Beautiful Old Age

An old friend who lives in Jakarta shared his sad story of being chased by the bad memory of the horror that happened in 1965. Another friend who is growing old in Bali is also being troubled by the guilty feelings that come from the past. Some soul healers from the United States reported, on average there are 22 elderly Vietnam veterans who are committing suicide every day. Once again, they are chased by guilty feelings from the past.

In meditation classes, there are many more stories of people growing older which are far from beautiful. The point is simple, because of religious factors and social norms many people punished themselves, label themselves as wrong, bad or dirty because of some misbehavior in the past. And all the so-called wrong, bad and dirty acts are then thrown into the psychological warehouse deep within. In psychology, some people call it the subconscious. There are also some others who call it a shadow.

That's the reason why some authors in the West have written that religion is one of the sources that makes the soul painful, especially when religion is only seen as a series of prohibitions and punishments. And like a lots of garbage, anything that is thrown into the subconscious, one day will come to the surface in the form of fear, negative memory or excessive guilty feelings.

These negative emotions usually appear in older age because older people begin to slow their lives down and do less activity, at the same time they having a lot of time to listen to the voices that come from inside. Without deep training of the mind like meditation, a lot of old age people will have a very scaring old age. The Vietnam war veterans in the United States as reported above, even grow old in a very touching way.

For that reason, in the meditation classes many participants are often told a message like this: "look at the sky beyond clouds". All the memories of the past, all the garbage that has been thrown into the unconsciousness are similar to the clouds. A bad memory is like a dark cloud, a good memory is similar to a white cloud. And all the clouds simply come and go according to their law.

Identifying oneself with the clouds, that leads to the seeds of suffering. Being the compassionate witness to the coming and the going of the clouds in the blue sky, that's the seeds of healing and peace. In a simple but profound language, meditation is to train the mind to be as broad as the blue sky.

Similar to the blue sky, broad and wide, mind is no longer throwing the dark clouds like pain or sadness and no longer attached to the white clouds like gain or gladness . But keep giving space to the coming and going of the clouds. At the same time, learn to realize deeply that the nature of everything is like a pairs of wings. Pain and pleasure, sorrow and joy, sadness and gladness are all a couple of wings that lifting the soul.

Whether one is enlightened or unenlightened, the nature of the mind inside will always (like the above) have pairs of wings. The ordinary person who has not been touched by deep meditation is generally being dragged away by these clouds. They are sick whenever they are deeply sad, they will celebrate with a big party whenever they are happy. But on the path of deep meditation, one simply becomes a compassionate witness to those comings and goings of the clouds. It is as simple as the blue sky that is not being touched by any clouds.

The idea is really simple, but to embody this idea into daily life, it needs plenty of time and consistent discipline for countless years. As materials of contemplation, human beings have thrown lots of garbage into their unconsciousness, in the moment of old age people need billions of time to clean it back out.

Whenever the unconsciousness is totally cleaned, all fear including the fear of death will simply disappear. In the language of highly recognized yogi Jetsun Milarepa: "death is only a small enlightenment". Borrowing the beautiful poetry of Rumi: "stop crying in the front of death. Death is a beautiful party in the garden of the Lord". This is exactly what is called the beautiful old age.

Author: Gede Prama.
Photo Courtesy: Twitter @Lotus_tweet.
Proofread by: Kirsty Spence.

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