..续本文上一页ly like to do it

　　” and I said, ”Yes.”

　　I started massaging his feet, his legs, his neck and shoulders, his hands and his face, and he really enjoyed the physical contact. It was the first time he had been touched like that. I think elderly people really like being touched, because physical contact is quite meaningful, it”s an expression of feeling. And I began to realise that my father really loved me, but didn”t know how to say it because of his upbringing. He”d been brought up in an Edwardian time in a very formal environment. His had been a ”don”t touch, don”t get emotional” sort of a family. They had no great emotional explosions, feelings were always controlled. Now I realised that my father was quite a loving sort of man, but he could not express his feelings because of his background. And I had this great sense of relief. I couldn”t understand him when I was young, because I did not understand his upbringing and what he had been through. It was only when I grew older that I began to understand the consequences of having such an upbringing; once you are conditioned in that way, it is difficult to break out of it. I could see when I looked back that behind the behaviour of my father there was love, but it always came out in a commanding or demanding way, because that is the only way he knew how to talk. Like the way he said, ”Remember, this is my house, and you have to do what I say.” If I was going to be offended by that, I would have had a miserable time. But I decided not to pay any attention to that statement and not make a problem of it. I saw him as an old man losing his control, and maybe he saw me as a threat. He probably thought, ”He”s going to think I am a hopeless old man, but I”m going to show him.”

　　Those who have taken care of paraplegics or quadriplegics know that sometimes they get very cantankerous. We can think we are doing them a favour, but they can be quite demanding because when people are helpless like that they become very sensitive to the patronising way of healthy people towards the sick: ”Let me help you - you”re an invalid.” This type of thing is also seen when young people care for the elderly.

　　Eight years ago, we had a man who wanted to come and die in the monastery. He was 80 years old, an Englishman who had been a Buddhist since 1937. He was a very nice man, and he had terminal cancer. So he stayed here at Amaravati and people from a Buddhist group in Harlow that he had founded and inspired would come to look after him; sometimes when they couldn”t come the monks would look after him. I had noticed that some of the monks were getting patronising about him. But this man would not take any of it: ”I might be dying and all, but I”m not stupid,” he”d say, and he made it very clear that he was not going to put up with such behaviour. So we have to be aware when we look after the elderly or the sick, we have to watch our reactions.

　　When we look at life from a historical point of view we see that it has always been difficult for people. When you visit a graveyard and read the gravestones here in England, you can find many of them are for young women - 25 years old or so - who died in childbirth; or for babies. That was very common in England just 100 years ago. Women could not necessarily expect to survive childbirth. Now, when someone dies in childbirth we are surprised and upset by it. We think life should not be like this, life should be fair. Our expectations are very high, and we can be very critical because we think that life should only get better and better. Yet even if we have everything, we can still live a joyless life. So it”s how we relate to life, and how we develop our minds that counts - it”s nothing to do with wealth and status, or even good health.

　　Life is a difficult experience, …

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