Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

The text of today’s post is addressed to the folks 65+ who live at Ashby Ponds. I’ve the feeling that most of you who read this blog may not be even 65 yet, but see no harm in your reading and remembering the thoughts I write about. So here it goes:

Witnessing sickness, old age and death for the first time can be deeply unsettling—especially for someone who has never encountered these human conditions before. That’s exactly what happened to the prince Siddharatha Gautama, now known to the world as the Buddha. 

From the time he was born, Siddhartha was sheltered from all human suffering. In the palace where he lived, physically and mentally disabled, sick and old people were not allowed to enter. He had never seen a dead person. One day at age twenty-nine he insisted that his dear friend and charioteer, Channa take him out of the palace to see the city. Reluctantly, Channa agreed.

In the capital city, Siddhartha encountered what became known as the “Four Visions.” He saw an old man, a sick man, a dead body, and finally, a renunciant. When told that to grow old, fall ill, and die was normal, that it was the fate of all beings including him, his heart trembled. The first three sights shook him to his core. That ride became his “dark night of the soul.” And immediately after that he renunciated his way of life.

The Four Visions transformed the young prince’s consciousness. A profound sense of meaninglessness arose within him; life seemed suddenly empty, without purpose. His egoic self—rooted in comfort and illusion—died that day. Years later, he “woke up,” reborn into a new consciousness of wisdom and compassion as the Buddha, “The Awakened One.”

At our age, we are not going to experience such dramatic transformation. Yet, before coming to Ashby Ponds, so many of us lived in luxury and may have avoided thinking or talking about frailty, sickness, or the inevitability of death. Unlike Siddhartha, we have slowly and gently entered the old age. Here, in this community, old age, sickness, and death are not foreign ideas but significant part of our shared reality. We see neighbors moving slowly, using walkers, scooters, and motorized vehicles. Yet they smile. They greet warmly. Some chit-chat. Life feels normal—and it is normal during the last quarter of our lives. 

Whether we’ve lived here for one year or fifteen, the environment of Ashby Ponds has helped soften our fears of aging and dying. It shows us how joyfully and healthily we can engage our minds and bodies—in music, art, theater, physical exercise, games, and companionship and laughter with friends. We enjoy delicious meals, read and relax in our comfortable apartments, and walk outdoors surrounded with trees, flowering bushes, manicured gardens, ponds with fountains. Living this way, we quietly participate in the natural process of growing frail and approaching the portal of death, without fear and often without even realizing it.

We are no longer afraid of death and dying. 
Maybe just a little!