Longevity how-to: Oldest man in world is 123

Dhr. Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Carlos Valdez, Associated Press

Longevity or "life expectancy" (average lifespan) in demography

Aymara herder Carmelo Flores Laura may not be the oldest but he has documentation (AP)

 

The Buddha's reflection (Anekphoto/flickr)

There are beings on Earth who are far older. But with no legitimate birth or baptismal certificate, they are not likely to make themselves known for quite some time.

 

As alien and trans-dimensional "visitors" check in on their project(s) and continue to genetically manipulate and breed with the ape-like forms already developing here, namely we ordinary earthlings -- age is bound to increase. Bear in mind that there are many worlds that constitute the "human plane" (manussa loka) beside our own small population on this pale blue dot orbiting in space, which is distinguished primarily by the fortunate arising of a teacher of humans and devas. He is, of course, the supremely enlightened Buddha. There have been other sages, but this one is different and extraordinarily rare. Yes, earthling lifespans will again increase dramatically.

• Good karma for human rebirth: Five Precepts

Silence is the divine "language"

The mythological figure for how long a person can live unassisted under ordinary conditions is 80,000 years. But we will be lucky to 900 in the remainder of this aeon (kalpa), which should make our Jewish/Christian friends happy. In fact, as things descend, average lifespan will one day reach 10. But so much for mythology and cosmology, who is this 123 year old human? 

Clean environs of the Hunza Valley, Indo-Pakistan

Not since Ven. Ananda and other close associates of the historical Buddha walked the Earth have people been living to 120. So what is the "secret" to longevity? Is it praying and petitioning God/gods? Blueberry blast shakes? Steamed kale with sauteed garlic and sesame oil? Doing what you want when the he*k you want? Supplementing with Alchemical "philosopher's stone" (Ambrosia) or "distilled dew" made of evaporated rainwater that has never been allowed to touch the ground? Telomere-lengthening with Indian herbs (like clinically-proven, peer-reviewed Protandim)? Chewing Bolivian and Peruvian leaves from the Andes mountains? Mud walls and dirt floors? Live among Japanese Buddhists, who are documented by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) to enjoy "the longest overall life expectancy at birth of any country in the world: 83.5 years for persons born in the period 2010-2015"?^{[Ref 13][Ref 14]} Live among the Hunza Muslims in their great Himalayan foothill valley? All these may help and certainly can increase the quality of life, but the Buddha taught something more directly and emphatically: karma. It is by one's course of conduct that one enjoys longevity here and hereafter, this world and worlds to come.

• Longevity Myths (Wikipedia)
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• Why do we need [human] men anyway?
• Science is Sexy (but only on Friday nights)

The great awakening from suffering

Samsara is a long, long round (of births and deaths sufferings innumerable); nirvana is release. But before that final liberation, the ripening of deeds lead to longevity. Abstaining from taking life, from harming, beating, cudgeling, harassing, poisoning, depriving others of sustenance (food, medicine, shelter, care), and so on ripens as long life in terrestrial and celestial worlds. There are, of course, planes which one would not appreciate longevity, worlds-of-woe one may fall into so long as one has not become a stream-enterer and thereby cut off that possibility.

The Good Life

The banks of Lake Tititcaca with snowy Andes

LAKE TITICACA (Frasquia), Bolivia (AP) - If Bolivia's public records are correct, Carmelo Flores Laura is the oldest living person ever documented.
 
[One can live longer, but the key here is holding the modern bureaucratic documentation to prove it. Look at the case of the Great Avatar Babaji, 500, living in the Himalayas, or human-hybrid Yetis, or "Snowmen," in the same area, or Humanzees in Russia and Siberia, the result of Dictator Stalin's crossbreeding experiments with our kissing cousins].
 

They say he turned 123 a month ago.

The native Aymara lives in a straw-roofed dirt-floor hut in an isolated hamlet near Lake Titicaca at 13,100 feet (4,000 meters), is illiterate, speaks no [colonial] Spanish [of the European conquerors or Conquistadors], and has no teeth.

He walks without a cane and doesn't wear glasses. And though he speaks Aymara with a firm voice, one must talk into his ear to be heard.

"I see a bit dimly. I had good vision before. But I saw you coming," he tells Associated Press journalists who visit after a local TV report touts him as the world's oldest person."

 

Hobbling down a dirt path, Flores greets them with a raised arm, smiles and sits down on a rock. His gums bulge with [chewed whole untreated] coca leaf, a mild stimulant that staves off hunger. Like most Bolivian highlands peasants, he has been chewing it all his life.

Guinness World Records says the oldest living person verified by original proof of birth is Misao Okawa, a 115-year-old Japanese woman. [Women excel, and men rarely make it beyond 116.] The oldest verified age was 122 years and 164 days: Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997. More

Update: Debunked?

(SCPR, Aug. 17, 2013) According to KPCC FM's Off-Ramp with John Rabe, the elder Laura is only 107 according to his Baptism certificate. This is the shocking claim of UCLA's Dr. Stephen Coles, director of the Gerontology Research Group, which investigates these kinds of claims for the Guinness Book of World Records. He says he was skeptical from the start, especially because there was no documentary proof dating to the year Laura was supposedly born. "I was immediately suspicious because no man to our knowledge has ever lived past the age of 116, because 90% of people we call super-centenarians are female." More