Old age
“Winter is coming. The sun is setting. The cold wind blows. The last of autumn’s leaves flee across the grass. All natural enough. But why the thoughts? This leaf is me. And the next, and the next. They go to enrich the earth, and the new season’s growth. But me? Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. It never ends. But of course it will.”
There is such a difference between simple repetitious thoughts and philosophical thinking. The one clogs our brain to no purpose, priming it for inevitable stress. But philosophical thinking allows some new understanding. Our coping mechanisms are enhanced, and the stream of disruptive thought subsides to a trickle.
Widowed
“Widowed, it is three or four years now. And I am coping no better. When part of you has gone you are maimed; life is not the same. Changes are made, and a new way of life starts. That’s not the coping I mean. That’s the chair where she used to sit. It’s empty now. How she would have liked this? What would she have said about that? Strange, because I know that she would have liked this. And I know what she would have said about that. But the thoughts of it are still there. The emptiness of home-coming. Why should I feel like this? I can cope, I can cope. But I can’t. The restless pillow. Restless, because it is made for two. My brain is in turmoil. Peace has gone from me. Team up with another? What would she think of that? If one does not know, how can it matter? But it is not as simple as that.”
We can test ourselves. Toes in the water before stepping in. Explore. Life is a sequence of explorations. One reality after the next. Why call a halt when one phase ends, and we must move to the next?
Dying
“I am older. This trouble I have could break out again at any moment. Keep thinking of death. We all must die. I know that. But knowing it is not much help. Say goodbye to a friend. Is this the last time? Will I ever see him again? It’s my own weakness. Tried going to church, but it did not seem to help.”
With some, the approach of death, and their thinking about it, sends enough messages to the brain to be a real cause of stress. I have seen others with whom the approach of death has brought no stress at all. Not just those who are seeking relief from the burden of life. But people who have developed some inner tranquility in which they seem to understand that life and death are really just different aspects of some greater process.
Many patients dying of cancer, whom I have shown how to meditate, have developed this tranquility of mind, without my saying anything about it.
The experience of letting the mind run quietly has enabled the brain to sort things out. The disturbing messages are integrated, and the individual is free from stress.
*18/98/5*
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