Finding Deep Comfort in Giving Back

What if all that we are has been simply lent to us in trust?

It’s important to keep a twinkle in your wrinkle.
— Unknown

It’s said that the historical Buddha possessed striking physical beauty. But when he realized and reflected on the fact that all of us will age, all pride in his youthful qualities vanished, never to return. Here’s a slightly updated translation from his Talk on Being Pampered (AN 3.39):

“Then it hit me: ‘When untrained people mesmerized by youth encounter an old person, they recoil in shock. They’re overcome with awkwardness and revulsion. But I’m subject to aging too; there’s no escape for me either. So why should I be repelled by the sight of someone who’s old, just like I’m soon to become?’ When I realized this, my infatuation with youthfulness completely dropped away.”

Easy for the Buddha to say? Maybe. For the rest of us, the truth of aging might only dawn as our youth and vitality begin to fade. Then, when we fall sick or notice gray hairs and creaky joints, it can feel like a personal defeat. It can feel like we are failing.

We are not failing. We’re simply being ourselves. All compounded things are impermanent. This is a natural law.

Often I hear people expressing frustration at the limitations of ongoing disease or starting to feel old. I’m no different, like during my recent bout of sciatica when I discovered I could no longer take seven hour treks without a break, force my legs to push me up high hills and bridges on my little bicycle, or practice like a 20-year-old at the martial arts studio. But following a period of humbled introspection, I realized that I was encountering a new stage in the natural process of handing back my gifts.

Aging is a loaded topic. How can the world set us up for such misery? We spend our whole lives developing and honing our skills, resources and world views, only to watch time grind or rip them from us one piece at a time. Can this really be a compassionate universe when it seems so cruel and heartless?

In his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryū Suzuki Roshi describes our lives as drops in a great waterfall, drops that seem to begin at the top and end at the bottom but never depart from being the same undivided stream. When I first read this in my 20s, I thought the man was completely out to lunch. I just couldn’t see it from that perspective when my life as I knew it would be over when I died. His words struck me like cold ashes. I felt the same when I read Krishnamurti’s statement that “truth is a pathless land.” To me, just starting out and desperate for maps and directions for the spiritual path, that sounded a whole lot like “Let them eat cake.” These supposedly wise old people could peer down from their lofty philosophical perch, while the rest of us could go twist.

Over time, my perspective has softened. What if, as we grow into life, the universe entrusts us with our senses, personality quirks, unique perspectives, and various interests, so that for a lifespan we can be the universe knowing itself, within a certain narrow band of color, temperature, frequency, size, pressure, density, and time? And then, as we fulfill our adventure of seeing the world through our particular vantage point, and exploring it with our own specific coming together of talents and challenges, we are asked to return all that has been lent to us to the universe, with as much grace as we can muster, so that the energy we’re inhabiting can move on to new forms and exploits?

I’m not married to this explanation, but it sure does give me a great deal of comfort.

Of course, there are so many compensations as we age. We are generally wiser, more mellow. And the richness of our hard-earned life experience has given us a wealth of tools to celebrate the quieter moments of life. Not to mention the odd fling with risky play, whether it’s skydiving, picking up Italian cooking or salsa dancing, whatever strikes our mood and capability. Many of my friends in their 70s and beyond live fuller and more adventurous lives than people half their age. Like Jane Fonda or Samuel L. Jackson, they are squeezing every bit of life out of their time on this planet.

As we age, this in itself can be a deep comfort. One of my favorite TV bits is Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin stealing cigarettes from under the nose of a male cashier who’s distracted by a pretty young blonde customer. “Do you not see me?!” Jane screams. Lilly Tomlin coolly nabs the smokes, and in the car crows, “Can’t see me, can’t stop me.”

But the downsides of aging still remain. Bit by bit, our bold adventures inevitably butt up against the limitations of diminished capacity.

Maybe that’s why we move through life in stages. By experiencing the gradual eroding of the things we’ve identified as being “who we are,” it could be we’re being granted the time to look past those temporary anchors to find deeper, more satisfying sources of fulfillment. Even before aging really becomes obvious, toddlers, and children are constantly transitioning out of their current identities in order to become something else, something more. Maybe when the Buddha realized that youth can’t bring us to safety, he was able to let that go gracefully in favor of something far greater: timeless wisdom that isn’t subject to loss.

So if I hope to find security and comfort in abilities I no longer have access to, maybe I’m looking in the wrong place. It could be the universe is pointing me to the ocean of deeper ways of looking that kindness practices can provide, before the puddles of youthful inquiry have had a chance to fully dry up. 😊