Death is in the neighborhood. Posted by John on May 12, 1999 at 15:29:06:
Betsy said:
>My very beloved neighbor, a lively woman in her 70's is dying.
Ah yes, death. It falls to the shaman to preside over death, and learn
from this.
>Hubby and I are her closest friends
My eyes tear up to hear it. It is a "lost love situation," and knowing
of it, sadness happens in my eyes and throat. So I just feel it.
Heart, too.
>(she has a son but has a long complicated series of troubles with him, and I doubt that he'll come until the funeral), so we have been sitting with her.
Yes, this is a picture of "shamans at work."
In Pauline's situation with the death of a neighbor that she related
last month, the daughter was apparently an estranged Rebel, who did come
back before the end. She obviously didn't stop rejecting her father
before he died, or after, in her rejection of his neighborhood friends.
Call that "bitterness."
Yet your old friend, Betsy, may yearn to see her son again at the end,
and hopefully, she can accept him for whoever he is, if he does show up,
or he doesn't. (Do you remember the "Timshel" from the dying father to
the "wayward" son, at the end of Steinbeck's "East of Eden?" — i.e.
"Just be who you are and I love you.")
>the interesting thing for me to see what may be the real object of mindfulness practice...i.e. when a person finally knows without any possibility of denial that the moments of his life are few and disappearing fast.
Yes, as you say, this is *always* true, and we don't face up to it.
Mits told us the only thing you know for certain when a baby is born is
that it is going to die. He asked us to look at life as a series of
deaths and rebirths, all the way along. Life is a constant process of
dying and being reborn. And then . . . death.
As you say, the spiritual and mystical masters accord a special place to
death. Whether it is in the Mexican nagüalism of don Coyotl, who
repeats this very theme to me from time to time, to remember that death
always walks along beside us, as did Carlos and don Juan before him
place emphasis on this, or from Eastern masters I have known . . . the
gist of the idea here seems to be to prepare one's being in such a
manner that when the time of one's dying occurs, the mind, instead of
being filled up with ego and personality, is free and empty, so that one
can "pass over" in mindfulness.
It would seem that, in the ordinary human condition, one can have very
little possibility of being mindful at the time of their death. Yet,
very often, old people die with a smile. And I can see how this
enlightenment could come spontaneously in the days before or even
moments before dying. And mindfulness practitioners can include some
elements of this awareness in their practice on purpose if they wish to,
and "plan for it," that is, plan to go out with their awareness on when
the time comes.
I don't mean to put *any* burden on you and Hubby, Betsy, in relating
this. Just having you there with her is a wonderful blessing enough, in
itself. Whether your dear friend can catch on in her final days is
dependent upon her Fate, not yours. If she knocks, the door will be
opened. However, if you sit and meditate with her, even briefly, you
can tell her what you are doing as you experience it. She doesn't have
to take you up on it. That choice belongs to her. And she might try,
and no harm if she does. Just your own meditating there is "a healing,"
though.
There are some writers who theorize that such are the emotional stresses
of dying that we all go through much transformative healing in this
process anyway and attain degrees of enlightenment. The last time I saw
my teacher Mits, was in San Francisco a few years ago. I brought my son
to meet him. He did a workshop at a conference of brain surgeons and
mostly patients with terminal brain tumors, which he called "Dying as a
Healing Experience."
I am not educated enough to teach about the ideas that are found in
metaphysical literature about "other bodies," transcendental bodies,
which are said to "carry over" in dimensions, after death.
Conceptually, the idea seems to me to be, that one creates these "other
bodies" by the collective "pings" of mindfulness in the body that occur
over a lifetime of being a mindfulness practitioner. But I don't know.
That's just an interpretation that "makes sense" to me.
>This neighbor, who has always been attached to a certain way of presenting herself—and hence of imagining herself—seems to me to be finding that her lifelong persona doesn't help much at this state.
There you have it, the ego and personality that we all have. God bless
us all! I do have a suggestion. I don't know if it would be
appropriate. You might print out some of the wheels in the wheelbook
that show the qualities of the Essence, and use those characteristics to
point out to her in the course of discussion some of the strengths and
qualities that she has had available to her during her long life, and
the gifts of these to the others around her, such as you and Hubby. If
she's a Judge, for instance, and you point out to her that she's
probably made a lot of people smile and laugh over the years, she might
be able to relate with that, and get in touch with her true self.
>Katherine Anne Porter . . . eventually you wake up and realize that the self you have been building for your whole life is the self you now HAVE
Yes. Better to do this earlier in life, when by learning mindfulness
and practicing a little transformational work you can have less of that
self, and give your being more free play of essence and true self in the
later years.
>Yesterday, she asked me if I could tell her what a Buddhist would do in her situation and I said that I thought one would try simply to be present.
Exactly! If she continues to show interest along these lines, would it
be inappropriate or unseemly in any way to invite her to do some of the
experiential exercises that you could adapt from the first Kindergarten
classes? You could coach her through a few of them—that is, if she
might like to know more about what being present is like, and if you'd
feel comfortable to do that. I certainly don't mean to be presumptuous
here!
>When I said this I was thinking of having watched my first husband die: he was very calm and interested and completely involved in the experience he was having.
Yeah, what a guy! It all started with "that fist fight" you once told
us about—do I remember this right?—and his epiphany at Granny's
wonderfully loving teaching. And here he is passing on like a Tibetan
lama.
>then at least you may have the feeling of being fully alive.
Absolutely. And this feeling of being fully alive—so rare that most of
us have to practice to experience it—whether learned early or late, is
no more or less "in the final analysis" than what the holy men and holy
women have when they pass on from this plane with their awareness on.
>and then said miserably something like "I don't know if I have EVER been present...I don't think I know how." And then she was back on "it was so-and-so's fault" . . . . . Meanwhile birds were singing outside the window . . . and my friend was MISSING IT.
"I don't know" is the warrior's wisdom, a moment in which, not knowing,
she is empty and waiting to be filled with knowledge. Of course, she
does go right back into "blah-blah-blah," but it looks like she's almost
asking you to teach her, by moments. I don't know. You're there on the
ground. What's Hubby's sense of it? I'm pretty sure you could have a
competent try at doing it, if she is reaching out for it. How does it
look to you? If you do, and she doesn't seem to be liking it, let it
go. No harm. Nothing lost. Just being awake with her is the blessing.
Not all of us get the honor of having a shaman or healer around who
feels "privileged" to attend this sacred ceremony.
I might say—not to be morbid, for I don't *anticipate* my own death
soon—that it was profound awareness of my death, a little over a year
ago, the fact that I am actually older now, and slower, and weaker, and
poorer, and that death could come at any time without my having
"completed my life work," that I actually had the heart to decide to
start this experimental website, as a way of finishing a new version of
my comprehensive coachings on mindfulness training, and get to see, on-
line with you Students, while I'm still kicking, how they work. :-) I
realized, "I'd better get to it now." "Every day counts." Since then,
I've been investing all that I have to give in this project. I'm a year
tired-er, and a year slower, but my heart is still in it, even as death
still walks alongside.
And there's that other death in the neighborhood that Pauline told us
about—a dear old fellow, neighbor of hers, whose daughter came in near
the end and turned a cold shoulder on his neighbors, took over the place
like a Dictator, and, like an outrageous Rebel, had nothing but "Fuck
you" (excuse my French) for her Dad's friends.
Throwing her weight around, and pushing over her boundaries with the
shadow she'll be creating, she has planted trees to blot out the sight
of Pauline's house (and, as "collateral damage" deprive her upstairs
study of important sunshine).
Pauline, I noticed you recently referred to her as the "Lady" of the
Manor, originally "Mistress" of the Manor. So I seem to see some
toning down of the resentment of her that you were harboring before
inside. Good if you can learn to let go of that completely, little by
little, by *feeling* it, mindfully, when it's heat and tension are
within you.
One of the best things to keep in mind in a situation like yours is the
fact that she is, unfortunately, a very bitter person, we can even say
"toxically" so. If you can relate to what the day-to-day life is like
for her, a person habitually in that kind of a state, you can understand
that you do not need to do anything at all to "pay her back" in any way!
She is her own punishment!
This is true of all of our adversaries in life. They are their own
punishment. They handle the job of messing up their own lives with this
punishment in a perfectly proportional way. ("As you sew, so you shall
reap.") And the messing up of life that we do is in our own hands. :-
)
It is *perfectly natural* to have aggressive and even violent fantasies
towards people who have behaved like this in our vicinity, as you
related. This only shows that you have normal emotional reactions
within, like bitterness of your own, and anger. I do it all the time
(and then I hope to wake up on it quick, and catch myself.) When people
feel they are being aggressed upon, this is what nearly all humans do,
normally.
But, as for lifting a finger to actually do any little thing against
them, even bad-mouth them to other people, you don't need to do anything
to punish them, because they are already handling that job themselves,
100%.
Another thing, the dear old guy in your situation may have gone out
fighting with his daughter. If so, she's just taking that out on you.
He'd have been lucky to have you and the other neighbors around him when
he passed on, and I imagine she knows that, but that wasn't his Fate.
Still, that doesn't give the daughter the power to interfere with your
own spiritual observance of your memories of the guy, in any appropriate
way. You could just find a nice natural stone, and put it in your yard,
and remember him by it, or anything at all that you might resonate with
as a loving warrior. Even your memory suffices for this.
Enough class for today! Let's all go out in the sunshine, and *be fully
alive*!
Coach
Archived 15 Jun 99