Special Conditions for Spiritual Transformation

 The topic of aging is one that interests older people.  I have read numerous books and articles about aging and dying.  

Aging Well  By Michael P. Garofalo

Thee is a book titled "The Grace in Aging: Awaken as You Grow Older" by Kathleen Dowling Singh, 2014. 

She lists a number of  Special Conditions for Spiritual Transformation:

"Opening to our own mortality is a liberation from pettiness and the smallness of selfing.  It allows release from the inessential.

Withdrawal allows freedom from the blind habits upon which we impute our sense of self.

Silence engenders a liberation from illusions and from the internal monologue that so convinces us of the reality of self. 

Solitude brings us to a stable platform from which we can liberate attention from attachments.

Forgiveness liberates us from anger and from judgment.  It allows a release of attention from the mental affliction of aversion.

Humility unfolds into freedom from pride and the illusions of perfectionism.  It is a liberation to ordinariness. 

The practice of moment-by-moment presence, breath-by-breath awareness, emancipates attention from frivolity, from all that is meaningless, from all of the ways in which we squander this precious human life.

Commitment entails "taking the one seat." It is a way of describing the conditions of a committed, earnest practice and the choiceless conditions of dying.  It liberates us from wavering, from wandering in our attention and intention.  Taking the one seat eliminates the escape routes.

The work of life review, leading to life resolution, releases us from our story.  It is the work of self-inquiry.  It engenders a liberation into the freedom of presence-into experiential attention, free from narrative.

Opening the heart liberates us from the limitations of fear.  It is here that we enter into awareness beyond self.  It brings us to communion, directly into love. It is one of the great tasks and the great joys of human experience.

Open the mind is to make space in the mind.  It emancipates our attention from the distractions of assumptions and reactions.  It also frees us from our beliefs, from all that we think we know.  It allows entrance into the wonder of the great mystery and the wisdom clarity of direct knowing.  It allows entrance into the wonder of the great mystery and the wisdom of clarity of direct knowing.  It, also, is an essential task of awakening." - page 90.