The Art of Living

This blog post is selected from one of my email newsletters in June 2024

“One learns the art of dying by learning the art of living: how to become master of the present moment.” ~ S.N. Goenka

So this week we have Dean’s (my partner) grandpa and his wife coming over to visit from Melbourne. They are in their 80s, just got back from a month long trip in Hongkong, and now in New Zealand visiting us. This throws my daily routine out the window, but also brings so much joy into my day.

I was raised by my mum’s parents til the age of 10. But they passed when I was still a teenage so I have forgotten how it was like to be around older folks regularly. Hanging out with Dean’s grandpa, Bob, and his wife, Alice every single day for the last week since they arrived, I was amazed by many things. One of them is their concept of time.

What usually takes 5 mins for a young person to do could take them half an hour, so by the second day they are with us, I have learned to just chillax and let time pass. On Sunday, the four of us went to visit Alice’s friends at their retirement village in Auckland. They were organised to meet up with their friends at 4pm but we arrived at 4.30pm regardless of Dean and I’s effort to pick them up earlier to allow some buffer time. What’s fun is that Molly and Andrew, Alice’s friends (also at their 80s) took their time to slowly come down from their apartment at the same time. So their time actually synced up without any communication. Alice and Molly met each other again after over a decade.

Time, truly, is an illusion and that what’s real is only in the NOW, in this moment right here. I can’t believe how much I have been learning from them for the last 7 days, sometimes simply by watching them doing their things like cooking and tidying up. Just one movement at a time, just one step at a time. There are many times, they got sidetracked by other things around them, but eventually they return to their current task and slowly thing always gets done. They often talked about they don’t know how much longer they will be around for to be with their loved ones, and each moment has become significantly valuable. The weak physical bodies force them to not think about the destination, but just the moment right now.

A few mornings ago, I saw myself writing in my journal about the things I have learned just by being around Bob and Alice. Their wisdom and lessons from life experiences passed down to us silently just by the time we shared together in each other’s presence. The way they slowly live their day to day life. The way they look after each other. The way they worry about things but then laugh and make jokes about them later. The way they talk about death and teach us about life.

As S.N. Goenka said, “One learns the art of dying by learning the art of living: how to become master of the present moment.”