This is a world where people age. They grow old. They die. They despair. Their lives don't work out as they thought - nothing seems to. It's a transient place. Things come and go fast, like youth, wealth, health.  Visit an old age home. Visit a cancer ward. Things don't always work out so well.

 But if you're a buddhist, if you practice, you can take these things in stride.  Every year you grow older, you can grow wiser.

The west is a funny place, the east, too, but I think the west is even funnier in certain ways. I like it, but it's strange.

People here think that youth is what it's all about. This is the youth culture, and old age, where we hide our old people away in home and their stupid and sick and senile, what a wierd concept! So in the far east, we feel that as people grow older, if they lead an intelligent life, they get more powerful. They get wiser. They get happier. But you have to lead an intelligent life. If you meditate and if you practice yoga, then your body shouldn't end up a mess at fifty or sixty or seventy. You should be mobile, you should be in good shape.  Most people use up all their energy and become old because they're so stressed out, because they don't have any balance in their life. They're not grounded in happiness. They're not grounded in the spirit.

- "Buddhism", The Enlightenment Cycle