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Buddhists/Buddha's views and wisdown on life after fifty

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Expert: - 10/16/2008


Question
A beautiful Sunny Hello from South Africa. Someone was telling me about what life is like after the age of fifty.. it was something that Buddha said..Something about living a fuller life.. or a more peaceful life.. almost like you finally find who you are and what you are about.. do you know of this wisdom teaching by Buddha.. I would really like to find it. I have spend hours searching the net on this and have yet to have found literature regarding this.
I thank you in kindness
Namaste
Wendy

Answer
Hi Wendy,
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to disappoint you - I don't know of any such comment. As I approach 60 I'd be interested!
To be quite frank, it does sound rather more like a modern idea than a Buddhist one. Buddhist thinking is rather that as long as we are imprisoned by ignorance, then old age goes along with sickness and death as a basic form of suffering. In the Buddha's day, anyone who lived into old age could expect to be bent, weak, toothless, reliant on others and have all sorts of aches and pains. Of course these days those of us with access to Western medicine can ameliorate some of those symptoms.
The wisdom we accumulate is, I think in the Buddhist view, more to do with *how* we have lived and *what* habits we have cultivated in our minds than with mere age.
So sorry, but I fear you are not very likely to find a proper original source for what you are hinting at. But if you do - let me know!
All the best
AW

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Alex Wilding

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I have practiced and studied Tibetan Buddhism in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions since the early 1970s, and have a good knowledge of theory, history and of the struggles of trying to practice the teachings, including meditation, while leading a normal, modern life. I am also available to provide background information for journalists.

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I have been a practitioner since the early 1970s; have run a small Buddhist centre in the English Midlands and was vice-president of Kagyu Benchen Ling e.V. in Germany, for whom I managed three large Buddhist summer-camps. More importantly, I maintain a habit of personal practice. I am the "owner" of the Kagyu list at Yahoo.

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My first degree was an M.A. from Oxford. I later obtained a Master of Philosophy degree for a research thesis in "Initiation in Tibetan Buddhism" from Leicester University. I also have engineering and educational qualifications.

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