英文原文
Ageing: the Great Adventure - A Buddhist Guide It was the shock of witnessing sickness, old age and death at first hand that moved the youthful Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the future Buddha, to search for a way out of suffering. Those of us who are no longer young are faced with the same challenge more directly. How can we best respond to it? Ageing is the supreme challenge of our life. Physically we begin to deteriorate. Socially we may now find ourselves discounted and patronised in various subtle and not so subtle ways. Ageism is the last and most difficult of the discriminations to be rooted out. These physical and social discomfitures combine to threaten and undermine our self-image and how we value ourselves. Commonly old age is viewed as a time when the best of life is behind us. What remains is to enjoy the “compensations” of old age, and even these are customarily presented in a sentimental and patronising light. I offer here a very different perspective, a Buddhist perspective, together with some practical proposals about how to embody it. Ageing can be the culminating adventure of our lives, up to which the earlier years may be seen as a preparation. I do not refer here to the promise of perpetual youth peddled by golden oldie consumerism. That is more evasion than adventure. The adventure of ageing is nothing less than the opportunity to transcend the self which has lived its life up to now, and hence to transcend the decrepitude and death of that self. At its simplest that grand word “transcendence” is about being totally at ease with ourselves, and hence at ease with others. Freed from self preoccupations and anxieties we can wholeheartedly serve others. The essence of an adventure, however, is that it is scary and unpredictable, a venture into the unknown which demands courage and risking ourselves. The more we resort to safety-nets, diversions and evasions the less of an adventure it becomes. We sell ourselves short. Moreover, an adventure requires training, skill and practice. So if we are to make an art of growing old and dying we need a practice, a way of cultivation, not as a part-time hobby, but with all our heart all our time. What I shall offer here is a number of perspectives and practices which readers can adapt to their own situations and needs. They will be around four themes: ageing, physical embodiment, dying, and celebration. Making a Start “Suffering I teach, and the way out of suffering”, proclaimed the Buddha. Here “suffering” does not mean pain but the profound discomfiture which we experience when all our attempts to remedy or evade pain prove futile. Our suffering presents us with a powerful incentive to undertake a practice in which we learn to work intimately with the suffering and thereby transform it or at the least make it more manageable. So the first task of each of us is to identify and define what it is about ageing that particularly discomfits and frustrates us. Where is the shoe pinching? Indeed we may be able to identify and work with two or three such discomfitures. Note that what we have to work with is not the cause of our discomfiture (that is, the pain itself) but how we experience it (that is, our sense of discomfiture) – not what is afflicting us out there, but what it feels like in here, in the mind. The Buddha explained this distinction between pain and suffering from pain as follows: When afflicted with a feeling of pain those who lack inner awareness sorrow, grieve and lament, beating their breasts and becoming distraught. So they feel two pains, physical and mental. It is just like being shot with an arrow, and right afterwards being shot with a second one, so that they feel two arrows. Some people find it difficult to make this distinction, but to be able to do so is a first big step towards overcoming suffering. Thus we may be afflicted by the pain of arthritis, plus the painful fact of not being able to manage on a reduced income. Secondly, we need to clarify consciousness of how each of these afflictions upsets us. How this is to be done will be explained shortly. But it is noteworthy that different people may experience much the same affliction in very different ways. Some make light of what others find deeply depressing. External fixes In our contemporary culture a great many afflictions can be remedied or alleviated by some external fix. Medication can control arthritic pain. State welfare benefits can alleviate financial distress. Certainly such remedies should be explored and applied as needs be. Those of us who are financially comfortable and live in prosperous high tech cultures have access to so many external fixes that we tend to develop a “fix it” mentality. We become totally dependent on external solutions and feel particularly frightened and vulnerable when these are not available or do not work any longer. This contrasts with more traditional cultures where greater psycho-spiritual and cultural resources have been developed to enable people to experience affliction less painfully in the substantial absence of technical and social fixes. However, with ageing, medical interventions and favourable social conditions can be only of limited value in the face of our mortality and the inevitable deterioration of our bodies. It is this that makes the experience of ageing particularly challenging. It is our self-identity that is challenged. This vulnerable and transient sense of self needs to affirm itself, to feel secure, by holding on to whatever it can, getting enough of what it wants and avoiding enough of what it doesn’t want. For a variety of reasons this tends to become more difficult with ageing, and there is commonly a growing sense of powerlessness and loss of control over our lives. This exposes the root fear, the sense of lack, that lies at the heart of the human condition but which in earlier years we are better placed to keep covered up. Threats to the Ageing Self There are two intertwined strategies by which we struggle to sustain our sense of self in the course of our lives. They are belongingness-identity (of gender, nationality and so on) and strongly standing out as a unique individual who makes his or her mark. Both of these identity-creating strategies are threatened by ageing. On the day I retired from my institutional career, cleared my desk, and handed in my ID card, I recall wandering about disconsolately amidst the rush of purposive commuters, who knew where they were going that day, and probably for several years to come. “Retired” and “O.A.P.” are back-number identities which imply a kind of belongingness we may be reluctant to embrace. Behind the social invisibility of old age there is much alienation and loneliness. This includes alienation from our contemporary speedy, clever youth culture, which can become increasingly strange with each passing decade. The aged tend to become strangers in their own land. Ours is an up-front culture of individualism with attitude. Get a life! In a culture which places a high value on independence, standing up and standing out, physical and financial dependence can induce feelings of failure and inadequacy. In the area of gender and sexuality to be a “real man” or a “real woman” is commonly important in sustaining a strong self-identity. Here again old age can diminish self-regard. Men’s sexual drive is lost or diminished; women are said to lose their looks. Responses to Ageing – Keeping Young It is just possible for a few to avoid both the tribulations and the challenges of ageing, and never really to grow old at all. These are commonly robust, healthy and well-to-do extraverts who manage to keep reinventing their youthful selves, always on the go. Then one day they go out like a light, perhaps in their sleep, perhaps from a heart attack. Still as busy and self-fulfilled as ever they crash into the buffers and are gone. In our culture this is widely considered the best possible way to go. And indeed such a life may be envied by those for whom ageing is a wretched decline. Of all the geriatric evasion strategies it is deservedly the most popular, though not one that can always be chosen at will. But is there not something supremely important which this eternal-youth-and-into-the-buffers school may be missing? Many of those who strive to keep young find that being actively involved in service to others helps them to do this. Thus life continues to appear meaningful and they have the status of the helper who assists the needy. But for people of any age, helping others can be a major distraction from truly seeking to help ourselves. True, the aged have many opportunities to be of service to others in ways not possible when younger. However, what that service really means depends on motivation. How far are we really serving ourselves and how far are we selflessly serving others? Only the cultivation of scrupulously honest insight can give a clear answer. For if we are predominantly serving our selves then the quality of our service is likely to be flawed. This is a difficult and delicate matter. We should certainly not be deterred from helping others if they are in need and we feel we can be of assistance. It is by the actual experience of helping that we have an opportunity to observe what underlying motivations are at work. And certainly if we are helping older people one of the most valuable services we can offer is to become an example of how to age in an inspiring and creative way ourselves. Some Negative Responses to Ageing Jung observed that “many old people prefer to be hypochondriacs, niggards, pedants, applauders of the past or else eternal adolescents. – all lamentable substitutes for the illumination of the self.” In response to the multiple discomfitures of ageing, our personality and behaviour may be deformed, though we may remain unaware of the extent to which we have changed. We may become curmudgeonly, grudging and cantankerous, full of bile against the world for all we have lost. Why me? From there it is an easy slide into self-pity and then into depression and then into withdrawal and denial – seemingly bereft of all emotion. Our immune system weakens and we become an easy prey to illness. A different response is to play the Uncle Tom role. We reinvent ourselves as old fogies (which is at least some kind of distinctive identity) or, better still, we cosy up to being patronised as jolly old birds and amiable codgers. Another kind of evasion is that of the fusspot, struggling desperately to keep everything in place. We become anxious and obsessive about more and more petty details. It is as if our larger concerns had now escaped us (or we had managed to forget them) and hence control over what remains to us becomes increasingly important. And yet for others growing old brings the opposite – an enlargement of all our sensibilities. And, finally, the Existential Option Advancing age makes it more and more difficult for us to feel in full control of our lives. It loosens our grip on many of our attachments. It helps us to let go of clinging. For the first time we may sense the full human potential that lies beyond this small, obsessed self. And so the third kind of response is to undertake a transformation of the experience of ageing. There are some people who seem able to do this quite naturally and effortlessly. But the meditative practice of “bare awareness” (or “mindfulness”) through which it can be achieved is available to all of us. A start has been made already here with the identification of each our own most acutely felt discomfitures of ageing. Discomfiture refers here to the painful experience of some external affliction, including bodily afflictions. Awareness practice is learning to open up to powerful emotions without either letting them discharge themselves (as anger or self-pity, for example), or suppressing them (perhaps by trying to rationalize them or otherwise get them under control]. This, incidentally, is not to deny that anger may be a healthy response to some injustice out there – but when angry we can often sense how much is in fact coming from some gutsy ego frustration. This middle way of creative containment is not easy to describe, and harder still to do. It requires a lot of personal experimentation. John Welwood, a transpersonal psychologist, writes of “befriending emotion” which, “by neither suppressing emotions nor exploring the meaning in them, teaches us a way to feel their naked aliveness and contain their energy.” Some further explanation from teachers in different Buddhist traditions may help to get the measure of awareness practice. In the Theravada Buddhist tradition, Nyanaponika Mahathera writes that “by the methodical application of Bare Attention ... all the latent powers of a non-coercive approach will gradually unfold themselves with their beneficial results and their wide and unexpected implications.” “Let yourself be in the emotion”, wrote the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa. “Go through it, give in to it, experience it ...Then the most powerful energies become absolutely workable rather than taking you over, because there is nothing to take over if you are not putting up any resistance.” Zen philosopher Hubert Benoit warns as follows: “If a humiliating circumstance turns up, offering me a marvellous chance of initiation, at once my imagination strives to conjure what appears to me to be in danger... It does everything to restore me to that habitual state of satisfied arrogance in which I find a transitory respite, but also the certainty of further distress. In short, I constantly defend myself against that which offers to save me; I fight foot by foot to defend the very source of my unhappiness!” Thus, in ageing, we seek to open in stark awareness to one or more of the particular discomfitures – hurts, anxiety, unease – which we have identified, working for a period of time with each if there are more than one. These feelings are threatening when we try to look them straight in the face. It is like spilling cold water on a hot stove: the bubbles run in all directions and turn to steam. Anything to escape! For this reason it is best to begin with whatever might be our favourite evasions of a specific discomfiture. We can begin by examining possible evasion in terms of lifestyle, as described earlier, like the escape into busyness or into fussy and petty preoccupations. Next we can move in closer and try to get a taste of the inner, psychological evasions that lie beneath what I have called lifestyle evasions. For example, Elizabeth Kubler Ross identified a sequence of successive attitudes to death and dying as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. We each have our favourite evasions when blocked, frustrated or frightened by some circumstance that threatens our control over our lives. In my experience, strongly masculine personalities often fixate on “my problem out there” and may find it very difficult to get in touch with “how it feels in here”. Another first line of defence is denial (“I’m not really ill at all!”). Or we may try to rationalise and intellectualise painful feelings (like kidding ourselves we are not really in denial, or burying ourselves – thanks to the internet! -- in study and discussion of the minutiae of our illness). Or, again, anger and frustration may be projected onto others or the world in general (“Young people today ....”). Even feeling guilty is evasive, in that by punishing ourselves we do retain a perverse kind of control. The same can be said of self-pity, often a final resort. Here we are getting down to very basic emotions, stripping away successive self-protecting layers. Anger itself, for example, is an evasion which protects us from what we eventually discover lies beneath it and fires it up – root fear. Always this practice is about deepening our physical awareness of how affliction feels. What are its physical sensations? Its colour? The taste of it? Getting in touch will be easiest in sitting meditation, when the surface of the mind has become still and the deeper feelings can be observed. When the root fear in which our evasions originate does itself become transparent we are left only with the emptiness of the self-seeking self. The self just gives up trying to sustain its illusions (sometimes in a state of extreme despair) and is freed at last into acceptance of the “suchness” of things, of “just how it is”, “just how we are”. Reality appears without our need to colour and shape it, to make pictures, and hence we become more open to other people’s realities. Indeed, it has always been there, trying to break through to us, but obscured by the clouds of self-protectiveness. There is here a sense of liberative joy, of gratitude, freed of the constant strain of trying to make our condition as we vainly desire it to be. Note that “acceptance” here signifies a positive liberation instead of the grudging putting up with things that the word might otherwise suggest. Similarly the “empowerment” we experience is not a self-empowerment, but the empowerment of a universal energy that floods in when we give up our futile attempts at self-empowerment. When all our evasions become transparent they lose their compulsive power. We see more clearly how to respond to our problems, which now appear more open and manageable. And if there is little we can do about our decrepitude and death in a few years time, in that deep hearted acceptance lies liberation. Stacking firewood this winter evening how simple death seems Freed of self-preoccupation we are freed wholly to respond to others’ needs. The wisdom of bare awareness thus manifests itself as compassion in the world. Laughter and tears mingle when we become aware of the tragi-comedy of our unavailing struggle to be free of this or that without being able to see that struggle as itself the greatest of our problems. This, then, is how we can transcend ageing as it is conventionally experienced. And it is with ageing that this practice achieves its greatest potential, when all the customary evasions to which we may have become habituated in earlier years begin to wear thin and we are obliged truly to confront our human condition.
中文翻译
衰老：伟大的冒险——佛教指南 正是亲眼目睹疾病、衰老和死亡的震撼，促使年轻的悉达多王子——未来的佛陀——寻找解脱痛苦之道。我们这些不再年轻的人更直接地面临着同样的挑战。我们该如何最好地应对它？ 衰老是我们生命中的至高挑战。身体上，我们开始衰退。社会上，我们可能会发现自己在各种微妙或不那么微妙的方式中被忽视和居高临下地对待。年龄歧视是最后且最难根除的歧视。这些身体和社会上的不适结合起来，威胁并削弱我们的自我形象以及我们如何评价自己。通常，老年被视为生命中最美好的时光已经过去的时期。剩下的就是享受老年的“补偿”，甚至这些补偿通常也以感伤和居高临下的方式呈现。 我在这里提供一个非常不同的视角，一个佛教的视角，以及一些关于如何体现它的实用建议。衰老可以是我们生命中的巅峰冒险，之前的岁月可以被视为准备。我在这里指的不是金色老年消费主义兜售的永葆青春的承诺。那更像是逃避而非冒险。衰老的冒险正是超越迄今为止生活的自我的机会，从而超越那个自我的衰老和死亡。简单来说，“超越”这个宏大的词是关于完全自在地与自己相处，从而与他人自在相处。从自我关注和焦虑中解脱出来，我们可以全心全意地服务他人。 然而，冒险的本质在于它是可怕和不可预测的，是进入未知的冒险，需要勇气和冒险精神。我们越是依赖安全网、转移注意力和逃避，它就越不像冒险。我们低估了自己。 此外，冒险需要训练、技能和实践。因此，如果我们要将变老和死亡变成一门艺术，我们需要一种修行，一种培养的方式，不是作为兼职爱好，而是全心全意、全时投入。我将在这里提供一些视角和实践，读者可以根据自己的情况和需求进行调整。它们将围绕四个主题：衰老、身体体现、死亡和庆祝。 开始 “我教导苦，以及离苦之道”，佛陀宣称。这里的“苦”不是指疼痛，而是当我们所有试图缓解或逃避疼痛的努力都证明无效时所经历的深刻不适。我们的苦为我们提供了一个强大的动力，去进行一种修行，在其中我们学会与苦亲密合作，从而转化它或至少使它更易管理。 因此，我们每个人的首要任务是识别和定义衰老中特别让我们不适和沮丧的是什么。鞋子在哪里夹脚？事实上，我们可能能够识别并处理两三个这样的不适。 请注意，我们需要处理的不是我们不适的原因（即疼痛本身），而是我们如何体验它（即我们的不适感）——不是外在困扰我们的是什么，而是内在、心中感觉如何。佛陀这样解释疼痛和苦痛之间的区别： 当被疼痛感困扰时，那些缺乏内在觉知的人会悲伤、哀悼和悲叹，捶胸顿足，变得心烦意乱。所以他们感受到两种疼痛，身体的和心理的。就像被一支箭射中，紧接着又被第二支箭射中，所以他们感受到两支箭。 有些人发现很难做出这种区分，但能够做到是克服苦痛的第一步。因此，我们可能被关节炎的疼痛所困扰，再加上收入减少无法管理的痛苦事实。其次，我们需要澄清意识，了解这些困扰如何使我们不安。如何做到这一点将在稍后解释。但值得注意的是，不同的人可能以非常不同的方式体验几乎相同的困扰。有些人轻描淡写，而其他人则深感沮丧。 外部解决方案 在我们当代文化中，许多困扰可以通过一些外部解决方案来缓解或减轻。药物可以控制关节炎疼痛。国家福利可以缓解财务困境。当然，这些疗法应根据需要探索和应用。 我们中那些经济舒适、生活在繁荣高科技文化中的人，可以接触到如此多的外部解决方案，以至于我们倾向于发展一种“修复它”的心态。我们变得完全依赖外部解决方案，当这些方案不可用或不再有效时，会感到特别害怕和脆弱。这与更传统的文化形成对比，在那些文化中，发展了更多的心理-精神和文化资源，使人们在没有技术和社会解决方案的情况下，能够不那么痛苦地体验困扰。然而，随着衰老，面对我们的死亡和身体的不可避免的衰退，医疗干预和有利的社会条件只能有有限的价值。正是这一点使得衰老的经历特别具有挑战性。 是我们的自我认同受到挑战。这种脆弱和短暂的自我感需要通过抓住它能抓住的一切，得到足够它想要的，避免足够它不想要的，来确认自己，感到安全。由于各种原因，这往往随着衰老而变得更加困难，通常会有一种日益增长的无能感和对生活失去控制的感觉。这暴露了根深蒂固的恐惧，缺乏感，它位于人类状况的核心，但在早年我们更有条件掩盖它。 对衰老自我的威胁 有两种交织的策略，我们通过它们来维持我们生命过程中的自我感。它们是归属感认同（性别、国籍等）和强烈地脱颖而出，作为一个留下印记的独特个体。这两种创造认同的策略都受到衰老的威胁。 在我从机构职业生涯退休的那天，清理了我的办公桌，交回了我的身份证，我记得在匆忙而有目的的上班族中沮丧地徘徊，他们知道那天要去哪里，可能未来几年也是如此。“退休”和“O.A.P.”是过时的身份，暗示一种我们可能不愿接受的归属感。在老年社会隐形背后，有许多疏离和孤独。这包括与我们当代快速、聪明的青年文化的疏离，这种文化可能随着每个十年的过去而变得越来越陌生。老年人往往在自己的土地上成为陌生人。 我们的文化是一种带有态度的个人主义前沿文化。过好生活！在一个高度重视独立、挺身而出和脱颖而出的文化中，身体和经济上的依赖可能引发失败感和不足感。 在性别和性领域，成为“真正的男人”或“真正的女人”通常对维持强烈的自我认同很重要。在这里，老年再次可能削弱自尊。男性的性欲丧失或减弱；女性据说失去容貌。 对衰老的反应——保持年轻 少数人可能避免衰老的磨难和挑战，从未真正变老。这些人通常是健壮、健康和富裕的外向者，他们设法不断重塑自己年轻时的自我，总是忙个不停。然后有一天，他们像灯一样熄灭，也许在睡眠中，也许因心脏病发作。仍然像以往一样忙碌和自我实现，他们撞上缓冲器，然后消失。 在我们的文化中，这被广泛认为是最好的离去方式。确实，这样的生活可能被那些认为衰老是悲惨衰退的人所羡慕。在所有老年逃避策略中，它理所当然是最受欢迎的，尽管不是总能随意选择的。但是，这个永恒青春和撞上缓冲器的学派是否可能错过了一些极其重要的东西？ 许多努力保持年轻的人发现，积极参与服务他人有助于他们做到这一点。因此，生活继续显得有意义，他们拥有帮助需要帮助者的地位。但对于任何年龄的人来说，帮助他人可能是真正寻求帮助自己的主要干扰。确实，老年人有许多机会以年轻时不可能的方式服务他人。然而，这种服务的真正意义取决于动机。我们到底是在服务自己，还是在无私地服务他人？只有培养一丝不苟的诚实洞察力才能给出清晰的答案。因为如果我们主要是在服务自己，那么我们的服务质量可能会有缺陷。这是一个困难和微妙的问题。如果他人需要帮助，我们觉得可以提供帮助，我们当然不应该被阻止帮助他人。正是通过帮助的实际经验，我们有机会观察潜在的动机是什么。当然，如果我们帮助老年人，我们能提供的最有价值的服务之一就是成为如何以鼓舞人心和创造性的方式变老的榜样。 对衰老的一些负面反应 荣格观察到，“许多老年人宁愿成为疑病症患者、吝啬鬼、学究、过去的赞美者或永恒的少年。——所有这些都只是自我启发的可悲替代品。” 作为对衰老多重不适的反应，我们的个性和行为可能会变形，尽管我们可能没有意识到我们改变的程度。我们可能变得脾气暴躁、吝啬和易怒，对我们失去的一切充满对世界的怨恨。为什么是我？从那里很容易滑入自怜，然后进入抑郁，然后进入退缩和否认——似乎失去了所有情感。我们的免疫系统减弱，我们很容易成为疾病的猎物。 另一种反应是扮演汤姆叔叔的角色。我们重塑自己为老古董（这至少是一种独特的身份），或者更好的是，我们迎合被居高临下地对待为快乐的老鸟和和蔼的老头。 另一种逃避是那种忙乱的人，拼命地保持一切井然有序。我们对越来越多的琐碎细节变得焦虑和强迫。就好像我们更大的关注现在已经逃离了我们（或者我们设法忘记了它们），因此对我们剩下的东西的控制变得越来越重要。然而，对其他人来说，变老带来了相反的情况——我们所有感受力的扩大。 最后，存在主义的选择 年龄的增长使我们越来越难以完全控制自己的生活。它松开了我们对许多依恋的把握。它帮助我们放下执着。第一次，我们可能感受到超越这个小小的、痴迷的自我的全部人类潜力。 因此，第三种反应是进行衰老经历的转变。有些人似乎能够自然而轻松地做到这一点。但通过“赤裸觉知”（或“正念”）的冥想修行，这是所有人都可以实现的。 这里已经通过识别我们每个人最强烈感受到的衰老不适开始了。不适在这里指的是某些外部困扰的痛苦经历，包括身体困扰。 觉知修行是学会向强烈的情感开放，既不让它们自行释放（如愤怒或自怜），也不压抑它们（也许通过试图合理化它们或以其他方式控制它们）。顺便说一句，这并不否认愤怒可能是对某些不公正的健康反应——但当愤怒时，我们常常能感觉到实际上有多少是来自某种强烈的自我挫败感。这种创造性包容的中道不容易描述，更难做到。它需要大量的个人实验。 超个人心理学家约翰·韦尔伍德写道，“与情绪为友”，“既不压抑情绪，也不探索其中的意义，教会我们一种感受它们赤裸活力和容纳它们能量的方式。”来自不同佛教传统老师的进一步解释可能有助于理解觉知修行。在上座部佛教传统中，尼雅那波尼卡·摩诃长老写道，“通过有条不紊地应用赤裸注意……非强制方法的所有潜在力量将逐渐展现，带来有益的结果和广泛而意想不到的影响。”“让自己处于情绪中”，藏传佛教老师邱阳·创巴写道。“经历它，屈服于它，体验它……然后最强大的能量变得绝对可用，而不是控制你，因为如果你不抵抗，就没有什么可以控制。”禅宗哲学家休伯特·贝努瓦警告如下：“如果一个羞辱性的情况出现，给我一个奇妙的启蒙机会，我的想象力立刻努力召唤在我看来处于危险中的东西……它尽一切努力使我恢复到那种习惯性的满足傲慢状态，我在其中找到暂时的喘息，但也肯定会有进一步的痛苦。简而言之，我不断防御那些试图拯救我的东西；我寸步不让地防御我不快乐的根源！” 因此，在衰老中，我们寻求以赤裸的觉知向我们识别出的一个或多个特定不适——伤害、焦虑、不安——开放，如果不止一个，每个工作一段时间。当我们试图直视这些感觉时，它们是威胁性的。就像把冷水洒在热炉子上：气泡向各个方向流动，变成蒸汽。任何逃避！因此，最好从我们可能对特定不适的最喜欢的逃避开始。我们可以从生活方式方面检查可能的逃避，如前所述，比如逃避到忙碌或琐碎和细小的关注中。接下来，我们可以更接近，尝试体验内在的心理逃避，这些逃避位于我所谓的生活方式逃避之下。例如，伊丽莎白·库伯勒-罗斯将死亡和临终的连续态度序列识别为否认、愤怒、讨价还价、抑郁，最后是接受。 当被某些威胁我们生活控制的情况所阻碍、沮丧或害怕时，我们每个人都有自己的最喜欢的逃避方式。根据我的经验，强烈的男性人格常常固着于“我的外在问题”，可能很难接触到“内在感觉如何”。另一条第一道防线是否认（“我根本没病！”）。或者我们可能试图合理化和理智化痛苦的感觉（比如欺骗自己我们并没有真正否认，或者埋头——多亏了互联网！——研究和讨论我们疾病的细节）。或者，再次，愤怒和挫折可能投射到他人或整个世界（“今天的年轻人……”）。甚至感到内疚也是逃避的，因为通过惩罚自己，我们确实保留了一种反常的控制。自怜也是如此，通常是最后的求助。在这里，我们深入到非常基本的情感，剥离连续的自保护层。例如，愤怒本身是一种逃避，保护我们免受我们最终发现位于其下并点燃它的东西——根深蒂固的恐惧。 这种修行总是关于加深我们对困扰感觉的身体觉知。它的身体感觉是什么？它的颜色？它的味道？在坐禅时最容易接触，当心灵的表面变得平静，更深的感觉可以被观察到。 当我们的逃避起源的根深蒂固的恐惧本身变得透明时，我们只剩下寻求自我的空虚。自我只是放弃试图维持其幻觉（有时处于极端绝望的状态），最终被释放到接受事物的“如是性”，“就是这样”，“我们就是这样”。现实出现，无需我们着色和塑造它，制造图像，因此我们对他人的现实更加开放。确实，它一直在那里，试图突破到我们，但被自我保护的云层遮蔽。这里有一种解放的喜悦感，感激感，从不断努力使我们的状况如我们徒劳地希望的那样的紧张中解脱出来。请注意，这里的“接受”意味着积极的解放，而不是这个词可能暗示的勉强忍受。 同样，我们经历的“赋能”不是自我赋能，而是当我们放弃自我赋能的徒劳尝试时涌入的普遍能量的赋能。当我们所有的逃避变得透明时，它们失去了强迫性的力量。我们更清楚地看到如何回应我们的问题，这些问题现在显得更开放和可管理。如果几年后我们对衰老和死亡无能为力，那么在这种深心的接受中，就有解放。 堆柴火 这个冬夜 死亡看起来多么简单 从自我关注中解脱出来，我们完全自由地回应他人的需求。赤裸觉知的智慧因此在世界上表现为慈悲。当我们意识到我们徒劳地挣扎摆脱这个或那个，却无法看到这种挣扎本身是我们最大的问题时，笑声和泪水交织在一起。 那么，这就是我们如何超越传统上经历的衰老。正是通过衰老，这种修行达到了最大的潜力，当所有我们可能早年习惯的常规逃避开始变得薄弱，我们被迫真正面对我们的人类状况。
文章概要
本文从佛教视角探讨中年身体变化的接纳，将衰老视为生命中的伟大冒险。文章指出，衰老带来身体衰退和社会歧视，挑战自我认同，但通过佛教修行，可以超越自我，实现自在。作者提出以“赤裸觉知”为核心，识别和面对衰老中的不适，区分疼痛与苦痛，避免逃避。文章强调，衰老是超越自我、服务他人的机会，最终导向解放和慈悲。内容围绕衰老、身体体现、死亡和庆祝四个主题，提供实用指导，帮助读者以积极态度接纳身体变化。
高德明老师的评价
1. 用12岁初中生可以听懂的语音来重复翻译的内容：这篇文章就像在说，当我们慢慢变老，身体会有点不舒服，比如关节疼，或者别人可能不太重视我们。但佛教告诉我们，这其实是一个很棒的机会，就像一场大冒险！我们可以学习不害怕这些变化，而是接受它们，这样我们就能更开心，还能帮助别人。就像玩游戏升级一样，变老让我们变得更强大、更聪明！ 2. 佛学的各个宗派视角评价，突出《显密圆通成佛心要集》的视角：从佛教显宗和大乘视角看，本文强调的“赤裸觉知”与禅宗和上座部的正念修行相通，但《显密圆通成佛心要集》的准提法提供了更圆融的路径。准提法融合显密，通过持咒和观想，直接净化身心，快速超越自我执着。在接纳身体变化上，准提法能转化衰老为修行资粮，以菩提心服务众生，体现大乘利他精神。显宗如禅宗注重觉知，而准提法则以密法加持，加速解脱，更适合现代人应对中年挑战。 3. 在修行实践上可以应用的和可以解决人们的十个问题： - 应用：通过准提咒持诵，培养觉知，接纳身体变化；以菩提心服务他人，转化自我关注；定期冥想，观察情绪，减少逃避。 - 解决十个问题： 1. 身体疼痛管理：通过觉知练习减轻痛苦感。 2. 自我价值感下降：以服务他人重建意义。 3. 社会孤立感：参与佛教社群，增强归属。 4. 对死亡的恐惧：修行中体验超越，减少焦虑。 5. 情绪波动：用正念稳定内心。 6. 身份认同危机：通过修行发现真实自我。 7. 生活失去方向：以佛教目标为导向。 8. 人际关系紧张：培养慈悲改善互动。 9. 健康衰退焦虑：接受变化，专注当下。 10. 未来不确定性：修行带来内在安稳。