Why you'd want to live a long life

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed a workshop I went to on the Energetic Basis of Zen Yoga where we were introduced to a book written in 1211 called Kissayojoki or "Drink Tea and Prolong Life" by Zen master Eisai. Eisai wrote it to help convince the Japanese shogun at the time to give up being an alcoholic and drink tea instead - essentially to live a better and healthier life. However, in writing the book he set out a great deal of knowledge and many practices he'd learnt in China for boosting health and vitality, and the keys to living not just an average length of life, but a very long life.

So the question is why would you want to live a long life?

Why wouldn't you...?! In the west we seem to have a preoccupation with finding the elixir of life, the secret of immortality, sometimes called the philosopher's stone - a mythical potion that supposedly grants the drinker eternal life and/or eternal youth. Just google for "secret of eternal youth"! But as far as I see it, this preoccupation or desire to live forever is really driven by fear. Fear of change, fear of getting older, fear of loss, and ultimately a fear of death. Death is one of the great unknowns that we will never know about. Just pause for a moment and think of what might happen to you when you die - it's scary!

Why is it scary? I think it all stems from that little word "you" (or actually "me"). What will happen to me? What is 'me'? Who am I? What is self?

When it comes down to it, aren't we just scared of finding out that we're not who we think we are? We have these ideas like "I have good skin", "I have a healthy body","I have a good memory", "I have many friends", then as we get older we find our skin wrinkles, our hair falls out, we lose our memory, and this is scary.

But if we can learn to let go of this precious 'self' we care so deeply about, then change, getting older, and even death suddenly seem much less terrifying. We just need to stop making those "I am..." identifications.

Of course it's not quite that easy! If you spend some concentrated time looking at that question of "who am I?" you might get a genuine direct experience of no-self - when the self dissolves and you realise that 'I' doesn't really exist in the way you thought.

But it's one thing having this realisation, and another thing altogether living fully and completely from this realisation: seeing through all those old habits driven by thinking of yourself as separate, and fully integrating this realisation into your life.

So that's why I think one might want to live a long life. Because it takes time and a lot of effort to see through the strong and habitual delusions of the self built up over the decades since you realised you had a self. And it takes time to work out how to truly live from this place. Developing wise or skilful intentions, making wholesome and compassionate actions, speaking wisely and kindly, finding the right kind of livelihood, putting your efforts and energy in the right kind of directions, paying attention skilfully, and practising the things that cultivate all these qualities. That's the Buddha's 8-fold path, that is! And it's a life-long practice.

Available here