My apologies for missing a couple of posting dates. I try to post once a week but reality and a busy schedule have intruded—including the need for me to dig in to starting to write my Aging as a Spiritual Practice book.
I thought I would take the opportunity of this post to note the anniversary of the blog. Actually I started a year ago March, but mid-May is close enough I hope. So we have been going for a little over a year, exploring various aspects of aging as it relates to the spiritual life. This is also close to the anniversary of the publication of my first book, Work as a Spiritual Practice, which came out in 1999. How things have changed since then!
Aside from the fact that I and the audience to whom I was writing then were eleven years younger, and in the prime of their productive work life, the whole notion of connecting the workplace with spiritual practice has been overwhelmed and superceded by grim economic realities. There are 15 million unemployed now, with millions more only partially employed, or working at jobs well below their skills and earning power. If I were writing a book about work today, I suppose I might title it “Work as a Survival Practice.”
The unemployment crisis is especially dire for people in their fifties and sixties. These are the ones who watched their nest eggs shrink or evaporate, the ones who—if they are working at all—are working well below their skills and earning power—and who (let’s face it) are facing discrimination in the job market. Given the choice of hiring a highly skilled person in their early fifties or a less skilled person in their thirties or forties, employers will go for the younger person. Nothing is ever said, no rules are ostensibly broken, but people who thought they had a good plan for the rest of their career and retirement are often walking around in shock.
Of course religious faith and spiritual practice are never more relevant than when we are in this kind of crisis. I was walking down the street recently when a middle-aged man approached me asking for work, any kind of work—washing my car, mowing my lawn, anything. “I’ve worked hard all my life,” the man said, in an unsteady voice. “I’ve never been out of work. And now look at me. All I’ve got now is my faith in a higher power.”
I was in another town, and on my way to a meeting. All I could offer him was $20 and a wish for some luck to find him. Or for a higher power to reward his sincerity and faith.
That was a heartbreaking example of aging as a spiritual practice, and a reminder that we all need it, even if our finances are manageable. We all need a basis and foundation for our life that is deeper than material things; never has that been more true than now.
Every morning I light a candle. Then a stick of incense. Then I silently shout a Hip Hip Hooray! The willingness to sit, to be still, to be available to Source. To remember that I Am another, unique expression of Life.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Thank you for your dedication in writing about the natural process of work and aging, life and death.
Barry
Er, make that: processes
Part of what makes spirit alive within are feelings of connectedness between body, mind, and the environment, or external surroundings.
The body has a wisdom beyond the range of thought in that all sound and sensation can become equally valued and shared that way, within as without, in that we can share time with minor events surrounding us and not attach verdicts of importance in that only some qualify as having reached “our” level of divisional thinking – us/them, this/that, win/lose, good/bad, right/wrong.
By paying special attention to what is not popular we venture out as lone witnesses with silence being our best option at settling the feelings of desperation.
Thank you so very much for the wisdom and joy your writing gives me. I was reading your article in Tricycle and the quote, “it may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a lifetime to raise a Buddha,” shouted at me. So often I struggle with pain and guilt from life and some of the choices I’ve made, thank you for reminding me to celebrate them as well.
The spiritual ‘problem’ for the older person is basically the same as for every human being who takes on such a mantle; how to cease our habit of configuring each moment in a comparative way. It is still hard to see that it is the comparative mind itself that causes us to continually repeat the same patterns of mind and body. That’s especially true when the comparison is with some ideal worldview which does not support greed, hatred and ignorance. I think it was Nagarjuna who warned his audience that taking enlightenment as an object was a grave practice mistake. In Buddhist terms, the habit of comparative thinking is what causes the suffering of comparative thinking. In Zen they say, “If you have a staff, I’ll give you a staff. If you don’t have a staff, I’ll take one away.” and, “arrival hinders arrival”.
For the millions of us who are virtually unemployable because of age, and who have perhaps recently been laid off, the first thing that needs to be done is to begin to contract all habits and cravings. The fear of being without livelihood is much attenuated by a scrupulous examination of what is. Scrupulous, not meticulous. Meticulous means fear-based narrative while scrupulous means weighed, considered, balanced.
One year anniversary of this blog. Your posts and the attendant comments brought my own aging into clearer focus. [I'll admit that I feel younger now than I used to] For that I am grateful.
A mirror also helped bring aging into focus.
Recently, an unlucky barber shaved most of my hair off leaving a buzz on top and all my facial hair gone, not what I went in for. It was one of those things where a haircut went awry and feeling more kindly than not I just accepted it. Even tipped the barber handsomely and I suppose wishing her better luck on her next customer.
Coincidentally, the reason for the haircut was to spruce up a bit for employment in Manhattan…where the laid back Hawaii/Tucson 2 week stubble look isn’t so appreciated, nor a guy, as you point out, in my late fifties with more years of experience than the age of some of the kind people I met with. They appreciated the humor I brought however.
Regardless of outcome, there is joy, and occasionally grace and it is infectious. This is the best thing about growing up…learning the art of perfecting.
Anyway, the mirror now reflects that where I once had natural brown hair in the beard and on the head, it is growing back mainly gray.
It looks damn sophisticated. Aging has its perks.
All the best to you Lew in the book project. It is timely. And keep up the good work here as time allows. I read and enjoy your efforts.
Greg
Thanks to everyone who submitted comments. I have been a bit behind in keeping up with blog comments, but I am back on track and hope to stay current now.
Blessings to everyone and keep contributing!
Bows,
Lew
Lew, after reading the interview with you in the summer issue of Tricycle, I had to find out more about you, your Zen practice, and your blog on aging as spiritual practice. What I found is inspiring.
I am finally taking the plunge into Buddhism that I have wanted to for a long time. What finally drew me in was losing my job in 2008, and like many of those responding to your blog, becoming acutely aware of being in my sixties but not yet ready to retire.
I’ve been fortunate to have one client continue with me…and another show up this year…and to figure out how Social Security works on the payout side. But I’ve also been fortunate to have the in-between times…without work…to think, feel, meditate, and to allow my perspective to shift. Eventually, to discover that what was keeping me from doing what I had always wanted to do was owning a house with a mortgage beyond my means and making decisions about jobs and money that kept me in a never-ending cycle.
About that time I also decided to register for a month-long practice period at Upaya Zen Center, in the city where I live. This has been the beginning of my studying Buddhism seriously, and every day I’m grateful. Your blog and the perspectives added through responses are something new that is welcome and needed by me and others who are looking towards opportunities, awareness, deep learning, and experiences that are relevant to ourselves and our time.
Thank you! I look forward to reading more blog posts and responses, listening to your music, and reading your books.