Once, when I was about twelve, my father came into my room holding a book. He was in his forties at the time.
“I want to show you something,” he said.
The book was an autobiography of the poet Robert Graves. On the front cover was a photograph of Graves as a young man: black-haired, handsome, and full of vitality and hope. My father turned the book over to show a photograph of the present-day Graves: hair white, face wrinkled, eyes shrouded in sorrow.
“Look at this,” my father said, turning the book over and over, showing me the startling transformation of youth to old age and back again. “You can’t understand this,” he said. He dropped the book on my bed and just as suddenly as he had come into my room, he turned and left.
I had not said anything. I sensed my father’s awkwardness and the poignancy of his effort, but he was right. I didn’t really understand, any more than I could understand Suzuki Roshi when he spoke of enjoying his old age. Now, at sixty-four, I do understand and thank my father for his long-ago effort. The old understand the young better than the other way around. My father wanted to reach out across the gulf separating age from youth and tap me with the magic wand of this hard-won knowledge, but he couldn’t. He could only show me the two photographs and wish the best for me as I set off on the journey to adulthood.
When Suzuki said “Everything changes,” he could just as easily have said “Everything ages.” That is what my father was trying to show me.
Intellectually we know this. We know that everything ages; we see it all around us. For much of our life it is like the house we live in or the air we breathe—a familiar fact that we barely notice. But as we grow older, that fact is harder to shrug off. Aging is not just change, but irreversible change—for better or for worse. We did not get that sought-after promotion, and now it will never come. Or we did get the promotion, and life has never been the same! We are poor. Or we were once poor, but now we are not. We have a bad knee, and even surgery will not make it new. Or maybe the surgery worked and we can say good-bye to the pain we’d lived with for so long. We always wanted children, but now we are too old to have them. Or we adopted a child, to our never-ending joy. One way or another, our life consists of “the things that happened to happen.”
Irreversible change is different because there is no going back. Its triumphs sustain us; its losses mark us. The real question, the one this book can help you answer is: What do we do about it? In much of today’s world, people are living longer than they ever have. The life expectancy at the turn of the century was forty-five; now it is eighty. Living into one’s eighties, nineties, and even past one hundred is a real possibility today, one that makes your fifties and sixties a time not for winding down but for gearing up—though for what, we may not be sure. In many ways society has not yet caught up with these new facts of life, and neither have we. We need to look afresh at this prospect of a longer life and ask ourselves, What’s the best use of this extra gift of time?
The answer, I propose, is that aging is an ideal time for the cultivation of the inner life: a time for spiritual practice. Why it should be so is captured in that image of the old Robert Graves that I still vividly remember. Graves’ white hair and lined face seemed to tell my father a story of loss, one that he was already experiencing in the disappointments of his own middle age. But I saw something else, something that made me want to open the book and read. The face of the old Robert Graves seemed to me to be the face of a wise person, one who knew something important. I wanted to know what that was and how he had gained it. As I turned the pages and followed Graves’ life story from youth to full adulthood and finally to old age, I caught an inkling of what it takes to live a rich and complete human life from start to finish. And now that I myself am closer to the end of my life than to the beginning of it, I realize that my reading of Graves’ story so long ago was the beginning of my study for this book.
This book is about the connection between aging and spiritual practice. It offers many spiritual exercises, suggestions, and ideas to help you age well, but it also advances the premise that the experience of aging is itself a doorway to spiritual practice, one that transcends any particular religion or faith.
When my father barged into my room with the Graves book in his hand, I believe he wanted to say that the dreams he had when he was young were slipping away, and where was he going? What was he doing?
My father, a self-taught man who read Greek philosophy in the evenings and thought deeply about things, had touched upon a universal truth. I have heard some version of it from many people when I talk to them about their experience of aging and I have given it a name: Lightning Strikes.
Lightning Strikes is the moment we truly wake up to our aging and can see the full significance of it in our whole life, from its unremembered beginning to its unknown end. Until that moment, regardless of our age, we spend much of the time not thinking too much about where our life is headed or what it all means. But once lightning strikes, it’s different. We have reached a tipping point. We have stopped seeing things as we wished they were and, for a moment at least, can see them as they actually are.
Lightning can strike in what seems to be a disturbing or negative way, as it did for my father, or in a positive way, as it did for Katherine, age fifty-seven and chief of staff for a local politician.
As I sat in her living room one summer afternoon, appreciating the shimmering leaves of an aspen tree outside the open window, Katherine sat a bit formally on the couch, quietly answering my questions. But when I got to the question, “Is there anything you particularly like or enjoy about aging?” her face lit up, and she said, “My granddaughter!”
She was already reaching for an album on the coffee table. We spent the next few minutes looking through her album of new family photographs. It was only when she offered to get her laptop to show me more photos on Facebook that I demurred.
As the interview progressed, I asked Katherine if she could say how the birth of her grandchild had affected her view on aging.
She grew thoughtful. “This sounds odd,” she said finally, “but it’s made me feel as though my life has really amounted to something. Isn’t that strange?” She laughed. “I didn’t feel that way when I had my own children, and I’ve accomplished a lot in my life.”
My father and Katherine represent the two faces of aging: the wrinkled face of the aged Robert Graves and the joyful smile of a new grandmother. Regret and celebration are equally important facets of aging. Throughout this book, these two aspects will appear in various guises and voices.
That was the case with Alan and Christina, a married couple who stumbled into the thicket of aging one morning when the telephone rang.
I first met them at a fund-raiser for a Buddhist group they belonged to. They were an outgoing, friendly couple who both looked to be in their fifties. Alan was a tall, athletically built man with salt-and-pepper hair. After a few minutes of conversation I learned that he was a high school history teacher and track coach. Christina, a slender woman with a pale complexion, was a local artist who was about to open a solo show.
Then they asked what I did, and I explained that I was working on a book about aging. “Any thoughts?” I asked.
“No,” Alan replied, laughing a bit uneasily. “I’m still in denial.”
Christina added, “We don’t like to talk about it.”
We soon found ourselves talking about something else; that was the extent of our conversation about aging that evening. Yet over the next few days, I found my thoughts returning to the interchange. Here were two accomplished, intelligent people who were uncomfortable talking about a topic that may have been important to them both. And when Christina had said, “We don’t like to talk about it,” I was intrigued. I wondered what she meant.
So I got in touch and asked if we could continue the conversation. The following week, I found myself sitting in their living room, drinking a glass of wine, surrounded by athletic trophies and Christina’s bright acrylics.
“So,” Christina said as she set down a tray of snacks, “what’s going to be the title of your book?”
“Aging as a Spiritual Practice,” I said.
“That makes an interesting connection,” Christina said.
“We have the spiritual practice part down,” Alan said. “We both meditate every morning before breakfast.” He chuckled. “Unless I sleep in. Christina is more consistent than I am.”
“It helps us stay young,” she explained.
“At least that’s the plan,” Alan said.
“Not that we’re old,” Christina said. “Alan still runs marathons. After two children I still weigh almost what I did in college. We were kind of planning to be young forever—until Alan got the phone call the other day,” Christina said, “and we found out his college roommate had just dropped dead of a heart attack. While he was out running.”
“Bill was a track star in college,” Alan said. “He set the school record in the two hundred meter. Of all people for that to happen to!”
“Alan hasn’t been able to do his morning run since he heard the news,” Christina said.
“Don’t exaggerate,” Alan said quickly. “I can do it. But it creeps me out. The next morning, I tried to do my meditation as usual, but I kept thinking about Bill and his kids, and how strong he was physically, and all the good times we had together.”
The three of us sat in silence for a while; then Christina said, “I feel a little different than Alan. You know I’m about to open a new show?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve seen the posters.”
“It’s my first solo show,” she said. “And I’m already talking to people in New York about showing there. Artists have to grow. My painting is better now than ten years ago. I’m still developing, and I feel myself still coming into my own. I don’t care about growing old. As long as I can paint, I’m happy. It’s different for Alan. He feels everything in his body. If he misses running for a day, he’s grumpy.”
“No, I’m not,” Alan said.
“So that’s where I’m headed,” Christina said. “But Alan is on his own track.”
“That’s right!” Alan said. “I’m a track coach. What matters to me is a winning team.”
“Sounds like the two of you might be in different places around aging,” I said.
“I guess,” Alan said. “Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But you’ve both been discussing it, and you’ve certainly been thinking about it. I talk to a lot of people who aren’t paying attention yet. Regardless of how they feel about growing old, people need to pay attention. Paying attention is one of the main things I teach.”
The word “spiritual” can mean many things. For many people it means their religious faith. For others it’s a more generalized feeling of unity or oneness. Some people tell me that their spiritual practice is walking on the beach or sitting quietly on the couch in the morning before breakfast. Recent polls report that 15 percent of Americans—some 45 million people—consider themselves unaffiliated with any specific religion, but do value and seek to incorporate spirituality into their lives. That tells me that spiritual experience is a common human value, and when I teach it I try to find a definition of spiritual practice broad enough to include everyone.
Paying attention to aging is important because aging itself is important. It matters. Aging, like all spiritual practice, has to do with life’s fundamentals. When I teach meditation to beginners, I sometimes start by asking people to speak a word or short phrase that expresses what really matters to them: in other words, their core spiritual values. As we go around the room, the succession of words people say begins to form a connected thread—something like a poem or prayer.
FAMILY
KINDNESS
BEING A GOOD PERSON
KNOWING HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE
HELPING OTHER PEOPLE
WISDOM
DEALING WITH SUFFERING
LEARNING HOW TO BE HAPPY
LEAVING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE THAN I FOUND IT
I have heard much the same words from people in many audiences. Why should that be surprising? These words represent universal spiritual values. Paying attention to these things that matter is the nub of spiritual practice, as the following story about Ikkyu, an eccentric fourteenth-century Japanese Zen teacher, demonstrates:
Once, a wealthy patron came to him and asked him to write a scroll of calligraphy expressing a deep spiritual truth. Ikkyu took out paper, brush, and ink and after a few moments wrote the single character for “attention.”
Then he put down his brush.
Typically a Zen poem includes nature imagery, such as plum blossoms or pine boughs, and a few words of wisdom. What Ikkyu had written was not what the patron was expecting. At first the patron leaned forward, seeming to pay close attention to what Ikkyu was writing. But after waiting politely for a few moments, the patron leaned back and said, “Perhaps the master is not yet finished with his poem.”
Ikkyu took up the brush and again wrote the single character for “attention” right below the first one.
Now visibly annoyed, the patron explained that he was hoping for a poem to share with the guests that often visited his home. “Many of my friends have been generous supporters of your temple,” the patron added pointedly.
Ikkyu, also with a bit of annoyance, grabbed the brush and quickly wrote the same character three more times: attention, attention, attention!
Had the patron been more alert, he might have realized that Ikkyu was not just writing the character for “attention” over and over in place of a poem; he was also teaching about it. Ikkyu was saying to the self-satisfied patron, “Pay attention to your state of mind right now! Why are you here? Are you greedy? Are you arrogant? Are you ambitious? Is all you want from me something to impress your rich friends?”
Mere paying attention is not always a spiritual practice. Paying attention rises to the level of a spiritual practice only when it is about core spiritual values. Ikkyu understood the patron’s true motives, and he chose to turn the moment into a spiritual lesson.
Aging usually forces us to pay attention to what is really going on. My father had to face his own disappointments. Alan had to face his own mortality. Even Katherine, when asked to think about her own aging, came face to face with her own accomplishments—and felt good.
I know when lightning struck for me. It was when I sat in my doctor’s office and he told me I had cancer. I was thirty-six years old, and until that moment I had never given much thought to growing old. I was in the prime of my life; everything was going my way. I walked out of my doctor’s office utterly changed. In the time it took me to drive from the doctor’s office to my house, I felt as though I had aged twenty years.
When did Lightning Strike for you? Can you think of a specific event that shifted the way you thought about aging, as it did for my father, for Katherine, or for Alan?
If you can, focus in on that memory. Jot down your thoughts as you do. Study that moment in all its detail; tune in to the feelings or emotions you had at the time.
Was the feeling positive or negative? Name the feeling; give it a word.
If the feeling was positive, did it change or shift your feeling about growing old? If it did, how would you describe that change?
Ask yourself the same questions if the feeling was negative.
When I did this exercise myself, I recalled my feeling as negative. I felt confusion and anxiety as I drove home from the doctor’s office, but it was not about having cancer; it was about what I was going to tell Amy, my wife.
But when I told her, she took it in stride. She was as solid as a rock, and that gave me the strength to say to her, “Well, I’m not going to die.” At that moment, I was visualizing myself living to grow old, having a long life.
How did you feel when lightning struck? And how did that feeling change your attitude toward aging?
I checked in with Alan a couple of months after our interview to see how he was doing.
“How’s it going now?” I asked him. “Are you running again?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “My fears only lasted for a few days. But every day when I run now I think of Bill. He’s my friend in a whole new way. He helps me remember how good it is to be alive and to have a healthy body that can still run, and that none of us ever knows what’s going to happen. I never used to think about stuff like that.”
How is it going now for you? How is the moment when lightning first struck affecting your life today? Has the memory faded, or is the recollection still fresh? Have there been more such moments, each one building on the last? Write a single sentence describing how it’s going now. Read it back to yourself. Has your present self fully absorbed the lessons of the past?
What spiritual lesson did you learn from the moment lightning struck?
What I would write is, That was the day I grew up.
After twenty-five years, that spiritual lesson is still alive for me. Our whole spiritual life is like that, I think. It flows like an underground river throughout our life and surfaces to help us remember what is really important and who we really are—if only we pay attention.