I mean it's a big subject supporting people going through the dying process
and what we might be able to do for them with our meditation is probably only a
fraction of the support we we could be providing them with, so I suppose we
should really separate it out into what we could ask them to do to support
themselves and what we can do to support them. The single most important thing, as
somebody approached the dying process is to be as calm as possible and to have
surrendered as much as possible prior to that moment, and the single most positive
quality we could have in our mind at the point of death is gratitude. So if we are
trying to encourage somebody, I mean we talked about meditation, let's talk more
about in general entering to a positive mental state. If you are with somebody
who's had a fortunate life and in them and they are struggling to come to terms
with the fact that it's going to come to an end and they feel that there's
something wrong with that then the most positive thing you could
do would is to ask them to turn towards the good fortune that they've
experienced and generate a profound sense of gratitude for it.
And then get to the place where this extraordinary, precious thing that we
have is absolutely certainly going to end and it's a certainty for everybody,
it's the only certainty we have in our life is the fact that one day we're
going to die. So try to help somebody get beyond the point where they would still
even in the last days and weeks of life be pretending to themselves that it
might not happen because that frequently does happen. If you've got if you're with
somebody who's had a challenging life and would not necessarily see their life
as fortunate, then the most noble thing that they could do, and if you could help
them to do it, is to get to the place of delighting in the good fortune of others,
and in some way transform their suffering into their rite of passage
because if you can embrace the hardship that you've been through, in some way it
it's the pathway or the doorway through which we are able to become a
more noble person in some way. So rather than rejecting their hardship and their
suffering, see if they can find some way to transform it to turn it into an
uplift, so if we can't get to the place of gratitude because we felt our life
has been hard then to delight in the good fortune of others is a tremendous
expression of generosity of spirit in one who's been afflicted in the life, and
anyway somehow if we can get them to the place of seeing that life, even if it's
full of hardship, it's just an extraordinary thing. So these two things
and then of course the third most important thing is forgiveness. So if
people are carrying a sense of shame or guilt or blame, anything that you
can do to help them let go the sense that they are they've wronged and that
they aren't worthy of forgiveness because that is something that shrinks
the mind so dramatically as we approach the end of the life and anything that
we can do to help people free themselves with their sense of regret and remorse
and if they can turn regret and remorse into forgiveness of themselves and also
if we're holding grudges or resentment or ill-will towards others, if we can turn
that into forgiveness that is a profound transformation of our mind in that moment
leading up to death and quite often the stump that might take us years to
achieve on the cushion through our vipassana practice can be achieved in this
very challenging time at which we approach death. So the point is encourage
somebody to be brave because they have before them in the last period of their
life a real opportunity to free themselves.
So that's if you feel somebody has a latent capacity to work with the
challenge that they've got in front of them, you encourage them as much as you
can to bring about as much transformation in that process so that
they die as liberated of the things that they're carrying that's possible now
other people who aren't capable of uplifting themselves through
their own endeavor and then what we have to do is to do everything we can to
create an uplift in the ambient environment that's surrounding them and
hope that through resonance that that works from them at an unconscious level
that they may not be able to recognize because being surrounded by love and
kindness, feeling held and supportive not feeling alone, it can help tremendously
someone who doesn't feel they've got the courage to face what's ahead of them, to
slowly, in their own way, walk up to it, gradually
open up to the the truth that they are going to die, and this is when by doing
meditation with people... but also of course to sit and practice
loving-kindness meditation with somebody and for them can be a tremendous support
having groups of people practicing meditation for someone who's suffering
will actually help their own heart to settle. So there's the
energetic support we can give at a conscious level for them which they
receive by transference so loving-kindness practice
of course, but the other thing is to look at the person and see what it is with
the noun that creates their own uplift for example you might find that to play
a piece of music, a sacred piece of music that somehow reconnects into some sense
that there's something sacred in life even if they're not religious, you'd be
surprised how many people will reach out to religion in some way in the last
moments of their life and it doesn't matter that they haven't lived a
Christian life or Muslim life or a Buddhist life the point is if they start
to open up through one of these channels to something that's beyond them that's
part of the process by which they find ways of surrender. So you know playing
sacred music and Christian music to somebody even if they're not, you'd be
surprised the power of paying a beautiful piece of sacred Christian
music to somebody who's come from a Christian background but hasn't lived a
Christian life .There's something profoundly soothing about the
entering into the space that thousands millions of people over hundreds and
hundreds of years have found solace even if at a religious level hasn't made
sense to you, it will still, it still has a capacity to nourish. So music can be as
powerful as sitting and comforting with words or meditating for
them and the other and the other way that music can work is the fact that you
can lead somebody in on their own with it and all the support that we're giving,
we can give to people around their bedside the really deep transformation
happens in those moments of solitude when you're really facing what's going
on for you alone because we are alone when we die. W e're comforted by
those around us but that actual transition is something we do alone so
helping them get comfortable into in a space of solitude where their own a
heart opens in their own way and they make their own
sense of things is is really key, so to creat create an environment that is is
nurturing and and peaceful, not too much hectic, not much much
fussing around them and leaving them this space because the incredible things
happen to people in that space that they get left in. And then of course you know
the big the big challenge is fear, you know then we look at where they are
at with fear, and we maybe talk about that as a there's something else, but
looking for ways to help them to approach fear prior to the actual point
of which they go through death. I mean the thing is death itself is the final
dismantling of the ego. It's our final wrap rite of passage. If we haven't
managed to let go the ideas of ourselves that were clung to as an active choice
through the through the life, then we will let them go whether we struggle to
or not we will, they will be broken apart in a dying process so you know this
process of dying is the process of being relieved of what it is that's afflicted
us in this life, yeah. Now that can be a fraught process or that can be a profound
and beautiful process so the more you can do to get somebody into a place of
surrender, the less they're going to feel it broken apart in the dying process the
more they'll feel that relieving dissolution of the very things that have
afflicted them because after that we've died moment that we've died we then
start a whole new process, a whole, another phase of the process of dying
once we once we've actually physically died here our consciousness now goes
through a whole new cycle of transformation which is really the
dying process and then new things, different things
start to come into play once the actual it going clinging to this very life has
been broken down. So it's a complex and multi-levelled thing and there's many
aspects to it and it's a very important service to give, to provide
careful, thoughtful support to those that are close to us as they approach the
dying process, it's a duty it's a responsibility to do what we can for
those who are dear to us and as they approach their death.
