[21] Preparing for Death and Supporting the Dying: Practical Insights from a Buddhist Perspective

12:05AM Jul 6, 2024

Speakers:

Andrew Holecek

Alyssa

Myra

vanora

Sharon

Keywords:

dying

rinpoche

death

practice

people

book

meditations

talk

feel

person

mind

liturgies

good

called

question

open

space

word

experience

heard

Heard this, but I don't think so. I think this is where we left off. So took time. Yeah, there's a new film on this. I think I told you I ran it. Was invited to a film festival. The little commentary, it's called, took down the title of film between two worlds. And this has to do with some really interesting studies that My dear friend, Richie Davidson, esteemed neuroscientists at a University of Wisconsin Madison was asked by His Holiness Dalai Lama, maybe 15 years ago to start studying this. And so Richie flew me out. It was so fun. I actually did a presentation to this team of scientists who are now studying it. And I have to say this actually, this is where I met Evan Thomason for the first time. Got to hang out with my friend Cortland all. It was amazing. And they were all these hardcore neuroscientists that, honestly, I give them credit, they look like deer in headlights. They were like, like, What? What? What are these people talking about? And so it was truly a mind bending sort of event, and it launched the whole took down research project, which is still a full stream. And so that's what we're going to talk about now, because of our lack of familiarity very definition of the word meditation with subtle aspects of mind. In other words, the Dharmakaya and sabul. Gai, I remember this is what death is, a journey into and through the mind. That's all that death is. It's the mind falls into itself. That's what happens when we die. Wrong, bop, the mind falls into itself as you die, that's what's going to happen. Most people go unconscious at the end of the end of dissolution, and they miss the bardo dharmatov. For most people, it's a finger snap. They don't recognize it at all. Some people will experience a few little like flashing lights, kind of what you may experience when you're falling asleep. But it's only a person who's done either generation stage practice, what's called togal. That's a darker tree practice. That's That's why you go into the darker tree, is to simulate what actually happens in this phase of the Bardo. And so without some preparation at these levels, this Bardo is completely missed. That's why three of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism don't even really talk about the Bardo. Dharmata, this is largely a Nima contribution. We will return to these last two Bardos later, a practitioner with some familiarity with the Dharmakaya, however, enters meditative absorption. That's this post death meditative absorption, called tuk, an honorific term for meditative practice, and indicate some level of enlightenment. Taktam signals the union of the mother and child. Luminosities that we discussed earlier. If we recognize our primordial Mother, we will dissolve into her embrace and attain enlightenment. If we don't have that recognition, where the recognition is partial, we will unwittingly leap out of her lap and begin the paradoxical search for her outside. Remember that, that imagery, I think this is just the coolest image. Remember Mother and Child reunion, the person who recognizes nature of mind returns to the lap of the mother, spacing in being embraced. They're, you know, looking at each other, facing each other. That's enlightenment in one life.

Andrew, what we have some people saying they have notes all the way through page 90.

I told you guys to bust my chops. Alyssa, we blew it yet again. I thought this sounded familiar. Oh, well, this is my bad. I flipped through it. You know what? You know? What screwed me up, actually, is, thank you for catching me. Is we never go through five, six pages like we did last time. And so that's when I was reading. Is, I go, Are you sure we didn't cover this last time? So you are right. I looked at my numbers correct. What to do for others as they die. Hey, what's the problem? Right? I mean, like my teacher, Campo Rinpoche, says, again, again, repetition, repetition. Okay, here we go. My apologies. And at the moment of the greatest vulnerability, people in our world are abandoned and left almost totally without support or insight. This is a tragic and humiliating state of affairs which must change. Had a quote from Sara Rinpoche, okay, the view when someone is dying, there is much that we as close family or friends can do to help spiritually, for sure. I mean, that's why we're reading and going through this book and this material, even though taking care of them physically may be part of our job, our main concern is taking care of their mind, actually, both both theirs and ours. Why is that the case? Because the quality of mind that we bring in to a situation like that is contagious. The porosity of the mind is the dying person is losing connectedness to their body, their consciousness is starting to spill into space. And so the quality of mind that we bring in without saying a word has a remarkably beneficial effect. That's why, if you ever go into a space where someone is transitioning and you don't feel centered, gathered, collected, always helpful to pause a little bit before you go into the room together yourself a little bit so that you can actually then come in and represent the very stability that they are missing, that they are losing this first of all, means taking care of our own mind, because states of mind are easily transmitted, contagious, really, and the attitudes of caregivers can significantly help or hinder a dying person. The essence of the following instruction is to help everyone, especially the dying person, to relax. We want the dying person to depart in a positive state of mind, filled with love. I mean, really, on one level, it's so simple. But simple does not mean easy, right? What's the only thing you have to do to have a good death? Relax. That's it, or if you want to add another word, open, open, what is death? Grand opening, what is birth? Grand closing, grand contraction. Open, relax. Now. That's it. You don't need this book. You don't need anything. That's why it's the simplest thing. Simple doesn't always mean easy, because we, you know, we just like, Can it really be this simple? Yeah, yeah, this is that easy, because death is a squeeze, right? So, this is Yama. This is Yama, the Lord of Death, behind you. Remember Baba chakra holding you. Now, you may not feel him, but he's holding you. This is the samsaric holding environment. When you die, he puts the squeeze on you. Sagar Rinpoche says that death is a mirror in which the whole of life is reflected, I would add, and magnified for sure. If you work in hospice, you work in the end of life business. You know this, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly. Everything comes out around death and dying. Yeah, all squirts out of the dying person, family and friends, family dynamics, which often means family neurosis, if you notice that, as well, is heightened and exposed. Love, compassion, regret, anger, resentment, stress, greed, envy, virtually every human emotion is brought out and blown up. And so this is why going in with a stable, loving, open mind brings some sanity into the picture. Bring some space into the picture. Caring for terminally by terminally ill parents, I was sometimes startled by what I said and did. My mother died of Alzheimer's, which can be brutal for caretakers, and my father died from esophageal cancer, which required multiple hospital visits and challenging home care. I express moments of genuine, selfless mind mixed in times with real selfishness. Because, you know, there's, there's only a certain point like, this is a really big meal when people are dying, or when people are transitioned, or actually after they died, it's hard to digest that much experience. Have you noticed? I mean, every time I'm around these, I mean, it's a little bit better now, but it's just like, I can't I can't eat, I can't consume any more experience. This is just, you know, too much. So again, the more we can open, the more we're able to absorb, the more we're actually able to ingest, digest. In retrospect, it was like a test. It showed me how far I had progressed on my path and how far I had yet to go. I didn't always like what I saw in this mirror of death, but I saw it and I learned. You can study, practice and read about death all you want, but until it's in your face, it's difficult to know. How will you how well you will how will you will respond? This is why it's good to be around death. It helps you to both assess and prepare. So when Trungpa Rinpoche was in Tibet, he wrote about it in his book, born in Tibet. It was, it was actually just like a weekly thing for him, the caretakers his tutors in the monastery would take him to be around people who were transitioning, either in the monastery or in the supporting village. So it's only, I wouldn't say only, but unfortunately, emphasized in the West that Beth is to it's like pornography to be shunned, put out of sight, out of mind. But here, if you open yourself to transitional processes and spend more time around the end of life, this is like it is with children. I mean, if you work with with children that are dying with a lot of my professional friends who do this, every one of them tells me that the younger they are, the less they the less they're afraid of it. They're not enculturated. They're not indoctrinated by the Kool Aid that their parents are handing to them. And so there's something to be said about this kind of actually, just what open state of mind, quality of mind. So acknowledging the crunch. And so acknowledge the crunch and that you are human. Be patient with what you see reflected in yourself and others. What's that? That's meta, meta meditation. Be kind to yourself, to those around you, and realize that everybody's doing their best, and don't get hung up on helping. Yeah, Ram Dass wrote a whole book on this right helping prison so easy to get involved with trying to create the ideal death situation. This is the trap that leads to burnout. As caregivers, we may receive a subtle, self directed pat on the back from serving others. Always check your motivation. Don't come in with an agenda to conduct a good death, or to impose your version of one, this is not your death. Let the dying person die in their own unique way, and support them in that if they want to resist death or deny that they are dying, we should support them, even though that view may be difficult for us. This is this. This is tricky. This whole thing is just so tricky. It's, you know, those of you who work in this area, you know, yes, you can give some orienting generalizations. There's ways to gain some idea, generally speaking, but so much of this is highly idiosyncratic, and almost, I wouldn't say, on the job training. But really, every situation is just so unique and so different.

There's no need to encourage such a view of resistance, but it's not our place to challenge it. Dying. People want comfort, not confrontation. I remember when I was working with a friend I might have shared the story Jim spirally is this wonderful, sweet guy. He's dying of brain cancer, and I was part of the caretaking team, and I was with him just a few days before he transitioned. And because he was the seasoned practitioner, it was, it was really quite fascinating, what he was viewing and sharing with me, and he would, we'd be chatting, he was, he had all these steroids and stuff going on. So everything was just so swollen. It was really struggling. And I remember him stopping several times and just and just saying, hey, Andrew, do you see that being at the end of the hall? You see that? You see that entity on the ceiling? So he was starting to see all these non human intelligences and whatnot and and I mean, not once that I see, ah, Jim, nah. That's not what's happening. No, every single time I said, oh, cool, Jim, tell me, yeah, what do you see? Tell me about it. Don't try to snap them back into your reality, unless, of course, they're they're violent and they're kicking and screaming. That's a whole different story. Then you need the palliative care meds, you need the docs and all that kind of thing. But for general purposes, just support them. Don't confront them. For caregivers, be careful not to should on the dying person or yourself. Do not feel that things should go a particular way or that you should be feeling a certain emotion. So this may seem almost paradoxical with what we're doing here. I mentioned this before, using the disclaimer from Evan Thompson that I so like that. Just because the Tibetans articulate these eight stages, these are orienting generalizations, ritualized phenomenology, Evans terms, doesn't mean everybody's going to go, click, click, click, through these eight stages. And if you aren't going through those or someone else's, that doesn't mean anything's necessarily wrong. Don't should on yourself or others, bring the confidence born from preparation. Then let the situation and the dying person guide you in this delicate dance. The dying person leads. Let me say that again, in this delicate dance the dying person leads. This dance, your job is to be aware of their needs, not to impose your own. Do not force them into your version of a good death. Oh yeah, I remember this cartoon. This is great. I should have included it. I once saw a cartoon of a man lying on his deathbed, looking concerned. A few people were standing around the bed, and the caption above the worried man said, How's my dying? Little galah humans, is in order here, like, how am I doing? Man, am I dying? Well, is this a good death? I'm going to do that. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do that is, am I is this conscious night? If I heard this, makes me think of a couple of my favorite tombstones. These are, I'm going to be cremated, but if I was going to have a tombstone, I came across a couple of good tombstones over the years. One of my absolute favorites, I don't this somehow seems gallows humor appropriate, is on the tombstone, it says, I told you I was sick. I don't know why I find that just so funny. You know, the whole thing is just a joke, for God's sakes. You know, even though there isn't one, nobody's really dying. People are just retracting back into the nature of mind. There's no such thing as death, just these little blips into manifestation, just like, just like particles pop in and out of the zero point energy field. This is the same with us. We pop out, we come back, we pop out, we come back, you know. And about 170,000 times a day, a person pops out, and 200 plus 1000 pops back down. Countless trillions of other animals and incense, they pop back up and they pop back down. Big deal, big deal. It's just the play of life and death, right? That's why children do so much better than experts, right? Beginner's Mind. Joan Halifax, who has worked with the dying for over 30 years. This is her good this is quite a good look of hers, the concept of a good death can put unbearable pressure on dying people and caregivers, and can take us away from death's mystery and the richness of not knowing, what Zen calls don't know, mind Fantastic, or what dafrijan davat dalavananda called divine ignorance, back to Joan Ikes, our expectations of how someone should die can give rise to subtle or direct coerciveness. No one wants to be judged for how well she dies. Death with Dignity is another concept that can become an obstacle to what's really happening. Death can be very undignified. Often it's not dignified at all with soil, bed clothes and sheets, bodily fluids and flailing nudity and strange sexuality, confusion and rough language, good death. Death with Dignity can be unfortunate fabrications that we use to try to protect ourselves against the sometimes raw and wondrous truth of dying that is such a great statement. So spot on. We try to sanitize everything right? Wrap it up. Shrink wrap it make it as clean and tidy as possible. Reality is not as tidy as that. Frank ostesky, I know both these. These are wonderful people. I know both of them. He works actually a fair amount with Joan. They do some cool things together. He did a thing at Naropa a number of years ago. He's a Zen hospice guy. I was quite impressed that was really this guy knows what he's doing. So Frank, the founding director of the first hot Buddh hospice in America, says, quote, everybody who is dying has a story about how one dies, and that story shapes the way they live. It helps to discover more about the story someone is holding and to work with it, rather than to try to change it or impose some other story. Fantastic. End quote, approach the dying person, not with answers, but with openness. Don't feel like you need to get it right. ASCII says the process is characterized much more by mystery than mastery. That's a nice alliteration. If you're close to the dying person, it can feel like part of you is dying. I mean, like for sure, right? I mean even a pet. I mean that. I mean not even a pet with pets as well, right? You lose a pet, you're losing part of yourself. Be aware of your place in the death and your sense of empathic merging balances with a healthy separation from the dying person and the events that surround them. You have to take care of yourself in order to take care of them. Yeah. So this is the, this is, again, that delicate dance between getting involved but not getting too involved. There are, there are certain near enemies of empathy. So this is one of being able to differentiate in a healthy way, not dissociate, not run away. That's the other extreme, you know, extreme agency versus pathological fusion. That's the balancing point here. That's actually the balancing point between any relationship between fusion and differentiation, agency, the most helpful person is one who is comfortable with death. And why are they comfortable with that? Because they're comfortable with their own mind. They know what's happening. The mind can fall into itself. You can totally die before you die absolutely and then you enter these situations with a deep sense of conviction and confidence, and you bring that confidence and stability with you. And it's not contrived, and it's really powerful. It's very contagious. This is really healthy, healthy, helpful and helpful to others. Most helpful person is comfortable with death, with groundlessness and with not knowing indeterminacy like a strong rider on a frisky horse. This is someone who can ride on top of whatever is happening, without being thrown by it and without trying to fix it. Expect the unexpected. Yeah, emergence, just like dark retreat. Dark retreat is characterized by emergence. You don't know what's going to happen in there. Same thing happens around death. Be willing to be surprised. Be willing to go with whatever arises. Learn to appreciate silence and uncertainty, right? Where's uh Pema, children's book, the wisdom of uncertainty. Isn't there a book by that title that she wrote, or something like that, being comfortable with uncertainty or something like that? This is where your practice of bodhichitta, which helps you keep an open heart, and shamatha, which helps you keep a steady mind, places you and gets dead. Death is unsettling because it's foreign. We're not familiar with it. There's a word for meditation again, G, O, M, Gom, to become familiar with this is what is meant by groundlessness. Trungpa Rinpoche said the groundlessness means that ground is unknown to you. You just don't know what's going on, but you're okay with that. It's your stability in the midst of such instability that brings the most benefit.

Steadiness naturally attracts and soothes others, especially when they're losing it, they will take refuge in Your presence and peace of mind. Fantastic. Some people want a great deal of support from their spiritual communities while they die. Others want a more retreat, like approach. This happens. I mean, again, I've known this a lot. It's quite amazing. Some people are more like, just leave me alone. This is my time. I really don't want to see anybody. Do you respect that? Other people. It's a parade coming through. Everybody's pouring through day in and out. You respect that, you support that. This is why you want to have your advanced directives, both informal and formal.

Complicated helping strategies and micromanaging everything can overwhelm the dying person and their caregivers. This is how you burn out. Keep it genuine and simple and work from your heart, while there is much that we can do the know it all does more harm than good. So this is a bit of a paradox with what we're doing here. I think you get the point. You know, if you arm yourself, if you learn too much, right? TMI, you become not a beginner's mind, but an expert's mind in the pejorative sense. So the best way to use this material is to gain the confidence of stability for yourself, and then really just release, release, release everything. That's what death is all about. Release, release, and then just bring that simple stability, openness and confidence in speak from that space. Don't come in with a prescribed kind of recipe of how things should unfold that doesn't really help. Our task is to support love and release a dying person. Don't get too invested in guiding them. Let them guide you. So you may notice this. This is often, often, often why people die when everybody else finally leaves the room, because our stickiness, not just their attachment. They feel our attachment. And so the stickiness from our side can make it difficult from their side. That's why so many people transition when family finally leaves everybody's out, then they go, be wary of talking traps, the things we might say out of anxiety or to break the silence. Right? People are afraid of silence. We're afraid of space. And that's what the end of life is defined by, silence and space. So going in there and thinking, somehow you need to fill the space, to fix the situation, to make it better, that doesn't work. Avoid cliches, like, I know how you must be feeling. No, you don't. If you're not sure what to say, then say that or don't say anything. Be quiet and listen. Don't be afraid of space. Be sensitive to the needs and wants of the departing person. Never impose your own, as gabron said, all can hear, but only the sensitive can understand we often want things to go a certain way, and don't realize how we influence events. Influence events to that effect, yeah, like, hello, hardly a ton. Don't be religious, dogmatic or true spiritual if you're there in someone's greatest hour as a caretaker, an honored guest. You, if I'm sorry, you are there in someone's greatest hour as a caretaker, an honest guest, remind yourself that it's a privilege to be with this person during this once in a lifetime transition. Even though death is serious, there's no need to lose your sense of humor. On an absolute level, death is a big joke. There's no such thing as death. Oh yeah, this is one of my favorite lines. I sing this all the time, from Gonzaga, right when it's time to leave this body, this illusionary tangle, don't cause yourself anxiety and grief, the thing that you should train in and clear up for yourself. There's no such thing as dying to be done. There's just clear light the mother and child, clear light uniting when mind forsakes the body. Sheer delight. It's delightful for someone who's already made the journey. It's delightful for someone who really has a deep understanding of what's happening, no fear, delight. Events surrounding death can be truly funny. There's no need to be overly somber, but don't bring a forced sense of humor or artificially try to enlighten the atmosphere. Just touch deeply into your heart. Be yourself in air on the side of silence, of admission. We are there to hold the dying one, to provide a loving container that allows them to relax. Remember, that's what Polo papache said, the single most important thing you can do when someone is transitioning, create the proper holding environment. Just like at the beginning of life, holding environments are so critically important for proper entry into the world. Building environments kind of good midwifery at the end of life, same principles apply. You create the proper environment. What happens? Relax into that environment.

We're there to provide a loving container that allows them to relax and to encourage them not to be afraid. The key to what generates the best container is often provided by the dying person themselves. There are two helpful things to practice in the situation, sacred listening and unconditional presence. Yeah, boy. This is some practical stuff. I remember that, yeah, sacred listening means to listen, not just with your ears, but with your being, with your heart, your whole Soma. You won't hear what needs to be heard if you're speedy or over emotional, slow down, pause before you enter the room and collect yourself. So this is another instance of barter. Yoga, pause, yoga, gap, yoga, just pause. Don't be afraid of space. Pause. Check your motivation for being there. Don't be afraid to pause while even in the room, or to step out if you need to get it together. You can't offer the healing power of space until you give yourself some space. John says again, listening means that we have stabilized our minds so completely that the person who is speaking can actually hear themselves through our stillness. It's a quality of radiant listening, voluminous listening, vibrant listening, but it's very still. It is listening with attention, with open heartedness, without prejudice. The quality of attention that we are invited to bring is as if the person who is speaking will not live another day, as if they were saying their last words. We listen with our whole being, right? Why not do this now? Why not relate to other people in this way? You know, this is the mark of a good friend. This is a mark of of a good human beings capacity to listen. Isn't it amazing I look at my own experience, how often I'm already formulating my response, or I've got my preset response ready to go reaction, and I'm not really fully present when someone is sharing something with me. So you can learn a lot about how to relate to living by how you relate to those who are transitioning. The Roman stoic philosopher Seneca said, Behold me and my nakedness, my wounds, my pain, my tongue, which cannot express, my sour my chair, my abandonment, listen to me for a day an hour a moment, lest I expire in my terrible wilderness, my lonely silence. Oh, God, is there noone to listen? Be prepared to hear the same old stories from elderly relatives. You know the story thing, this narrative thing, is so compelling, right? I mean, world is made of stories. Sense of self is nothing but a story. Really, it's just a narrative. Everything is basically constructed by stories. And so when when elderly people often for a number of reasons. One of the reason they could just keep telling the same old stories, right? Because stories is what creates a narrative structure that makes them feel the continuity of being alive, sane and stable. It's exactly what's coming undone, just like when you're falling asleep, whatever, whatever reason. This satisfies a need for them, yeah, the need for continuity. Be ready for outbursts of anger or frustration sometimes directed at you. This happens a lot, anger and fear, right? Anger. These are incredibly reifying motions. They're very highly solidifying motions. Do you feel more solid than when you're angry? Do you feel more solid than when you're afraid? And so therefore, when things are falling apart, fear, anger, grasping, rear their heads, right? Fear reifies the future, anger reifies the past, grasping reifies the present. So this is applied three poisons, passion, aggression, ignorance, moment to moment. Just grasping reifying. And so when people are loading on you, that's why they're losing it, and anger helps them feel like they've got it together, because it's such a reifying emotion. They're not unloading on you. They're unloading because they're coming apart. Don't take it personally. Anyone under severe stress needs to release the tension. Meet them emotionally and spiritually where they are, not where you want them to be, not where you think they should be, be sensitive to the possibility that you may not be needed or even wanted. That's a tough one sometimes, right? That's a tough one, especially if it's a family member, and there's a request, either through their advanced directive, or even more directly, that they would appreciate it if you weren't actually in that space. You have to respect that. That's not easy. Sometimes you have to really respect that and watch for signs of fatigue. This is obviously of the dying person, things like lack of concentration, restlessness, drowsiness and labor, breathing. If those occur, it's time for you to leave at your left, let your loved one doze off. So remember what's happening is they're losing all their life force energy, and so sleeping, just like at the beginning of life, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, you know. And their energy levels are rapidly disintegrating, obviously, and so being extraordinarily sensitive to that as well. And so sacred. Listening is an exercise in empathy. It's the ability to think and feel yourself into the life of another person. Put yourself in their shoes, crawl in, crawl into their skin. Sometimes that people talk about story their existence, in other words, honor and appreciate their narratives get out of yourself and into them an empathic and not reactive response. Response validates the person's feelings and invites them to open up and express themselves. That helps them relax guidelines for Sacred listening and empathic response include the following, Yeah, boy, I use this all the time. This is a good review for me. Don't interrupt the speaker. Don't interrupt them, and don't rush them. Be aware of yourself, your personal issues and fears, your projections as you enter their space and as you converse, if you don't understand something, ask for clarification. Show your concern by asking considered questions. Realize you can't fix the situation, accept it. That's one of the hardest things. We feel like we have to just fix everything doesn't work. That doesn't mean you can't help them. That's a whole different story. Reframe from advising or contradicting. Display empathy, not pity. Keep up, keep on the subject until the person has finished expressing themselves. Well, this is a great checklist. Be aware of when you feel the urge to be cheerful or want to falsely reassure them. Never prolong a conversation where you are doing most of the talking. Be sensitive to your own anxiety and urge to fill space. Relate to the person, not the illness. Boy, this should almost be like copied and tacked on the outside of the door of the room that you're going into. Let the dying person talk about issues of their choice, acknowledge them with a nod, a gentle squeeze of the hand, or reflect back what you just heard. People who are dying want to be heard, not taught. Rinpoche says, I have been amazed again and again by how, if you just let people talk, giving them your complete and compassionate attention, they will, they will say things of a surprising spiritual depth, even when they think they don't have any spiritual beliefs, everyone has their own life wisdom. And when you let a person talk, you allow this life wisdom to emerge. I have often been very moved by how you can help people to help themselves, by helping them to discover their own truth, a truth whose richness, sweetness and profundity they may never have suspected. The sources of healing and awareness are deep within each of us, and your task is never, under any circumstance, to impose your beliefs or any part of yourself, actually, but to enable them to find these within themselves. Yeah. Well, this is such good advice. Wow. Here are some tips for what to say and what not to say when someone is facing death, what not to say, Hang in there. You're strong. You can make it. Fight it. Don't let it get you. What does the doctor know you may live for years. Don't give up. We need you. Everything will be fine. Well, on what level, everything will be fine. You may not be fine, in terms of you living physically forever, but fundamentally, everything will be fine. What is helpful to say, I'm here for you. How can I help you? How do you feel? What Would would you like to talk about anything in particular? This must be so hard for you.

I'm so proud to be your friend, brother, child, I love you, dad, oh, this is good stuff. This is really good stuff. Okay, so here's the deal. Instead of just kicking off another 18 items on the list, there were some questions that came in, since it's been almost, what, eight weeks since we've been together, so I will flag this so that Alyssa and I don't get in trouble next time I say Alyssa when it's really my fault, let me put this here. Yeah, there's something about this whole journey that just doesn't render itself to like speeding through things, right? This doesn't quite work, okay, so let me look at these questions, and then please feel free to make a offering a contribution, or ask a question. But let me get these that came in. Okay? Jerry asked during the last session if you had heard of the American Book of the American Book of the Dead. Yeah, I have it. I've read it. And your thoughts about it, you know, I read this thing so long ago, 25 years, maybe longer. I don't remember much about it. I don't remember being, like, super overwhelmed with that. I thought it was kind of okay. I'm always very reluctant to criticize. It's hard as hell to write a book, let alone to write a decent book, and so I'm out in the review business. Something's egregiously off, and it feels like, whoa. This is just really misleading. I'll be candid about that, but I haven't read what's his name, gold. Um, gold. I haven't read this book in decades. Literally. Now I remember, like I mentioned. I remember when I read it, I thought it was okay, but I wasn't, like, blown away by it, but that's just me. I've heard a number of people say, Well, this is a really great book, so I'm again, that's probably sorry I can't be more articulated on that, but I'm always a little leery to criticize or make comment unless the book is like, really great, and I just don't remember, I don't remember this one being really great. Well, that's just me. Okay, can you talk about the most powerful prayers of protection and prayers for healing loved ones that you're aware of, yep, I can do that. Well, yeah, here's a deal. You know, there's a tremendous liturgy, set of practices, genre of protection liturgies. I mean, I literally every day, literally every day, recite about 15 minutes of solid protector liturgies. And when I go on a retreat, I do even more than that. And so the probably the best place to go here. I mean, I you know whether I share these with you. I mean, I suppose I could, you'll find these. I can direct you to them. There's a lot here. I mean, I do. I can tell you the ones I do. I do, ekejati, Mahakala, bajo sadhu, Simha, mukha, concluding, repress. I mean, I do, six of them, all together. The place to go here is two books. One is tukunda rinpoche's book, peaceful death, joyful rebirth. He has got a ton of really wonderful, beautiful liturgies. In the back of that book, there's two or three appendices that list a ton of these I might direct you there. The other one is Lama Zopa rinpoche's book, dying well or something. I believe that's what it's called. There's a ton in that book as well. There's also some in onion. Rinpoche's book, dying with confidence. So there's a there's a lot here. Prayers for healing loved ones. Well, this could be Tong Lin, a practice. This could be the practice of white Tara. It could be that, but it doesn't always have to be just from the Buddh tradition. I don't know who sent this question, but if you have a relationship to whatever tradition you may have been raised in, I'm sure there's wonderful liturgies and practices associated from whatever tradition. Really, I can't speak too much authority about that. But again, even along these lines, Toku tuned up rinpoche's book, peaceful death, joyful rebirth. This has a ton. This is probably the one I refer to the most. There's a lot. Okay, last one is a big one. A number of questions, if a highly enlightened, if highly enlightened beings, are able to disperse their souls, yeah, they wouldn't. Well, I'll just see, yeah, they don't use that word, but and reincarnate in multiple beings, then, is the opposite also true? Yeah? So this gets a little esoteric, but like, hey, what isn't that we've been discussing? Yes, so highly realized beings. Again, this is, this is literally transcendent, trans conceptual. Hard to think about how to put into words. They can, they can emanate. They don't use the term disperse isn't really used. Soul isn't used, depends on how you define those words. But those are terms that are not used in the tradition, not translated that way. Soul is a four letter word in Buddhism, because it denotes so for most people, a kind of a reified entity. If you think of soulless essence, processed essence, then you could say that. But the type of being, these levels of realization, I mean, it's mind bending, what they can do so they can manifest in multiple, not really in but as multiple beings. And they can also multiple manifest as what we would consider to be inanimate objects, like like wind and pens and whatever that's called diversify, variegated nirmanakaya. So that's just the Preface. It's the opposite of also true meaning. Can multiple beings, minds, souls, incarnate in one being sure? Why not? Why not? I mean, there's classic cases of jungwon cultural loader Tai being an emanation of a number of five different wisdom sources came into his mind stream a current master sitch and rabjan Rinpoche. Some of you may know he was recently in Boulder. He's considered the emanation of three separate mind streams. Why not? It's only because we still live in this Aristotelian Boolean, binary way of looking at things that this just seems like beyond the limits of credulity. This is where we need to think in liminal dileus ways, sure. I mean, why not? Or can they congregate? Oh, I love that word that's also not used very often, but I get it. Can they congregate in one being for each time period? Yeah, basically they can do whatever they want because there's no they there. That's why they can do whatever they want, and that's why this stuff is just mind bendingly. Read Tuku tu wrote another book on this topic. I think it literally called Tuku where he where he talks about all these styles and variegations, very I should say, varieties of embodiment in incarnation. Would this phenomena help to explain multiple personality disorder? No, not at all, not in the slightest, because that term also was not used. Now, the term is dissociative identity disorder, and that's a pathology. What we're talking about with dissemination is not a pathology. This is a voluntary manifestation, MPDS or D IDs are are involuntary dissociative disorders that are brought about by basically contracting away and creating these sub personalities. In a pathological sense, we all have certain sub we not certain. We all have sub personalities. It's like it's the basis of family systems theory, work of Schwartz, it's also, what did Walt Whitman say, I contain multitudes. Marvin Minsky talked about the society of mind. We all contain conglomerations of different personas, different masks. And so what happens with things like D, I d is basically that type of relationship to the contents of mind just becomes reified, becomes pathologized when, when it's frozen. So would this explain that, no, not at all, or even demonic possession? No, that's an entirely different phenomena. What are the names of advanced prayers that we can do for loved ones to help protect them and keep them healthy? Yeah. So that's similar to the question, Oh, this one's from Patrick. So that's similar to the question addressed above, or positive above. Look at, look at the liturgies and the book peaceful death, joyful rebirth and and see if they speak to you or Lama Zopa Rinpoche. I mean, there's, there's actually a fair amount out there, but again, Rinpoche. Tunde rinpoche's book probably has the most. Okay, so hopefully that helps, Patrick, if you want to follow up, feel free to come on. In the meantime, I'll check the chat column and Myra. Hi, Myra, how are you?

I am. I am really, well, um, two main things. Um, I with all the times that I have heard you and I have heard you just a few times I have never seen, heard you say in three or four times on the road. Um, not to be afraid of space. I mean, it was like, it was one after the other. Which is it something that you read recently, or maybe that you saw in the book that I didn't notice because, I mean, I get it, but it was, it was like, Yes, don't be afraid of it was beautiful. I think today was is one of the best reading because the practical after going to the book and going to so many classes today were very poignant. I mean, it was just like a sword to the heart. So I think that the list today is just fantastic, but, but not to be afraid of space. I get it, but why do you repeat it so many times today? I

don't know. Maybe because I am afraid of space. No, I'm not. I love space. Space is that? What did Rinpoche say? Trungpa, Rinpoche, space is such a great line. Space is the Buddhist version of God. I mean, what a great line, right? Yeah, maybe I'm possessed by a space demon. I don't know. I don't know it. I don't know where

the stuff it was. It was like, whoo, I can't and then one, one thing, um, why do tucas forget? I mean, if you're going to choose to be incarnated again, is it because they still have within their mind, stream, or whatever stream of consciousness, things to be done. Because I understand the option to come back to serve, but I do not understand why would they forget they have to be picked, they have to be identified. They,

yeah, well, you know, that's that's actually a really good question. Part of it has to do with the degree of the Tuku. But they're not all the same. There's Reggie Ray writes about this quite beautifully in the last chapters of his book Secrets of the vajra mind. He has a couple really interesting chapters on tukus and end of end of life stuff. They're not all the same. They're different degrees. There's what are called the Supreme tucus, then there's the emanation, there's the Blessed One. So there's a gradation of levels of remembrance. But you know, I've wondered about this myself. Why is it that there's this type of seeming amnesia that takes place, and I'm not sure I have an entirely good answer for that. You know, it could be purely developmental, but there are instances where Chukwu are actually not recognized, and they live their kind of normal lives without that level of recognition. So why that type of forgetfulness comes about in that type of training? I've never come across a satisfactory answer to that. So I'm not sure what I can say about that, but it does seem, it does seem to be the case. And what I do know is that the earlier the tukus are actually identified, selected and then pulled away and sequestered in their training environments. The less detox is necessary. In other words, the older they get. There's more kind of pollution that needs to be cleared away, because they're already starting to be enculturated and toxified by their environments. So this is why there's always a little bit of urgency to try to identify them as quickly as possible bring them into the environment. So there's there's less cleanup involved. But why? The process of of amnesia takes place where there's purely a hardware issue? You know, there has to be enough neuronal structure, enough brain structure, I don't know that's a really interesting question. So that's speaking of the topic earlier, of don't know mind and divine ignorance. I'm not sure how divine this ignorance is, but I am ignorant of a satisfactory response to a really good question

I didn't want to ask in the next one, because I think I take some too much time. But

okay, there's no there's nobody else in life.

Okay, so the most liberating conclusion, not conclusion, would be the lack of having to know. So then the peace of not knowing to be that peace with uncertainty, to be at peace with space and really just know the joke that they say that all is because there's nothing else to be learned or nothing else to do, and to be at peace with The Free Fall seems to be the culmination of the non story. Can we? Is there people that can get there without the schistling and the studies and the mantras and the meditations and the visualizations and the creation and all the things that we have to do before we do we've had the ability to do, to not reify everything that we see. Yeah, that's,

you know, that's pretty another wonderfully impossible question. I can't say with any authority on that. I mean, who knows if there aren't completely awake, very humble beings running on this planet that aren't teaching, that aren't promoting their wares? I mean, who's to say? I can't speak with any authority on that. For what I do know, from my experience and from the tradition, from the literature, as I've studied it, is, it doesn't seem that way. It seems they're even with the highest tukus, even the even the direct nirmanakayas, you know, Dalai Lama's, Karmapas, 10th Bumi bodhisattvas, even they have to go through the training, they're just more like Mozart's, right? It just happens so much more quickly. And they're they're reminded so much more quickly. But fear, I suppose, theoretically, can people come about these levels of realization without any training? Sure. I mean, there's no reason theoretically that that why that would not be the case. But it's tricky, because how would we ever know? I mean, if somebody comes along after 70 years of living as a farmer, and then, I guess one way is they, they dissolve into rainbow body, then you know. And there are, interestingly enough, there are some intimations of exactly that type of phenomena. Or somebody enters, you know, really advanced stage of tuktam, somebody that had no alleged preparatory practice or training, I guess that's the only way that I could think of, is they go up in rainbow body, or they have really high staged tuktam experience without any prior preparation. Maybe that's one metric, but tricky questions. Yeah, thank you. Theoretically I see, I see no reason why not. But again, how would we ever really know, right? It just

feel like every time that I have asked a question of something that I thought was like, Oh, please, kind of, can you acknowledge me this experience of this thought, and I think that is so brilliant. The answer is, yeah, you know, that's, it's fine. It's just that that's, I guess that's the the importance of the Guru is to guide you and to make you realize certain things. But usually the answer is very simple. It's almost nothing. It may be a smile. It may be

absolutely, yes, absolutely. And, you know, sometimes, if there's somebody else with a different style, they might say something like they would either remain in silence, because, you know, the Buddha was, was asked these, I don't know, 10 unanswerable, what are now known as the unanswerable questions, and he would either remain in silence and not say anything which would be his response, or he would direct the question back to the practitioner, or say something like, the question is not conducive to the purposes of awakening. Now this doesn't mean I'm more like you. I'm interested in the so called theory philosophy and other aspects of how things like this work. But at some levels, maybe it's not all that important, right? I mean, I don't know. I actually love questions where I have the opportunities. My favorite response to say with, with complete relaxation. And this is, this is one conviction I really have, is what I can say, I don't know. There's something quite refreshing about that conviction. I don't know, right? But I do appreciate the questions. This is not in any way to dissuade you. Thank you. Thank you. Derek, yeah. So here we go. Yeah. EJ, gold, right. Yes. There it is. Yeah. So can I spell the prayer as I do? Yeah. You can get these. You can order these if you go to either Shambhala Nalanda translation committee, either nolanda Translation committee, I think if you Google them and you pull out, you know, ekajati e, e, K, a, j, A, T, I, ekajati Mahakala, that's pronounced properly Vajra Sadhu. So that's V A, J, R, A, Vajra um.

Yeah, Vajra, sadhu, S, A, D, H, U, Simha muka, yep, that's usually one word. Simha muka. Which other ones did I give you? Ekajati, beitali is another 1b, E, T, a, l, I, mogul Palmer is another 1m, O, G, y, MOG, y'all, Homer, P, O, M, R, A is another one. There's a there's a whole list, if you go to the lot again, this is just the way I was trained. In this particular tradition. There's a whole list of liturgical practices. And there, there are quite a number of these so called protectors in there. If they speak to you, go for it. There. I do them. I They speak to me. I do them every single night. But if they don't speak to you, don't worry about it. Yeah, the three emanations of Roger Rinpoche. I think that's in Reggie's book. I don't know premdas. I don't know off the top of my head, but I think it's in Reggie's book, Secrets of the vajra world. I think he actually lists them and then jungle and cultural loaders high as well as emanation of five. Menorah I get you in a second. If wants to do a self healing practice, does it make sense to breathe out black smoke and breathe in healing white light or just a regular tongue then, yeah. I mean, I don't see any inherent reason for not doing that. I guess it's the issue of whether one does a kind of a freestyle approach, or whether one finds a set of visualizations, liturgies and practices that are a little bit more traditional. So that's a very kind of idiosyncratic question. Lori in terms of, like, does that work for you? Does that make you feel better? Does it make you feel more relaxed and open? Then it's going to be healing. Okay? It's going to save every night a good time to practice preparing for the grand opening of death. 100% that's why the practice of liminal dreaming, lucid dreaming, dream, yoga and whatnot, are marvelous preparatory practices for the end of life because they're concordant experiences of that dissolution process. Absolutely, I do. I this. I do every single night. Is there something valuable to recite, say a prayer before bed or before falling asleep? Oh my gosh, yeah. There's again. There's a ton here. I'm gonna

there's, there's a specific array of liturgies, very specific dream yoga practices that one can do. You can also create. This may contradict what I was just saying about the the healing practice, but you can also generate liturgies of your own accord that are resonant with you on that but because this takes us into a slightly different track here, James, with your permission, I'm not going to go down all the different things you can do with with Dream and sleep, yoga, all the liturgies. Again, the cool thing, it's almost like an embarrassment of riches. There are so many different practices. I believe I have some of these written down in my book, Dream Yoga, illuminating your life, elusive dreaming and the Tibetan yogas of sleep. But there's a lot. There's a lot here. So minoria, yeah, far away. Unmute yourself, please.

Hi, Andrew. Now I want to ask you about meditation, because I've been involved with hospice for years, and I over the years, I've developed a certain set of things I do, like before I go in, I set my intention to bring peace and comfort, and I do stuff to regulate my nervous system. But one of the biggest things I found is that if I can do that, those two things and specific meditations for expansion, then when I go in to be with a person, I can be quiet and feel what they need. So it feels like expansion meditations are the ones that help me to bond with them. And then kind of sometimes it's miraculous, like, I'll pick a song like, you know, maybe swing low sweet chariot, which did happen a couple of weeks ago, and the person was the dying person had been a choir director for a church so, but the only way that happens for me is To be in that expansive state, which is not always so easy when I just get there from traffic and everything. So what I wondered is what I kind of just do, meditations that I come up with or know for expansion, but what in the Buddhist thing I haven't figured, haven't solidified exactly what I want to do. So I wonder what meditations you would suggest that specifically create that bigger expansion thing.

Oh yeah, there's a number of, by far the most accessible and I think profound is the practice of open awareness. And I write, I write pretty extensively about this. In my last book, reverse meditations book, I have two pretty substantial chapters on the practice of open awareness. I highly recommend some familiarity with that practice. That's, I mean, there are others. Of course, tonglen is an opening practice. My tree and is is an opening practice, but as a kind of general purpose all round. And for me, open awareness is without parallel. It's just an extraordinarily effective way to connect. And once you get the hang of it, once you're able to click into the qualities of space that this practice cultivates, you can do it on the spot. And so for sure, that one, that one, okay,

awareness, but I don't feel like I have a lot of warmth in that, you know, to have. How do you, I don't know, feels like I need some heart opening, warmth in the expansion thing.

Well, you may notice that if you take that expansion to some level of maturation, the love is a natural consequence of that openness. I might recommend, when you're actually doing this practice, that you pay a little bit of extra attention, somatically, to where you are actually feeling in your heart center. Because the more I do it, the more I notice that it's not just my mind that opens, because it's the same heart mind I feel a warmth and a softening and an opening in my heart center, for sure. But you know, in conjunction with that, then, I mean, Tong Lin is an extraordinarily effective way to open to others. I'm not sure. Do you have some traffic with that? Is that Is that something that you've played with over the years or explored?

I don't know what my trip you said, Maitreya station,

meta is fantastic. And then Tong Lin, they're they're beautiful practices, right? So those are the top three. There are others. There are other, quite specific kind of tantric level practices, but I'm not sure those are completely appropriate to share in this context, but those are the ones that I would go to are further deeper exploration, stability, with open awareness. Because when you're actually feeling a quality of love underneath it all is this, this openness, and so at first I hear what you're saying. The practice can feel a little almost cognitive, cerebral. You're opening your mind, which we tend to associate with kind of headspace, but I invite you to play with it a little bit more, and maybe, like I suggested, more of an invitation to notice viscerally, notice what you're feeling in your body when you come back and then notice what you may be feeling in your in your heart center. Because for me, doing this for so many years, boy, oh boy. I mean, this is one way to open and connect. So those are the big ones. You know, then if you have, if you have a connection to devotional liturgies, you know, bhakti yoga or Guru Yoga, those are, those are very, again, a little tantric level, but these are specifically targeted to open the heart. I mean, Guru Yoga is just, not just it's a way to use the power of love for the purposes of awakening. So that's a very powerful way to work. But that that requires more. You know, you have to get the transmissions you got to go through the whole thing, at least with most of them, not all of them,

rinpoche's mantra, like reciting Guru rinpoche's mantra,

well, sure. I mean, you know that, or Tara or Chen raise these mantra, medicine, Buddha mantra. I mean, all those, for sure, will also help. It's really a matter of exploring, almost literally seeing what resonates with you and what has that capacity to you, whether it's a formal liturgy, whether it's spontaneous openness, whether it's a visualization practice, there are a number of ways to actually get to that arena, but those are the ones that have certainly been very, very effective for me. Thank you. Welcome. So another one from Prem Das, Kempo, yeah, Kempo. Rinpoche died. Yes, I'm very aware of that. I talked to his translator for 12 years, my main teacher. Do you know I didn't know he passed. You know what he's experiencing? Buddhahood, premdas, I have no idea what he's experiencing, but he's about as close to a bud you're going to get. So I'm not, I mean, it might sound silly to say this. I'm not worried about him. I'm not worried about this guy. He's dissolved into the Dharmakaya, but I did know that from Das, he was one of my main teachers. Okay, check, Patrick. Ancient Romans believed that if a soul was lucky to reincarnate after many years and Elysium, they would drink first from the river, and this would cause them to forget everything before they were born again in physical form. Yeah, yeah, okay. Sounds good. So to speak, I recently heard of entering the spring. Tells me your Please tell me your opinion and knowledge of entering the stream. Are you referring to the book? There's a book called entering the stream. Entering the stream is also the first of four stages of liberation and the Theravadan tradition. So are you referring to one of the four stages, or are you referring to the book? The book is quite fine. If you haven't read it, it's worth reading. It came out around the same time as Martin Scorsese's film, and I think it might actually have it was somewhat designed to be a release around that same time. So I'm not sure which aspect of entering the stream you're referring to. And last one before I go to Sharon, and then we'll probably close it for today. Yeah. So Alyssa posted, yes, Nalanda translation.org, you'll find the list of the protectors there. And this, this is a idiosyncratic thing, if, if this principle works for you, fantastic. Again. If it doesn't, don't worry about it for me, um, because I've done these for 30 plus years, yeah, totally works for me. It's major part. When you take refuge as a Vajrayana practitioner, you take refuge in the Guru, the yam and the dakini. And the dakini represents, that's another term for protector. So taking refuge in protector principle at the level of Tantra is a core ingredient of Vajrayana practice. But I don't go around talking about it too much because a lot of people that they're not terribly interested in that, and it's also not in my position to kind of market that where. But again, the book, you know, Reggie's book, is really quite good on this secrets of the vajra world. He has, if I my memory serves me, right. Also, Juda Brown's beautiful book, dakinis, warm breath. She writes quite a bit about that Kennedy principle, a protector principle, especially akajati, who's my main girl. So you might want to check out those two resources. They're really, really good. Okay, Sharon, last one, fire away, unmute yourself.

Okay. Um, my in in the process of my mother, my father and my brother's death, um, all three of them had a day of incredible clarity and incredible energy. And with my brother, it was like 40s before his death. With My Mom, it was a week. And with my dad, it was roughly about a week as well. Do you have a take on what we're seeing when that happens?

Yeah, it's called terminal lucidity. It's not at all uncommon. My mom experienced it. If you Google it, you will find quite an extensive literature and it is totally worth knowing about, because it's exactly like you say, you're with a dying person, and boy, all of a sudden it looks like they, like my mom, just, you know, literally set up and like beams of light were coming out of her face. And it was like, Oh my gosh, this is the miraculous recovery. She's coming back kind of thing. So it's not it's not uncommon. It can be, I wouldn't say, unsettling, but sometimes mystifying, like what's actually going on. So look, it's a big topic. Look up Terminal lucidity, and you will find a fair literature that talks about the commonality of this phenomena and some hypotheses of what's actually taking place. Not unusual, very interesting, isn't it? It's like, whoa. Like, what is going on here? Yeah, the mind, the mind, does amazing things, especially in the moments of moments of transition. So hey, we got it. I haven't seen you in almost two months. Nice to see everybody. I'll be back two weeks from today, I'm pretty sure I'm around. I'm heading off to a sleep lab in a couple weeks, but I'm I think I'll be around for the next one. So see you around the block all the stuff that happens on our nightclub you know about it. Otherwise. All the best to you. And remember, dedication to merit of what we're doing here is not a benefit to others. It's irrelevant. So we dedicate the merit, we send it off to all sentient beings, to people in our community that may be challenging going through challenging transitions, always, always remember that we're doing this for the benefit of this planet and for those who inhabit it. Bye, everybody. So nice to see you all. Ciao, you