Loneliness often increases as we grow older. Certainly when those we know begin to pass away (which may start when we are in our 50s) there is a kind of loneliness that comes and cannot easily be assuaged. Their loss is permanent.
I have a thumbnail summary of Buddhism that I have mentioned here before and that goes like this: “Everything is connected, nothing lasts, and we are not alone.” So the losses of our friends and loved ones tells us, like nothing else can, that “nothing lasts”—especially those things that we most care about. This is the first big lesson of Buddhism and whether you are a Buddhist or not, the lesson comes home as we age.
So what do I mean when I say, especially to those grieving or lonely, “We are not alone?”
I certainly do not mean that Buddhism teaches we can escape loneliness. Loneliness is part of the human condition, and even adepts and realized teachers of Buddhism can suffer from it—though they may understand and accept it better. Even the Buddha grieved for lost family and companions, I’m sure. My own teacher certainly did. No, I am distinguishing between “loneliness” and “aloneness.”
We may feel grief and loneliness, but we are actually never alone. Yes, I am Lew, and I am the only one who is this Lew. My life story and memories and losses are unique. Nobody else feels them as I do. But in that discreteness is also connection. We are all discrete, but we are also joined—both are so. We are unique individuals, but each of us has the same fundamental nature—Buddha nature. Touching that fundamental nature—for example in meditation—is paradoxically the way we connect with everyone and everything. I like to say that when we sit we resume our status as a universal human being.
“Yes, I can feel lonely, but we all experience our humanness in the same way. We are all in this together.” From this realization can come an abiding joy. How wonderful that I and everything are here. What a miracle!
So in that sense “everything is connected” and “we are not alone” are two ways of describing the same condition. Touching that connection means that our all-too-human loneliness has some context. We grieve for those we have lost, but we rejoice in the connections which have, have always had, and will always have.
We are not alone.
In these days when thinking of my friends is like reviewing the list for sick call, and knowing what other list some will appear on soon, I take time to remember the beauty of all that is around me, feel connections with the living world, and sometimes am lucky enough to sense embodied connection.
Hi Lewis: I understand what you are saying and you do help a lot. As for me, I’m lonely when there is nothing to do. I find things to do and keep busy so i want be lonely.I have three children, ten grandchildren, and three great grandchilden and not one of them call or vist me. I have been living by my self now for 13 months and its very lonely at times.Everything seems old hat now.I guess you would call it depression.I find myself going to the cemetery a lot to vist my kin and friends.One cemetary has a park with a pond with a bridge across the middle of it and there is lot of benches around the pond. Nobody is ever there so i have the whole place to myself to zazen.There is a great breeze comming off the salt water river and a view you wouldn’t believe. Yes, i have a lot to be thankful for and i appreciate everything i get from nature,animals, and people per se. Until our paths cross again. ~ Joe
often,..visiting cemeteries can feel welcoming…your Muse may settle on the bench–do u ever feel llike writing a note or making a quik sketchbook page 2 send to some of ur kids–or send to urself–is fun to look at our creativite efforts later,,
if thoughts stay blue, is ok.
at age 71 +, an interesting thing happens in NH–when i wake up i am glad to b here.
Hello Joe,
I am touched by your description. I have only one child whose hatred for me seems to often trump her love. She has one child, who she keeps from me. I only saw him once this summer. They live 50 minutes away. Nothing I do helps. I feel like you do. There is a nice cemetery I visit sometimes, but it doesn’t have a pond. No kin there. . . . Sometimes this is preferable to a visit from someone like my minister, who performs their great, busy life for me and then turns away. There is plenty to be sad about in this life.
Jeanne
When I am lonely, but refuse to do anything about it, I describe myself as “hiding, waiting to be found…”
John
Sometimes, loneliness is just loneliness. NOthing to be done about it. I find that all too often, like other ‘empty’ moments in our lives, we try to fill it with various things to avoid feeling pain. The realization that we are never alone seems totally irrelevant at the time when we most feel lonely. It simply does not help, true or not. It’s the thrashing around and trying to make it something other than it is, with it’s pain, that seems the problem to me.
I like the frame Lew provided: “Everything is connected; nothing lasts; and we are not alone.” But let’s not read that as realizing we are not alone insulates us from feeling lonely.
I’d like to offer a tangential comment on ‘distinguishing between “loneliness” and “aloneness.” ‘ There is a sense in which aloneness is positive. There are many whom I have known closely who, for whatever reason, seem to believe that if alone, she or he is “incomplete”, that a partner is required to make her or him a whole person. It seems that each of us must become our own best friend, learn to live fully on our own – perhaps this is the same as discovering, as you put it, Lew, that “each of us has the same fundamental nature—Buddha nature.” The label is unimportant. What is important, crucial, I believe, is to realize that each of us, alone, is complete, whole, worthy of – entitled to – love and respect. I think this is behind the progression of metta aspirations – you start with yourself – and the Biblical “you shall love your neighbior as yourself”. If I can’t love myself, there’s no way I can love any one else.
So in a sense, the foundation of realizing “we’re all in this together” is realizing that alone, “all one”, I am whole and complete – and so are you, and you, and you ….
Joe McAlister – isn’t this close to what you feel, sitting on the bench, being thankful?
Peter
At this stage, the sense of impermanence is very strong. I move through my various communities shedding and acquiring friends and acquaintances with increasing rapidity. The comfort of close relationships no longer seems to occur. Old friends and family are distant. I am the oldest person, by far, in my workplace and have little in common with my co-workers there. My local sangha is very much of people of my generation, though the bonds there are quite loose, as is appropriate for a Buddhist community.
My close companions these days are music and meditation.
Sometimes even loneliness and grief can appear as old friends. “Ah, my old friend loneliness! Come in, please!”
Ah, “hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk to you again….”
Lewis,
Hannah Arendt had a useful distinction here. When I’m alone, I’m together with myself – this is solitude. When I’m lonely, I’m deserted not only by the others but by myself. Always made sense to me.
Best, Michael D.
Thanks to all for your thoughtful comments. The Hannah Arendt distinction is certainly a piece of what I was trying to say and others have said. Being alone isn’t necessarily lonely. That said, when you have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and they don’t call, as with Joseph, that is lonely! Anyway, we are with you, Joseph!
Lewis Sensei,
Peter Albrecht hit on an issue I have been thinking about for some time in regards to one adult child. It is idea of feeling alone in a crowd, needing someone to feel whole. Even though we are all connected in that crowd, if a person is not comfortable in there own skin so to speak, being alone is loneliness. At 70, I am seeing old friends and family passing more frequently. With the comfort of the Sangha and family, I am not lonely, but am often alone. My issue is the sense of urgency that I feel in those responsibilities yet uncompleted. This is particularly the case in attempting to bring adult children who have mental issues and addictions to a point of living independently. They feel loneliness and an inability to connect with other than family.
For Bob Smith:
“My issue is the sense of urgency that I feel in those responsibilities yet uncompleted.”
I, too, am in my 70s, and have some adult children with issues. If I have learned anything over the years, it is that my responsibilities do not exceed my powers. Please do not fault yourself if you cannot bring those children to independence. At some point, it’s up to them. You may be able to do no more than tell them that you love them, wish them well…and if that’s the case, then you’ve done everything.
Thank you Lewis, for all the understing and wisdom which comes out of your writings straight to our minds and our hearts, binding us no matter how far we all are one from each other.
I live alone, my children come and go. Most of the time, I am the one who search for them, who rings them up, reminding myself once and again, to pay attention in order to Listen Deeply, as Thich Nhat Hanh teaches through his workshops.Same with my patients. Listening Deeply, I myself, dissapear, and therefore have little room for loneliness. There is almost always somebody who needs us in some way.Remembering this, take me appart from my own ruminating mind….and also my little dog, whose existence I use to forget until suddenly I Feel she stares at me from the floor: this small living creature, who also need to be acknoledged as existent. And of course, Music, which has been always such a blessed company along my life. Drums, piano’s, violins, cello’s, flute’s, choirs, all of them, provinding wings, all the time along, and taking me away from my delusions.
Great insightful stuff, folks. Thanks. Whenever I feel lonely, I “do” something about it, I “be” with it. Trungpa Rinpoche calls meditation “making friends with yourself.” When I “come to” during the day, I sometimes say, “There I am! Where have you been?”
Hiding (from myself), obviously, waiting to be found.
Can’t be lonely when you talk to yourself like that, I guess,
And yes, the neighbors think I’m nuts. Too bad.
:8-)
I am confused – has this list stopped? The July 31 post by John Kernell is the last thing I’ve found. (I never have understood how to find my way around in this list.)
Hi, Jeanne,
People just stopped posting … for the moment. You are invited to post some thoughts. Please! I’m sure the “Aging as a Spiritual Journey” members of The Rat’s Ass Sangha (conveniently located on the friendly Isle of Yap) :8-) do check this blog every couple of days to see if anyone else has posted.
I’m more a loner than most so don’t suffer from feelings of loneliness. I was married about 30 years ago and remember freeing lonely for a while but gradually became happier and happier with my own company. The odd hour or two once or twice a week and a couple of phone calls from my sister and I have had enough. I experience relief when I realize the day involves no contact with people. I can meditate, work with my focus without getting derailed by social interaction. Oh I like to go out and walk alone in the bush. The sight of roo or a bandicoot really cheers me up. I’ve lived most of my life in my head so finally learning to live more inside my body and be present to my surroundings requires a lot of time on my own. But this is what I want to do and am grateful that I have the opportunity.
Many thanks for the article of Mr Richmond, but even more thanks for all of you who have contributed your wonderful comments.
I am from the philippines and have a little time to have a yahoo group. I feel connected to all of you who share your loneliness. An I am consoled. Really. Thank you everyone.
Thanks for everyone’s contributions about this topic of loneliness. As a universal human experience, I’m sure I will be returning to this topic in future posts.