In Praise of Ageing

Aimed at readers who are encountering ageing in themselves, in those whom they love, or those in their care, this book opens up the silenced topic of ageing and challenges anti-ageing attitudes. Drawing on Buddhist approaches to growing older, it offers the possibility of ageing with grace, understanding, wisdom and joy.

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“In this moving and tender meditation on the process of growing old, Carmel Shalev reveals ageing as a new beginning rather than a shameful ending of life.”
– Stephen Batchelor

In Praise of Ageing invites you to meet the challenges of growing old with an open mind and offers the possibility of ageing with grace, understanding, wisdom and joy. It weaves the author’s personal experiences of her own and her parents’ ageing with comments on contemporary social attitudes to ageing, and ancient Buddhist wisdom that accepts growing older as a natural process. All phenomena appear, fade and disappear. So, too, our lives proceed from birth to death.

Ageing, indeed, has its hardships. Yet we have a choice in how to relate to our experiences – with animosity or friendliness. This book affirms that it is in our own hands to shape our place in the world and find meaning as elders with love, compassion, joy and equanimity.