lotusinthemud

activist baby boomers are alive and well

Great to read it! I'd add a number of Amida Order members to the list (and include myself)

how to help your aging parents get their papers in order

From The Boomer Chronicles. Actually, I'm getting to be that aged parent. Better get my own papers in order!

If your parents are getting up there in age, perhaps you can lend a hand by starting a conversation with them to find out the following:

• insurance (Medicare/Medicaid number, other policies)
• doctors (names and contact information)
• medical history (medications, allergies, conditions, procedures)
• identification (Social Security, military ID, driver’s license numbers)
• address list (friends, neighbors, family)
• service providers (attorney, financial advisor, clergy, accountant)
• financial (account numbers, checkbook, investments, tax records)
• legal (wills, powers of attorney, health care directive)
• deeds (house, other property, car title, boat title)
• insurance (life, medical, auto, homeowner’s)
• household (mortgage, apartment lease, property tax records)
• vital records (birth certificate, marriage license, divorce decree)
• final wishes (organ donation, burial, property distribution)

And here is a detailed list of other things you will need to know.

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one year old today

Happy birthday, Boomer Chronicles

at 60, do something new and useful

We are not in the business of retiring in Amida-shu. I've noticed this in my own life! Here's Dharmavidya's latest Pastoral letter, in which he sets out the directions his life has taken and the new directions he feels it will be taking, now he has reached his 60s:

Pastoral Letter of 30th March 2007

There is a tradition in Japan that when you turn sixty you should start some new project or direction in life. This week we have been remembering Rev. Gyomay Kubose who was the first patron of Amida Trust - a wonderful man loved by all. When he was sixty, having established the Buddhist Temple of Chicago, he went back to Japan for three years and got a masters degree in Buddhist Studies from Otani University. Gyomay sensei had not had the educational opportunities when he was young that are available now. His family had subsisted by picking fruit and vegetables as immigrant labourers in the USA and he had been interned during World War II. He went on teaching Dharma until a short illness took him away from this life at the age of 94 in the year 2000. He was a man of the twentieth century. What must we do in the 21st?

Personally I do not feel any need to go and get a further academic qualification - I've done plenty of that - so my visit to Japan in April will be much shorter than Sensei's was. I am very much looking forward to a brief visit to our friends there from whom I always learn so much. What they teach me is not so much a doctrine or academic discipline but rather they impress me with the depth of their religious feeling. It puts a stamp upon one.

No, I think my new sixties venture is going to be more to do with getting out and spreading that feeling around. Over the past eleven years since Reverend Master Jiyu died we have seen a new vehicle for the transmission of the Dharma come into being. There is clearly more design in our accidents than at first appears. The Amida-shu is now established and the Amida Order is growing and developing. Everything is now in place for a new phase of outreach.

 

Pastoral Letter of 30th March 2007

On Vox: QotD: my weekend plans

What are your weekend plans? It's rather late to be posting these. Friday evening I travelled by train to Sheffield. Little wheeled backpack loaded with the usual stuff plus robe, bell, copy of ceremony in smart French folder, iPod and...   

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be careful what you wish for....

So there we were, coming to the end of a wonderful two weeks in Kephalonia, thinking that another time three weeks rather than two would be possible - wouldn't that be a nice idea?

Last afternoon by the pool, although the weather wasn't so good - there were distant thunderstorms sweeping down between Kephalonia and Ithaka, Kephalonia and Zakynthos. But we were in sunshine. Suddenly one not so distant - a huge crash and, not much later, torrential rain. I grabbed towels and dashed off to our room. Peter followed but his dash must have been too fast for the combination of rain and tiled path. Crash - that was him - his feet skidding forward from under him as he turned the corner of the building. Laden, so no hands to break the fall. Head and hard surface. Not a good meeting. He lost memory of the next 20 minutes and hasn't regained it.

He was helped to the room by another guest and Hara, the owner of the apartments. During the next quarter of an hour he asked me at least a dozen times "What happened to me?"

my first trip - back to beautiful kephalonia

Tomorrow we are leaving the Amida Newcastle sangha, Peter's staff and the cats in charge of the house and heading off to Kephalonia for a much-desired time of relaxation, basking in the sun, swimming and reading. A belated treat for my birthday.
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now we are sixty

It's a couple of weeks since my birthday. I was wondering how it would feel. I found myself, before the event, to my slight astonishment, looking forward to it and feeling mischievous. As though we baby boomers are given our bus passes as some sort of mistake. My gran was an old lady at fifty - yet, for me, sixty feels barely middle aged. Middle aged sounds stodgy. I hope never to reach stodgy.

In the event it feels like a portal to an new stage of life which has a sense of openness and freedom about it. I feel freed, too, by Amrita's example. She didn't let herself be constrained by boundaries, by the expected. How silly to be still looking over my shoulder. Can't be doin' with that. There's no time to be timid. Too much to do, both the serious and that which is delight and fun.