Getting older in the Pure Land

[richard meyers]

Just been thinking about what it might mean to embrace Shin Buddhism in later life. As a discussion topic I think it might prove fruitful. I've noticed that while there are good number of younger people involved, there are also a sizeable chunk of people of my generation (talkin bout my generation! - sorry).

Inevitably the term 'mid-life crisis' comes to mind. A term often used disparagingly, but I think it is a fairly accurate one. In my case I'm late, or 'post-midlife' - whatever. The clock is well past the midway mark and we are well past half past the hour! Midnight is just up ahead. I've still not really got it sussed & I've not got much longer. Yipes!

"Whose is that face in the mirror?" " I don't like how I look in that photograph." I may feel a young person - a work in progress, but a 'dead-line' approaches. I need to get a move on.
Or do I? Along comes Amida and I begin to realise all I need to do is stop and take stock of what is important. What really matters to me? My family, friends, the natural world, being able to reach out and touch my life.

Looking again at Buddhism through the lense of the Pure Land (as much as I can anyway) I sense a great acceptance and ecumenism that is so refreshing. For me this is such a tonic. The (I mean this in the best sense of the word) naivete of the Pure Land approach is what attracts me to it. As a younger man I would have (I did!) passed it over and questioned whether this was Buddhism at all.
Also the devotionalism and heart centredness of it I find really appealing. I really think it is due to getting older that has honed my sense of the spiritual. I don't think this is about fear, but something that feels more like a ripening. Oh dear, this begins to sound like maturity'!
Any thoughts?

[Seiyo]

Hi Richard!

Don't let age bother you. I will be 62 on Saturday........so what? 7 Years ago I had a disease that had a small survival rate of only 3%. This what strengthened my practice and made me realize what is important in this lifetime. I now know that I want to help others and really understand the law of cause and effect. I do not care to be reborn again.....I have had enough. I turn to Amida save me.

What else is there? The Land of Ultimate Bliss is music to me ears. I can't explain what brings the younger generation to this practice but I am happy for them.

These are my thoughts.

Namu Amida Bu

Seiyo

[Susthama]

Hi Richard,

Lovely, I read this and thought yes - this is part and parcel of the aging process - and yet, I suppose I fall below the age divide that you've mentioned and so am self-consciously now wondering if anything I say carries any weight?

I turned six in the Pure Land in February - hurrah!!! Six, is such a great age! And I'm looking forward to growing old with Amida. At this stage, I feel that I'm still playing around with the whole concept of spirituality and am relieved and grateful for the sincerity that you and others seem to show on this site.

[Emma]

I am only 26 this year, but i suppose to shed some light as a partial explanation as to the younger members joining up, I suppose it is the inertial innate sense of being, I personnally feel i have lived a long time on this earth- much longer than the 26 years of this lifetime, some things i have experienced would also direct me to assume such a thing, and in my mind i feel "older and wiser" rather than the young and inexperienced person i should be. I can only assume my "etheric body" or "soul" whatever it might be called that keeps a continuous flow of conciousness from one lifetime to the next, is in fact hundreds of years old. Since the begginnings of this lifetime, i have always felt the need to help people, to escape this rut of being reborn time and time again and so for sinking into a habit of comming back and doing it all over again.

So in reply to richard too as to the age thing, its not a mid life crisis to want to better ones prospects, and to step out of this world and enter the pureland. It is rather more a deepening sense of ones ID that you realise the true essence of all humanity and that we all have in us the ability to ascend to the pureland and become enlightened beings.

I assume alot of the younger members also are in a similar position and sense somehow that they have lived many lifetimes and grow weary of it. They wish to hang up their training gloves and pass on to pureland to become truely enlightened beings along side all the past, present and future buddhas. xD

Seiyo said:

Hi Richard!

Don't let age bother you. I will be 62 on Saturday........so what? 7 Years ago I had a disease that had a small survival rate of only 3%. This what strengthened my practice and made me realize what is important in this lifetime. I now know that I want to help others and really understand the law of cause and effect. I do not care to be reborn again.....I have had enough. I turn to Amida save me.

What else is there? The Land of Ultimate Bliss is music to me ears. I can't explain what brings the younger generation to this practice but I am happy for them.

These are my thoughts.

Namu Amida Bu

Seiyo

[richard meyers]

Hi All,

Great to recieve such sincere feedback to this topic. I may have partly given the impression that there is a certain amount of angst around my own mortality. I suppose there is, and yet, I have to say right now I am happier in my skin than I ever was when I was young in years.

With the health issues heightening my sense of the fragility of this body my appreciation for the world (the natural world I mean), the sheer extraordinary ordinaryness of the simplest of beings, has grown. I don't know what Buddhist teaching would say about this, but I don't want to leave! I don't want to 'go' anywhere. What I want in my practice is to see better what is here and not just through the filter of whatever projection is current in my life. Namo Amida Bu (I don't know if this is orthodox) is about lifting the veil - the Pure Land, with its mountains and streams, flowers and earthworms is already here. Right now, despite occasional dips, I feel an increase in my sense of love for all of it. The bitter-sweetness and the gratitude, that Shin Buddhism speaks of, describes what I feel to a T.

In my own case I believe this has deepened with age. For the younger people that already have a similar sense of things I can only say Amen. Thanks again.

[dean haywood]

i have found buddhism has gave me freedom,i no longer worry about my age,i am nearly 50,and i no longer care for material things,humility and commpassion mean so much more

[Dharmavidya]

I am sixty two years old on this physical earth this time round and it is 31 years since my ordination into the sangha. My body is not as robust as it was and sometimes I forget things, but generally I am in pretty good shape. I actually feel like I am just beginning. Xu Yun, who lived to be 119, did not really get down to serious Dharma work until he turned sixty and he was still founding monasteries when he was well over 100. That gives me some perspective. Actually, it's taken me this long to get the hang of things. Perhaps I'm slow, but then a lifetime is not very long. I've always had the attitude of "learn from everything - you never know when it is going to come in handy". In my present role I am using things that I learnt in many different capacities in the past. In fact, my present life is delightful, especially when surrounded by sangha friends, living and working together. Nothing could be better. As for the life to come, I hope it will be amidst "my Dharma friends innumerable" until they give me another job to do, that is. Namo Amida Bu.

[Modgala Duguid]

Yes! there are gifts that come with age. In my early days with amida I had a sense that the "grandmother" age is when I would truly "come of age". It has been like starting my life again, going through various stages including some rebellious ones! I can't sometimes beleive what my life has incorporated over the last thirteen years with Amida. Yet I have also struggled and from time to time through the other side of each struggle, almost the shedding of a skin I have found greater peace and joy and energy.
and at the same time i am getting physically older different bits are wearing out and for a number of years i fought this knowledge and acceptance of this reality. The turning point was two years ago when i became increasingly ill and almost bedridden at times in france. I was sick and felt very alone as my two companions also struggled with things in their lives. I fought and denied the illness and eventually wound up alone in hospital where no one spoke english and they initially could not find out the problem. My family did not know, i did not want to trouble them, I was facing my worst fears.
Yet I was not alone. Amida was with me even though at times i was unaware and the skill of the doctors there found the problem and set me on the way to better health, though it took some months for me to recover.
At last i let go a little of the selfish, agressive, fighting, denying me and accepted just the reality of the situation. And in the arms of Amida started to relax into life. In facing death I found life - a huge gift. now every day is a gift and thankfully if i take care i should have no major problems and hopefully a good few years head of me to do Amida's work.
Though if i should die tomorrow all is OK, i know Amida is there and a little bit of me is excited by the thought of what i might find when i die. the biggest gift however is learning to live with the ageing process. I was always very afraid of pain and even discomfort. Now the fear is less and I am interested in this process of ageing that has begun. what form will it take? I am inspired by others in our sangha who face illness and disability so courageously. they have much to teach me, we have much to learn together and together we can support others in their struggles and show a way beyond pain and fear into peace and joy and above all love
Namo amida bu

[richard meyers]

Dear Modgala,
Thank you for your reply to this question of 'age'. With me it is double-edged, this whole issue - in so many ways my life is infinitely richer than it ever was when I was younger. As a matter of fact, I myself feel much younger at nearly 62, than I did at 22! So, it is a strange business: as I said last night at Sukhavati, the life with which my practice ebbs and flows has a lot to do with death and my fear of it My faith is not yet such that I am wholly able to trust that Amida (the name we give to this measureless, boundless, immensity of kindness that holds us) will be the arms that welcome this bombu being, that walks and talks and goes under the name of Richard! And yet the words of the saints and sages of all traditions assure us that as Julien of Norwich put it 'All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well'. I do have a strong sense that these words are true and that the Universe is a place of justice and mercy behind the suffering and pain. Also in John Keat's - as when he describes the world as 'The vale of soul making'. I like this notion of difficulties deepening us potentially, although I hasten to add that I am not saying that this is always the case, or that suffering in others ought not to be alleviated. Far from it.
At this ripening phase of my existance I feel very glad to have met up with Amida through the work of your good self and the wider Sangha. Thanks again from all of us and see you soon.
Namo Amida Bu

[dean haywood]

I used to fear getting older,I think it was an ego thing,but since becoming a buddhist aging is no longer frightening,just a part of life,I will soon be 50 and my girlfriend says that every wrinkle is a sign I am growing up at last.i actually like my wrinkles,its part of who I am .Namo Amida Bu