Practising the Art of Letting Go of the Ego

"Letting go of the ego." That's one of the main developmental tasks of aging defined by Carl Jung, who called the later years the afternoon of life, quite a pleasant image, calling up the pleasure of walking along a beautiful path. Which we are.

I have been working on letting go of the ego since I became a Buddhist in my mid-30s. After 40 years I wish I could brag about my progress. But if I were bragging about how egoless I have managed to become.... well let's face it, that would be a tad egotistical.


It is a work in process. I still have not succeeded in transforming all that lead into gold. Understated, but true. I will spare you the gory details. I'm sure you have your own to contend with.

"Altruism is innate, but it's not instinctual. Everybody's wired for it, but a switch has to be flipped," says author David Rakoff.
 
Getting older does help with flipping that switch. One is aware that these are the final years of life. That recognition hopefully puts some wind in the sails.

The inner work that is a natural part aging sails us into waters that we could never have navigated earlier in life. We just were not experienced enough. Even in later life navigating these waters is challenging. Facing death, life review, healing old wounds, letting go of the ego--these are profound areas of maturation and self-understanding.

That's why later life is a real treasure chest for the alchemist who is willing to spend time in the laboratory refining lead into gold. It's natural to be in that laboratory as we age. Much more natural than the hyper-active busyness that some older adults ascribe to as a way of filling every inch of space possible while avoiding the inner life.

I love this quote from the famous author and spiritual leader Ram Dass who tells us, "I didn't have to be somebody..."And that from a person who has been a highly visible public figure for many years. How he came to not having to be somebody is his unique journey, one interesting to read about. It's the same for each of us. We all have our own path.

I notice that there is a great deal of freedom in not having to be somebody. Loosening up the bonds of attachment to identity, performance orientation, station in life. It's one positive aspect of being less visible, stepping back out of the action a bit, spending more time with the inner life.

“I am weary of heroism. I am tired of doing. I am tired of great projects and frenzied efforts.  I have left the busy land of the middle-aged for a realm of deep inner stillness, quiet and sacred being." --John Robinson

Left to right Jeannie, Laurie and me at Tashi Choling

This quote resonates, because after decades of mighty Type A and semi-reformed Type A ambitions, I have been surprised at what it feels like to drop that kind of focus and perspective. It is different. I am another person really. Not having to be somebody, not having to accomplish something big to save the world, or some part of it. A different vantage point, something more panoramic.

Being more self-aware and quiet--letting go of heroic attitudes and ambitious great projects-- doesn't automatically mean disengaging from positive activity and engagement.

The process of letting go of the ego naturally propels older adults into more altruistic ways of thinking and being. We find ourselves asking ourselves, What is the most meaningful way for me to contribute now?  With a less constricted sense of self, freed up from the confines of having to be somebody, and knowing time is short, some older people can be great activists, philosophers and mentors.

I'm not saying it's easy, this business of self-transformation, letting go, and opening up in ways never dreamed of before. Letting go of the ego. I am grateful that I have a good strong ego to wrassle with. Seriously. But being ruled by the ego is too limited and limiting. Such self-fixation is a constricted version of who I really am, or could be as I go deeper.

So here I am, at the tail end of summer, navigating my boat in these beautiful waters. Hope this finds you well and happy.

P.S. Quotes from Ram Dass and John Robinson are from the Fierce with Age Digest, which you can subscribe to by clicking the link above. I look forward to receiving it, because it contains such thoughtful content about aging. You may enjoy it too.

The Matter of Life and Death

In the night, there is time to contemplate matters of life and death

At 71 years, one may find that the subject of  life and death is a regular and ongoing contemplation. At least this one does. Many humans live to 90 or more these days, yet at 71 one wonders how many more years will be given to this particular life.

I wrote a song about death for my musical revue A New Wrinkle. It's titled Death is Right Around the Corner, which it is. Ignoring or denying death is quite usual in this era, but I felt it was essential to have a song about death in the revue.



Part of the song goes:

"Late at night when in the dark
the whole world disappears
there are times when I can hear
the radiant music of the spheres
a resonance that’s calling me
from time into eternity."

I have been contemplating death for many years because I am a Buddhist. Buddhists have an ongoing practice of meditating on impermanence and the immanence of death. We don't know when death will come, the teachings tell us. Last night at 3:45am I spent an hour or two in the dark reflecting on my life and my certain passing from this world. This is something that pops up from time to time in my nocturnal experience.

I like lying quietly in the dark. I am glad to have the time and quiet to muse about dying. And I know that there is a world of difference between contemplating death and actually dying. When I gave birth to my second daughter, I thought in the midst of the oceanic and all-absorbing experience of birth, "Oh, this must be what dying is like, this extinction of everything external into the gigantic pulse of the moment, the sensation of being poised at the edge of life and death. "If only I could practice this experience a few more times," I thought to myself then, "I could become more skilled in letting go."

I didn't have the practice of birthing any more children, but I do practice what I think of as a sacred exit strategy. It's the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Phowa, in which one visualizes one's consciousness shooting out of the top of the head, the fontanelle area, and merging with the immeasurable light, in the form of the Buddha Amitabha. I've been fortunate also to have had Tibetan teachings over the years on the dissolution of the earthly elements at the time of death and various emotional//psychological experiences that tend to arise with these aspects of our letting go.

You don't have to be a Buddhist of course to recognize how important a territory death is, especially in the later years. Carl Jung once said, "Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose."  In this film clip, Jung talks about death as a fulfillment of life.

Emma Thompson in the movie Wit

 It so happened that yesterday my friend Diane gave me a DVD of Wit,  a movie starring Emma Thompson playing an intellectual scholar of the poetry of John Donne. This woman discovers that she has stage 4 ovarian cancer. We are witness to her experience in hospital during a radical course of cancer treatment, which has no useful effect on her cancer. We see  her pride, isolation, wit, humiliation, regret and sorrow. We are privy to the crisp impersonality of much of hospital culture. We share in her experience as she realizes that she is dying. This is quite a profound movie, wonderfully acted by Emma Thompson. I highly recommend it.

Isn't it a great puzzlement how we appear in this world from simple joining of sperm and egg, how we come in with particular gifts and limitation, live this life and then vanish, leaving our body behind?

Marcel Proust on his deathbed

 When Allen Ginsberg died, I remember seeing a photo of him on his deathbed, right after his passing. This photo, which I could no longer find in my Google browsing today was published I think by some Buddhist magazine. Though you might find it strange, I found that photo comforting and generous. How like Ginsberg I thought, a poet whose life was so outrageous and provocative, to request publication of his deathbed photo in a culture so fearful of looking at death. I felt comforted by his generous last gesture to me, a stranger and a fan.

Everyone dies. Beauty, fame, wit, must all be surrendered up.

So it seems to me to be a great time for giving things away and practicing letting go. I am grateful to be part of the sage-ing community, as its founder, Rabbi Zalman Schacter, points out the importance of various later life tasks, including preparing for death.

Of course,  it's not advisable to climb into the coffin while still alive! (I will be cremated however.)

These later years can be a time of fullness, deeper understanding, growth and healing. I am such a different person from who I was in my earlier years. Though far from sainthood still, I have learned a great deal about compassion and kindness.

This morning, pouring cream in my coffee, I am immersed in the world of the living.

What shall I do with these years? How shall I live, and where? I think about my friend Shari, who is on retreat in a monastery in Nepal. Retreat is a compelling possibility, as is moving to Nepal, a country so enriched by Buddhism.

But for now, I am sitting on the couch in my cottage in Oregon, looking at this photo of Santa's clothes hung up to air out on the clothesline of a charming old wooden lodge. I imagine Santa is sitting inside by a good blazing fire.

It's the holiday season and the winter solstice is approaching. This winter, some of the buzz is about the Mayan calendar shift. I think I will be learning more about this topic because next week at this time, I will be boarding a cruise ship that will take my friend Serena and I into the Gulf of Mexico and down to Mayan ruins in the Yucatan. The cruise organizers call the adventure the Mayan Galactic Alignment. I am the kind receiver of Serena's gift, being her guest on this journey. I imagine it will be pretty darned interesting.

Isn't life amazing, strange and wonderful? I find it to be so.