Nemo wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 3:17 pm
TharpaChodron wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 12:01 am
Nemo wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 12:06 am
Retirement is interesting. The amount of freedom can evoke some strange feelings. It's not a weekend or a vacation. You are truly free for the first time. People still in the rat race don't understand and can't relate to it. You can volunteer and stuff but you start drifting away. Retreat and finding other people who are also free seems to be the best way to spend your time. Going to a place to be told what to do might be too jarring. People running centers often treat people like children needing guidance. At retirement age you need to be an adult. It seems on my more cynical days a large part of monastic life is keeping young horny people busy and out of trouble. Though ordination at retirement is nice for some people.
I have often heard talk of building Buddhist retirement homes but it never seems to be a priority. Older Tibetan Lamas sometimes build them in India. Forming lasting communities anywhere under late capitalism seems almost impossible.
I'm a long ways from the luxury of retiring, but I have these non-Buddhist coworkers that like to go on and on about how they long to retire...a pretty dismal way to live one's life imo. This thread actually made me think a bit deeper about my hopes and fears regarding retirement. It's a bit of a samsaric fantasy, at least for me. It is important though to prepare for the future, as your story about taking care of elderly practitioners demonstrates.
It seems to be taboo to talk about being free. There does not seem to be a model to grow old elegantly. Many people do it very poorly. Being in the military they thought it best if we retired early since some skills are better taken off the market.
Lao Tzu is passing through a forest, and the forest is being cut. Thousands of carpenters are cutting the trees. Then he comes near a big tree—a very big tree, one thousand bullock carts can rest underneath it—and it is so green and beautiful. He sends his disciples to inquire of the carpenters why this tree has not been cut yet.
And they say ‘It is useless. You cannot make anything out of it: furniture cannot be made, it cannot be used as fuel—it gives too much smoke. It is of no use. That’s why we have not cut it.’
And Lao Tzu says to his disciples ‘Learn from this tree. Become as useless as this tree then nobody will cut you.’
Uselessness has great value.
He says: Look, and watch this tree. Learn something from this tree. This tree is great. Look, all the trees are gone. They were useful, hence they are gone. Some tree was very straight, that’s why it is gone. It must have been very egoistic, straight, proud of being somebody—it is gone. This tree is not straight, not a single branch is straight. It is not proud at all. Hence it exists.
Lao Tzu tells his disciples: ‘If you want to live long, become useless.’ Don’t become a commodity, don’t become a thing. If you become a thing you will be sold and purchased in the market, and you will become a slave. If you are not a thing, who can purchase you and who can sell you? Remain unmade. Don’t become a human commodity and nobody will be able to use you. And if nobody is able to use you, you will have a beautiful life of your own, independent, free, joyful. If nobody can use you, nobody can reduce you to a means. You will never be insulted, because in this life there is no greater insult than to become a means: somebody or other is going to use you—your body, your mind, your being.
Yep, some professions do encourage earlier retirement, like police officers. Probably it's a much greater liability having older people doing that type of work as they age. My stepdad is an ex-Marine, but his Midwest farm boy upbringing makes retirement challenging for him. He retired three times and hated it. He now runs his own nonprofit and he's more physically active than many people half his age. Anyhow, everyone is different (in a relative way). Playing bingo or slot machines isn't for everyone.
Nice story from Lao Tzu. From what I gather, a lot
of people could learn from those teachings, but
I also think there should be a balance. Having some sort of purpose is associated with happiness for retired folks, however, maybe that's a problem, especially when one's career and hobbies etc don't lend themselves to transferable skills or activities that society actually values.
Nevertheless, not giving a damn, being happy and completely useless is a great thing. My neighbor retired from an intense job as lead public defender for the county. His passion is really gardening and I've never met a more relaxed guy, always puttering around his garden barefoot and fancy free.
