Aging as Sprirituality: Lewis Richmond

from Tricycle (Photo credit: miheco)

Lewis Richmond has a new book out, with this title, Aging as Spirituality:  How to grow older and wiser. 

Accompanying this terrific new book, Tricycle Magazine is holding 4 “retreats” in March … these are available on demand with a paid subscription to Tricycle online.  So far there have been 2 retreats, each about 25 minutes.

The first is “Lightning Strikes” where Lewis talks about waking up to aging, using aging as a spiritual practice.  The second, “Coming to Terms”, is a discussion on comparing ourslves to who we were, who we used to be, or at least, the mental constructions of who we think we were..

He has two more videos to go.. “Adaptation” where he will talk about letting go of who we were and embracing who we are as a spiritual practice.  And the last, “Appreciation”, where the topic will be learning to accept that “This is my life and I have no other.”

What an incredible teacher and what a gift to have these valuable teachings on demand, so we don’t have to go anywhere.

Lewis is the author of several other books; I think 5 altogether and was ordained by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1971.

I downloaded Lewis’ book to my Kindle as a pre-order and am just waiting for some time “away” to be able to sink down into it.  I think it will be a great gift to myself to hear what Lewis and the Buddhist path has to teach us about aging.

There is quite a community at Tricyle online and I would encourage you to think about it.  I used to drive 45+ minutes to get my paper copy and I finally decided this year that I would prefer to go totally digital with all my subscriptions.  I’m happy to say that I think it was well worth it in this case.

If you download the book or buy the paper copy or if you check out these retreats, give a shout and let us know what you think of it by posting a comment here.  Would love to know what you learn!

Here is to aging with grace and being open to the grace that comes from the wisdom of aging.

Metta, Jennifer

Related articles

• 5 Spiritual Practices for Aging Well ~ Lewis Richmond (evolutionarymystic.wordpress.com)
• Buddhist Teaching on Aging Spiritually: Worry Less, Care More and Find Out What Love is Before You Die ~ Lewis Richmond (evolutionarymystic.wordpress.com)
• Third Noble Truth: In the Midst of Suffering, There Is Release from Suffering ~ Lewis Richmond (evolutionarymystic.wordpress.com)

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Put Out Your Welcome Mat

“You change your relationship to the pain by opening up to it and paying attention to it.  You ‘put out the welcome mat.’ Not because you’re masochistic, but because the pain is there.  So you need to understand the nature of the experience and the possibilities for, as the doctors might put it, ‘learning to live with it,’ or, as the Buddhists might put it, ‘liberation from the suffering.’ If you distinguish between pain and suffering, change is possible.”

~~Jon Kabat-Zinn, “At Home in Our Bodies”

Such a radical idea. . . saying, “here I am, come join me.”  Leaning in to that which makes us feel uncomfortable. . .

The fear of losing someone.  the fear of a particular diagnosis.  the fear of  a difficult conversation. . .

The pain of saying goodbye.  The physical pain that comes from illness.  The psychological pain that comes when we are betrayed. . .

When you think about it, some of the things that mindfulness asks us to do go totally against what is innate in us.  Think about a one-celled organism.  If you poke at it, it will try to move away.  There is some threat there, despite not having what you or I would think of as an ego.

But this is the point of mindfulness, isn’t it?  To get ourselves off of automatic pilot, to free ourselves from suffering?  To bring ourselves out of the lull of our average everydayness to be fully present with what is.

But what about when we are our at our most vulnerable times?  Can we remain open-hearted, set that welcome mat out to our suffering and say, “enter if you will”?

One of the key elements of mindfulness that we don’t practice in our average every day life is gentleness.

There is a compassionate gentleness and kindness that is cultivated with mindfulness so that we don’t bully or bulldoze into that pain, suffering, or fear.

We lightly entertain these thoughts, feelings, and sensations as we start to become familiar with them.

We learn not to get hooked into beating ourselves us for what’s there when we sit long enough to be present to our thoughts or feelings.

We allow them to be, but we are no longer ignorant of them.

We have a conscious awareness  of them and with practice, we can offer ourselves lovingkindness and equanimity and welcome those sore spots into the totality of our experience.

Remember back to one of my really early posts… Frank Ostaseski teaches “Welcome everything, push away nothing” in his trainings on being a compassionate companion to the dying.  These are truly wise words to live by and to cultivate in our hectic, chaotic lives.

Related articles

• Mindfulness Meditation Q & A (namasteconsultinginc.com)
• Jon Kabat-Zinn on Mindfulness (mindfulplaying.wordpress.com)
• How should you start if you want to try mindfulness meditation? (beyondmeds.com)
• Mindfulness Meditation Is Rediscovered – Newsweek (thedailybeast.com)
• Mind Reading: Jon Kabat-Zinn Talks About Bringing Mindfulness Meditation to Medicine (healthland.time.com)
• An Uncomfortable Silence (imperfecthappiness.wordpress.com)
• How my friends and I discovered Mindfulness (meaningfulwesternlife.com)

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