I remember when we first moved into our new home. It was beautiful. Walls had fresh paint. Wood was shining and without scratches. All appliances were brand new and never been used. Carpets were all fluffy. It had that fresh smell. It was new and wonderful. We've lived here for five years now and you can see the deterioration. While you may say a five year old house is still pretty new...I see it. The carpets are worn, ever so slightly. Appliances used. Wooden floors have scratches from the cat running around. We've had to repair a thing or two in the house. It's no longer new.
I feel the same about my body. In fact I was meditating when I realized that my body is the house for the mind. That house is now 43 years old. Can't believe it? Where did the time go? Or how did the time go? My childhood, youth are mere memories. Some are captured in pictures but most aren't. I feel the ageing process in the body. More aches and pains. Lines starting to appear. Hair growing white. It's no longer new.
Isn't it funny? Sometimes I feel it's a joke.
We are born, then raised by our parents, we struggle the first few years learning to walk and talk. Then we go to school for about 10 years, acquiring new knowledge, a language or two, skills and then trying to pass exams so we can prove to the world and ourselves that we are good at it and have the good authority to move onto bigger and better things. Some of us might go to college. I certainly did. Some of us do even more schooling for more qualifications or a masters or a PhD. Then we find, hopefully, some meaningful work, fall in love, get married, have kids and grow old to only die and leave all that behind.
My grandparents died when I was a teenager. Apart from knowing that they died I did not, at that time, had the power to reflect on the significance of these events. One of my uncles who was around 50 also died. It was the first death of a close family member. I remember feeling so very sad and breaking down in tears. But these events happened and I moved on. I wasn't able to reflect and understand the meaning it was trying to teach me, then. I sometimes wish I had but then again I may have been to young and immature for it. But now I am able to.
My parents are in their 70s now. They are old and now I am able to reflect on this process of life, living and dying. I am at the age my mom was when I was about 14 years of age. I remember her well. A memory of course. She had had my brother 3 years previously. Sometimes I wonder if she reflected about her own brothers death, or that of her parents. I don't think so. She says this is life and while these sad events, they happen to all and you just have to keep going.
Part of me agrees with her. But part of me doesn't. I realize these things happen. But for me, now I feel, there is much to be seen and understood and reflected upon.
When I look at my parents I now feel the ageing process within me. It's been churning ever since I was born. But like my house, it (my body) was brand new and shiny. So the newness lingered. But like my five year old house, my body no longer has that newness. It feels used. There are the scratches. Damaged parts, that require some external intervention in order for it to be put back together. A couple of years back my father-in-law died. It was not an expected death, at least at the time he died. I will die soon just like he did. He was sick but died of other causes. Perhaps the things that my body give me grief, won't be the ones that kill me. I don't know. But I know I am sick more than I was before. Death does not seem too far off for me.
Some day I will have to leave this house. Just as I will have to leave my body. It's a temporary dwelling. Even if you live in the same house for 40-50 years there comes a time when you have to go. Either because the house is falling apart or because you are no longer alive. I see the same with my body. I will have to leave it. Either because it is no longer viable for occupancy or because my life span is completed. Either way it's only a matter of time.
Hasn't that been the case all of my life? Even when I was young, the mere youth and it's activities, simply distracted me from seeing this truth/inevitability every step of the way. When I ask my mother about these things, she says she didn't have the time to sit and think. She thinks I am not busy enough and that it why I am thinking about these things. Perhaps she is right. I mean I don't have much responsibilities to occupy me. So I have time to look and reflect and ponder. Would I want to be distracted? No I don't. I'd rather reflect on these truths.
They are hard truths to consider and bring into the realm of acceptance. I don't want to wait precious hours, days and years in order to do that. For that time may not arrive. One of my uncles died of cancer and the latter part of his life, he was scared and sad. I don't know about what. But I know he didn't come to terms with his sickness or death. Now I have an uncle who is 85 years old and bed ridden. I will see him soon. It will be a good time for reflection too. I used to work as a hospice patient visit volunteer. Since the death of my father in law I stopped cause I just could not handle it. But I met many people relatively young and some very old, who were dying. It was one of the most humbling and profound experiences I've had.
So I no longer can distract myself long enough to forget these realities of life. They are very real. They always were. It just took me about 38 years to even get to point of looking at them. The journey is not easy. It pains me to reflect on them. Sometimes it's frightening. But what choice do I have?
My body is a daily, sometimes minute by minute, reminder of the deterioration process. It's hard to ignore. Perhaps if I had better health and less pain perhaps I may not be so prone to reflecting so much. But I cannot run away from my body, and nor do I want to anymore. I think it's here to teach me a vital lesson and I am trying to learn it.
The Dhamma says the body it a mere construct of conditions that are constantly arising and ceasing away. It is not mine to be held on to with pride. It is not mine to be controlled as I deem fit. It will rise and die according to it's own trajectory. While I don't understand the true profundity of this, I to some degree see that I have little control over the body. I cannot make it be the way I want it to. I cannot make my hair blacks again (unless I color but that lasts about 4 weeks before i see the greys again), I cannot make my pain disappear, I cannot get well no matter how crippling my sickness maybe, I cannot make myself look like that 20 some year old I once was (nor do I want to). But we live in a world that puts so much emphasis and hoopla on these outwardly things. Social media is a beast that way. Things are always aligned for us to be distracted from these truths. If they are not then we do it to ourselves.
Its a shame. Our lives are so short. Its like a candle in the wind. We don't know when the next gust will blow it out. But for some reason we live with such certainty. Sometimes I look at people and wonder how they do it? I don't think I have that anymore. It used to be frightening. Feeling like the ground beneath you was about to shift any moment. But over the last couple of years that feeling has become less frightening and has less of a hold on me. In some ways it's freeing. I guess there is a mix of it all right now.
Anyways, that's it for now. I really don't even know what I was trying to write here but I knew I had to write about the process and what and how I felt about it.
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