How to Train a Wild Elephant_ And Other Adventures in Mindfulness - Jan Chozen Bays [51]
Dismay arises when our inner age does not match our body’s age. One person speculated that our inner age gets stuck at the age in life when we were happiest. One man said, “I thought that when you got older, you naturally got wiser, but now I think you have to work at it.” How to do this? he was asked. “I think you have to really start paying attention.”
DEEPER LESSONS
The essence of this exercise is to become aware of impermanence. All things are continuously aging and falling apart. We have to increasingly exert effort to keep them pulled together. I was once a guest in an immaculate and beautiful house. The elderly hosts had enough money to maintain it in every perfect detail. However, in the basement bathroom, which old age had made them incapable of visiting, I noticed a spot on the toilet seat where the paint was chipped. I had a sudden fast-forward image of this lovely house, left alone for a few decades, decaying and falling into ruin.
One person who did this exercise said, “I tried to become aware of all the things that are aging—this tea, this cookie, this carpet—but as my awareness widened out to everything, it became frightening and my mind closed down.” Exactly.
One man tried to discover the precise sensation that told him how old he was. Was it a touch, a temperature, a sound, a taste? He could not find it. The notion of aging depends upon comparison. When you do not compare, there is only sensation, with no added attribute of age. My sense of smell is not as acute as it once was. I only know this, and can only suffer because of it, if my mind recalls a memory of a time when I could smell “better” and then mourns the loss.
We are better able to appreciate the changing phases of life-forms other than our own. We enjoy holding a tiny tomato seed in our hand. We grow excited when we see the first green sprout, and then we savor the red juicy fruit it produces. When the leaves and stalks of our tomato plant become brown and dry, we don’t feel betrayed. We even relish the process of pulling up the dead stalks and adding them to the compost pile. It is much harder to enjoy each moment of our own life in this fresh, open way—baby, youth, adult, elderly, dying—with no before, no after, only this moment, just as it is.
Final Words: Resting in this moment, we have no age.
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Be on Time
The Exercise: For one week, work at being on time for all events. Consider what “being on time” means to you and to others. Watch what prevents you from being on time, and what arises in the mind when you or other people are late. (If you are a person who is always on time, you might try being a few minutes late and see what happens, externally and internally.)
REMINDING YOURSELF
Post pictures of a clock or watch in strategic places. Set your alarm five minutes earlier than usual for waking up and for appointments, to help remind you to be on time.
DISCOVERIES
Some people make it a habit to arrive early. They feel it is polite and part of being in harmony with a group. They may find themselves growing irritated with people who arrive late. Other people admit to being habitually late. They do not like having to wait for an event to begin—they feel bored or resent the waste of their time. Arriving early causes some people anxiety. They feel awkward when they are the first person to arrive at a meeting or dinner party. One person overcame that anxiety by using the extra time to help out or to relax and talk informally with the hosts or others who arrived early.
Some people scoot in “just under the wire.” If one person arrives late to a recurring event such as choir rehearsal or a class, it seems to snowball, and others begin arriving late, too. This exercise brings up cultural differences.