Further to yesterday’s post. “Imagine being pushed out of an airplane without a parachute. It might take several minutes to hit the ground. The only moment of true physical pain is the last, and it is over in the blink of an eye. All the rest of the journey is free fall. You can spend the entire trip worrying about how much that last moment will hurt, screaming as you go. Or, if your Buddhist practice is very good, you can enjoy the feeling of the wind through your hair. How do you want to go?”
Thus writes Seth Segall, former professor of psychology and long-time student of Buddhism. “What is there to be afraid of? It’s a natural process, the way things are. You can resist it if you like, but what’s the benefit in that? Or you can let go and experience life fully the way it is, without the story.”
Ah! there’s the rub: The ego is unable (unwilling) to imagine its own demise. We may talk about death, witness it in others, contemplate ours in private, but to welcome it as “the way it is” seems beyond reach. I have from time to time wished to be dead — but to die, either by my own hand or external causes, I can’t conceive. No wonder it’s taken me ages to write a Last Will and I have yet to mail the forms to donate my cadaver to the university; to be kept on ice and cut into pieces by students.
And so it is with ageing. The last time someone asked my age I got it wrong, saying 67 when in fact it was 68½. Walking past a seniors’ centre, I see it as a place for people with white hair, but not for me. Seeing my naked body in the mirror or on a bathroom scale makes me look the other way — that can’t be me!
This, I believe, is a pivotal step towards acceptance: to face and name the beast.
Remind me to send you a poem I wrote after I have submitted it for publication…..
Remind me to send you a poem I wrote after I have submitted it for publication…..
Well Peter you caught me again. I am not quite screaming in my decent but I have frequently been unable to enjoy the wind in my hair as I fear the nearing and presence of something that has always been there… aging towards dying – if I am fortunate. It is my hands that get to me. I can see my grandmother’s hands from when I was child. Sometimes this even shocks me. However, the sagging of various body parts has been in process for awhile. But somehow I never understood that I would tire more quickly than at 30 or even 40. So many surprises. I think I shall just descend for awhile observing with wonder instead of expectation – acknowledging my fear instead of fighting it… wind or no wind in my hair…
Well Peter you caught me again. I am not quite screaming in my decent but I have frequently been unable to enjoy the wind in my hair as I fear the nearing and presence of something that has always been there… aging towards dying – if I am fortunate. It is my hands that get to me. I can see my grandmother’s hands from when I was child. Sometimes this even shocks me. However, the sagging of various body parts has been in process for awhile. But somehow I never understood that I would tire more quickly than at 30 or even 40. So many surprises. I think I shall just descend for awhile observing with wonder instead of expectation – acknowledging my fear instead of fighting it… wind or no wind in my hair…
its curious to me that the freefall starts at the beginning of life, yet we only become aware of it as wrinkles appear, joints stiffen, skin sags. is this what the ego does, support the denial of the inevitable?
its curious to me that the freefall starts at the beginning of life, yet we only become aware of it as wrinkles appear, joints stiffen, skin sags. is this what the ego does, support the denial of the inevitable?