Ram Dass - Still Here - Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying

I read this book as I was trying to study some different practices of meditation.

Ram Dass - Still Here - Embracing Change---

Some thoughts I liked in the this book:

Healing is not curing. Page 5

I'm still learning to be here now. page 7

I saw I had a choice, to change my mind of stop living. page 34

Learn to feel what is, without taking on the suffering. page 42

There is a big difference between being lonely and being alone. Loneliness is an affair of the Ego. Being alone can be a moment for the Soul. It is necessary to be a lone to have the time to be quiet, to meditate, to get to know ourselves. Being alone is an opportunity. page 43

Loss of Role/Meaning
It is important that we not wait until we find ourselves at such an impasse before seeking an alternative means of confronting our aging years. page 48

When we cease to resist our grief, for example, we learn that, painful though it may be, grief is an integral part of elder wisdom, a force that humbles and deepens our hearts, connects us to the fired of the world, and enables us to be of help. page 50

Age is an opportunity for considering questions like "What am I doing here? What has this all been about? page 53

Facing Fear:
In a calm moment, allow yourself to consider the list of the most common fears and challenges facing us as we grow older, from the usual suspects, to things like abandonment, death . . . page 53

We must be willing to look at everything - our own suffering as well as the suffering around us-without averting our gaze, and allow to be in the present moment. Rather than closing our mind to fear, we learn to open it, to sit with it, allowing it to arise and pass in its own time. page 54

If I Had My Life Over - I'd Pick More Daisies
Nadine Stair
If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax, I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies. Page 105-106

I love that poem. I am also reminded that we cannot live life over -so I must try to live it 'right' as I go along.

Chatty