, the man faithfully followed her advice, repeating from morning until evening, “Thanks for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever!” But still, his mind was not at peace nor was his heart at rest. Thoroughly discouraged, he again made the long journey to see Sono. “I’ve done everything you suggested,” he said, “but my mind is not at peace and my heart is not at rest. Tell me— what should I do now?”
As Sono replied, “Thanks for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever!” Hearing these words the traveler was enlightened and returned home, his mind at peace and his heart at rest.
My favorite in the book is:
“Love is love, not to be defined or described by the mind as exclusive or inclusive. Love is its own eternity: it is the real, the supreme, the immeasurable.” —Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
