I had a wonderful meeting with Bhutan project team and a monk from Bhutan in the first day of my visit in Singapore. While I was quite exhausted by the long travel, I was so glad to spend the time with them.

During our discussion, the Bhutanese monk shared his thoughts regarding caring for elders in Bhutan. He truly hopes that this project will initiate reducing the suffering of people who have no roof over their head, no food to eat, and no clothes to wear when they get old. He described his ideas with using the term “compassion”

Then, I realized how fortunate I am to exercise my thoughts for the next level of “suffering” among the elders in our society, which is focusing more in “emotional suffering.” Because my basic human needs are met, I can be worrying about if elders have meaningful life in their old age.

After talking with the monk, I thought about the elder  care from the perspective of “suffering,” which I have never thought of. I feel that there are two types of suffering that we should free elders from; suffering from not being able to have basic human needs to live, and the suffering from not being able to meet basic emotional needs. Not only elders, but also all of us will experience a suffering until the both needs are met through the “compassion” from the surrounding community.

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful opportunity to sit down with wise elders, and learn from their knowledge and experience. I do hope that we can preserve and nurture their wisdom to make our society a better place for people of all ages to live.