When you’ve only got a hundred years to live

It’s been Halloween this week, and Day of the Dead, and you’ve probably seen the super effort people have put into decorating their yards. Maybe you decorated, too. And how helpful are these displays in reminding us of our real condition?! … perhaps in the seemingly safe context of a candy-fuelled public holiday!? Those old witches and dead skeletons … is this not in our future?! (I’m already almost there in the witch department, what with no front tooth ‘n all.) Sooner or later, body parts start falling apart and falling off. Eventually all our flesh falls off. Denying this inevitable ageing and death only pains us. Learning to accept it, even laugh at it, is way more relaxing. And this holiday could also remind us that we are all in this together.

I’ve been thinking about how we get a decreasing return on investment the longer life goes on: when we’re young, 30 minutes in front of a mirror renders us gorgeous but, fast forward a couple of decades, and it might render us presentable, if we’re lucky. That’s what happens to the body. Not the mind, though – with the mind, there is an ever-increasing return on investment if we practice Dharma.

The oldest American has left the room

Ms Elizabeth Francis, the oldest person in the US and third oldest in the world, died last week at the age of 115.

This is a woman who has lived through two world wars, including the supposed “war to end all wars” and the Holocaust. As well as through umpteen other conflicts and shifts in the world (dis)order, and some good things too. The atomic bomb. The great depression. Suffragettes. Two major pandemics (Spanish flu and COVID-19). The civil rights movement. The moon landing. Space travel. Modern conveniences. Fast food. Television. Computers. Smartphones. Satellites. The internet. Quantum computing. Self-driving cars. Global warming. Migration. Artificial intelligence. Each one of these has changed our world hugely – and what of all of them together?! What did Elizabeth Francis make of this non-stop rapid change? She lived in Houston most of her life – and how much did Houston alone change in that time?! I hope she kept a diary.

One thing that strikes me about her lifespan is that, however tumultuous and earth-shattering these events of her world, all of them were equally impermanent and empty of inherent existence. Each of her 1,381 months or 42,003 days is a dream now passed. In Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (page 20) Shantideva expresses this beautifully:

And yet my friends will become nothing
And others will also become nothing.
Even I shall become nothing;
Likewise, everything will become nothing.

Just like an experience in a dream,
Everything I now enjoy
Will become a mere recollection,
For what has passed cannot be seen again.

Would Elizabeth Francis have batted an eyelid at this election? How many elections did she survive? Would she have been sucked into this one, or would she be more like, “Meh, this may be bad, but I’ve seen all this before. And worse.”

Where do we want to put our energy in this precious human life? I would say, ideally, into something that we can actually control.

So, as for this US election coming up on Tuesday, if we’re freaking out, right now is a helpful time to remember the difference between inner and outer problems. Anxiety is not a constructive way to solve either. To solve the outer problem, we need to ask ourselves, what can we control? We can vote. We can donate. We can even campaign. But, talking for myself at least, I still have exceedingly little control over who gets in! However, in terms of the inner problem, there is a great deal that we can control. And one thing we can remember is that this election and its aftermath are as impermanent and empty as everything else in human history that has gone before. As my Grandpa said on his own deathbed, aged a mere 100:

In the light of eternity, I can see clearly now that there is no difference between one moment and one hundred years.

We may die today. We may live to 115. We need to prepare for both. In any event, none of us has much of a clue how long we have to live and what condition we will be in for our remaining days. Either way, we need to take it one day at a time. We need the magic pill, ie, the recognition:

I may die today.

This, as Venerable Geshe Kelsang says in How to Understand the Mind, is a non-deceptive thought:

In general we may die today or we may not die today – we do not know. However, if we think each day, “I may not die today,” this thought will deceive us because it comes from our ignorance; whereas if instead we think each day, “I may die today,” this thought wil not deceive us because it comes from our wisdom.

Fly on

I found a young bird fallen from her nest earlier this year. I went to prepare a nest so I could take her inside and let her die peacefully but, when I returned, she’d already flown to her next life. So fragile. As indeed are we. We are barely here. We’ve been diving in and out of varied bodies or vehicles continuously since beginningless time. We think that we and others are so solid and real, but in some ways it’s a wonder that this fragile meat suit lasts us a day.

If we understand the continuum of consciousness, especially from our own experience, we know that death is not the end; we are travelers bound for future lives. I came across this quote earlier and like it:

Sooner or later everybody put here has a date when he’s gonna go. That’s just the way it is. And I think there’s gotta be something when you go cause, I mean, how the hell did this whole thing start? ~ Frank Sheerey in The Irishman

Use this life!

What can we learn from someone who lives to 115? Not that I necessarily want to be only halfway through my life, unless I can stay moreorless physically and mentally healthy (fat chance), or at least with no ailments that are too hard for me to transform. Having said that, if I do get an illness that is hard to transform, I guess I need that practice?

So, what was Elizabeth Francis’s secret to lasting this long?

She was a woman of routine, so that counts me out. She was early to bed, and early to rise – hmmm, disqualified again. She worked hard … oh dear. She ate properly. Ah, good, yes I do try to eat properly most of the time.

But she apparently loved people, and, according to her daughter (aged 96) she lived by her oft-repeated words:

Treat people like you want to be treated!

And when asked last year to what she credited her longevity, it was to faith and the ensuing appreciation of her human life:

If the Good Lord gave it to you, use it! Speak your mind, don’t hold your tongue.

These are qualities that I can emulate! Appreciate this precious human life. Have integrity. Given that nothing else goes with us – worldly concerns are pillars of salt and all that remains are our bones – loving everyone you meet and having deep faith in a holy being seems like a pretty smart way to live. And die. She died peacefully.

My take aways

Ironically, Elizabeth Francis’s story has reminded me of how finite life is. Yes, she made it all the way to 115,  but that is not much, not really, and then she went up in a puff of smoke just the same. So what does that say about most shorter or much shorter human lives? I have no real idea what Five for Fighting are trying to get at in their song 100 Years, but for me it reminds me of how fleeting is human life:

I’m fifteen for a moment …

I’m twenty-three for a moment …

I’m thirty-three for a moment …

I’m forty-five for a moment
The sea is high
And I’m headin’ into a crisis
Chasin’ the years of my life …

Half time goes by, suddenly you’re wise
Another blink of an eye, sixty-seven is gone
The sun is getting high, we’re moving on …

I’m ninety-nine for a moment
And dyin’ for just another moment
And I’m just dreamin’
Countin’ the ways to where you are.

Given how flimsy is this life, like a water bubble on the river of time, and how soon is my future life, my take aways from this venerable lady are to use this life, love everyone, keep increasing my faith, speak my mind, perhaps eat more healthily, and try (yet again) to go to bed earlier. So, thank you for your example, Elizabeth Francis. May you be swept into the arms of your holy beings.