[23] Strategies for Creating a Supportive Environment

12:02AM Jul 18, 2024

Speakers:

Andrew Holecek

Alyssa

Chelsea Waves

Gail McDonald

Keywords:

dying

death

great

mind

openness

people

grasping

environment

holding

person

fear

die

meditation

dharma

transition

bardo

space

read

create

practice

That's okay. You can leave it on otter. Yeah. It doesn't matter, Otter, does it? Yeah? And so that was my most recent podcast. We posted that a couple of weeks ago to our riff on Ken's latest book, finding radical wholeness, which is pretty darn good. I mean, the five stages of waking up, growing up, cleaning up, showing up and opening up. Definitely worth reading. So that one's up there in terms of shameless self promotion. I've got my three day, four day gig include Friday night at Esalen. That's, I think, the first weekend in August on the Bardo. Bardo dying. And if you haven't been to Esalen poof boy, check it out. It's an amazing place. I do. I try to do at least one gig a year there. So I'm super excited about that. The men, my thing that's in the September, probably the highlight program for me, because they get to work with Bob Thurman, Anthony bass, from NYU world's leading researcher on entheogens, especially psilocybin, where the end of life use. So I'm still trying to get Tony in for a podcast. He said he would do it. He's just super hard to schedule. So he's going to do a whole day with us. And then Bob and I are going to use our usually, our usual kind of I do the whole day. He comes in for a couple hours in the afternoon, and then the preparing to die. Program cohort three, we just posted that, so that's now up there and available. So check it out, right? So okay, so I didn't have to pause because the recordings been started, right?

Nope, we gotta restart one more. Okay. Okay, we're good. Now we're good.

Okay, so this time I triple confirmed we are on page 96 so if you're new to this book study, thing we do that gives we as me, I always like to say this me and my microbiome realize there's more there are more cells, right? Jerry correct me, if I'm wrong, there's more cells in your body that are not you than you think about that. In other words, bacteria, the microflora. It's kind of an interesting composite makeup, right? So when Walt Whitman said, I love his like, I contain multitudes, I don't think he was talking about all the different flora that we have within us. But anyway, we me and my microbiome. Where's that going? And my train of thought got derailed by the microbiome. Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that riff, but anyway, I left off. We left off on page. Oh yeah, I was telling you what we do on these things, right? I just came back from the mountain, so a three hour drive back. So I'm a little I'm still in motion. We do it. We me and my microbiome do a auto commentary. We're reading the book, preparing to die. And so we're on page 96 I read it. I give a spontaneous running commentary. Then we have Q and A. You know, in about 45 minutes or so, we'll have a chance to talk about whatever interests you all, so hopes and fears of the dying. So this is a little bit now we're in the more practical stuff. So this is the section, what to do for others as they die. Yeah, effective communication. I don't know if I have this in here if I read it, but there's this great line from George Bernard Shaw. I don't believe I read it. One of my favorite lines from him. You know, the biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished. That's a good one, especially if you've got partners in your life, right? That's a quite a helpful one. So effective communication can be enhanced by having some understanding of what the dying person may be going through. Some of the unspoken hopes of the dying include the following. So this is actually a an important thing to do if you're caring for someone, is learn, learn about the disease, try to get the best sense, either through the physicians, if you can talk to them or do some homework with Dr Google and find out what what it might be like to actually go through this type of just challenge. It's always helpful to put your step into their shoes, step into their entire Soma. Okay, some bullet points that we will see here some of the unspoken hopes of the dying include the following, that they will pass with dignity surrounded by loved ones, that they will get better and be productive again. This is so true. Boy, I look at these things. Boy, it's just so true that tomorrow will be a better day, next week, a better week. And I guess that's possible, if it just depends on how you define better, right? I mean, if you're going to a pure land, it's going to get better. That they're dying will not be prolonged or painful, that they will not be a burden, Boy, that's a big one, that their families will be able to go on without them, right, without us, that everything is taken care of. That's also really big, that we are having a good dharmic death. Did I share this cartoon with you? I think I did. You know, how's my dying? Remember that? I got that from Joan Halifax, the little thought bubble of guys dying in the in the self imposed pressure, you know, like, how am I doing? Man, how's my dying? Let it go. And last bullet point that we will reunite with our guru or go to a higher rebirth, yeah. I mean, like, why not? That's actually a fairly decent aspiration in terms of just having a good thought on your mind. Fears around dying include the following, if there's hospice workers here that want to chime in with additional recommendations or thoughts in their work with others, feel free. Fears around dying include fear of annihilation, for sure, absolutely positively, probably the biggest fear. And so this is why there's so much emphasis, at least for me, about transitioning identity from exclusive identification with form, that's what ego is, from body to more subtle dimensions. I mean, this is why we suffer as we age and get sick and dies, because we've invested in a in a portfolio, into an IRA that's bound to crash, form is going to crash, body is going to crash. It's all going to go, and so transitioning to more subtle, formless dimensions, and formally and finally into fully formless dimensions. This is what it means to die before you die. And if you do this, then death no longer has any meaning. And then it just doesn't matter what happens to you. It just simply doesn't matter, because that's not who you really are. Heading to the Ultimate Body of truth, Dharmakaya, right, truthness. That's who you really are. Fear of not being a good Dharma student, not having a good death. So don't do that. Pressure on you, fear of being unprepared and slipping into the lower realms. Well, this is actually what Lama Zopa Rinpoche talks about. Is wholesome fear. There's nothing wrong with this fear at all. This is the wholesome fear, putting the fear of karma into you right. Remember this line did I was in horror of death, middle ripeness of great song and horror of death. I took to the mountains, contemplating again and again on the uncertainty of the hour and the hour of death. I captured the fort, the fortress of the Deathless, unending nature of mind. Thus all fear of death is over and done with. And so what actually brought belarupa, you know, to awakening in one life, was wholesome fear. He killed 37 people when he was young at the behest of his mom. Realized that's not the greatest karma. Basically realized I'm in some deep trouble here. And so he used this wholesome fear to actually completely change the current of his life, and to use it to become actually fully awakened in my life. That fear is wholesome, connected. Same thing here, fear of karma, of what the next life might be. Well, you don't have to fear it if your karma is good. Holy chitta, remember lays a red carpet for you. Best thing you could do have a good death is lead a good life, and the force of that goodness will take care of you. Fear of abandonment or isolation, absolutely fear of the process of dying. That's why it's helpful to become familiar with it, which includes fears that will be painful, that we'll lose our dignity and independence, it will become a burden. Fear of the unknown. I mean, for sure, fear and the unknown are virtually synonymous. But if you know the full scope of your mind, least, according to this tradition, death, what is it? Journey of the mind, journey into and through the mind? That's what death is. And so we fear it, because we don't know who we are. We don't know these more subtle dimensions that we're going to be forcefully introduced to when we go through this journey as the mind. What happens? You know, you've heard me say this, the mind falls into itself. That's what happens when you die, wrong. Pop, just like in deep meditation, just like every night when we fall asleep, falling asleep, dropping dead, intimations of the mind falls drops. We can do this in meditation. Die before you die, then there's no more fear, because there's no more No more unknown. This is why the great masters have absolutely no fear whatsoever when they die. They've seen this movie before. They know what's going to happen. No fear, fear of leaving everything behind, of letting go, yeah. So this is why it's helpful to let go now, die now, holding environments, yeah, this is this term. Oh, yeah. So I say this comes from Monica. So yeah, Dzogchen, I remember this very clearly. I was, I was at the luncheon with him when this question was presented to him. He did a series of presentations in the Lama Bodhi 1520, years ago, 20 years ago, at this point that I wasn't part of. And someone asked him point blank in one of our luncheons with him. This is just just before he released mind beyond death. And you know, they asked him, like, What's the best thing you can do to help self and others? And he said, create the proper environment. Create the proper mandala. And that's what this is about. This is a big deal. A pediatrician and child psychiatrist, post Freudian object relations theorist Donald Winnicott wrote about holding environments, how the proper environment is critical for healthy growth and development, as with the beginning of life, so with its end. If a proper holding environment is established around death, proper mandala, a good death will naturally take place within it. Their care, the caregiver's job, just as a midwife, I'm sorry, as a midwife into the Bardos, is to create the space that allows the dying person to relax and release that. I mean, that's the whole thing. Just like for yourself, use your intuition, do whatever you can to create this, you know, this environment of care, love and release, so that people can just enter that environment which can be exemplified by your state of mind, just your state of mind, which is contagious at this point, can create this environment for others. The Buddha's teaching the Dharma is expressly for this purpose. It offers the ultimate holding environment. Dharma is derived from the Sanskrit root Dhar, DHR, which means support, caring, and in particular, holding to hold

two kind of renderings of that. Hold is into cease, stop and that's why so many terms, or terms of cessation, negation and then holding it in this sense of containment environment. If someone is held properly, physically or spiritually, they will surrender to their loving embrace. Think about how good you feel when you get a nice, warm hug. Yeah. I mean, you've had this feeling, right, really crappy day, really struggling, struggling, and someone you really care about just gives you a big, warm hug. You know what that feels like, right? Ah, you just want to collapse into that embrace. That's that's that's the environment you want to create, holding environments or hugging environments. That's the environment. Yeah, that's what you want to create. I've been with dying people who ask this actually is quite common when they die at home, who ask that their bed be moved into the center of the room so their loved ones can sit all around them at the request of the dying person. I've seen family members, caretakers and even pets crawl into bed with a dying person so they can better hold them as with meditation, the maxim not too tight. Not too loose, is the key. If we hold them too tight, that amounts to grasping, right, and this will hinder their transition. This is why we talked about this earlier. So many people transition when there's nobody there. Have you noticed this? If you're a caretaker, you leave the space. You know you're finally out of that space, and they let go. So part of their transition, part of helping them have a graceful exit from their side, which involves letting go from their side is on our side, you have to let go, and that's not always so easy, right? I mean, Kemper Rinpoche, my teacher, who actually died two weeks ago, three weeks ago, always talked about love without attachment. Such a great teaching. For most people, that's like, they don't even know what that means. Well, that's why we're talking about unconditional love, right? Love without attachment. If we hold them too loosely or not at all, that can make them feel abandoned. So this, again, is where this, what you know, this sacred listening, this active listening, the ability to really tune in, not just with your ears, but with your whole body. Let them show you. Let them teach you. We always bring an environment to space or mood that represents our state of mind, right? If we're anxious or uptight, the dying person tunes into that. For sure. If we're open, spacious and relaxed, they'll tune into that, especially when they're dying, because their boundaries are breaking down. They're becoming more porous, so to speak, they're starting to spill out of their orbit of self centeredness. And this is why states of mind are very contagious. They're always contagious. But around the around the death process this, this contagion, so to speak, is heightened, and so therefore the capacity to work your magic with them just by being with them. I mean, Christine Longacre goes so far as to say, and I definitely concur with this, is that you can actually meditate for them because they're they'll be attracted to your mind space, to the stability that you represent, because they're losing that. So you represent what you're, what they are losing. So in a very real way, you can you can meditate for them, invite them into that space. Many hospice workers comment that as a dying person nears death, their mind becomes less contained by their body. They're more aware of the atmosphere. It's almost as if their mind is spilling into the room. So we talk about we me and my microbiome. We talk about, you know, mixing your mind with space, mixing it when you breathe out, put a little Trungpa Rinpoche emphasize this a lot. Before that technique was altered to big fuss. You know, his emphasis was on the out breath, just release, spill into space. In Breath just happens on its own. Ride the mind out into space, at least. That's the last thing you're going to do in this in this life, the very last thing you're going to do is you're going to breathe out, not breathe in. That's it. The greatest gift we can ever bring to a dying person is our unconditional presence, an attendance that fills the atmosphere with stability and love. Temple carta Rinpoche says, love this guy, such a great guy. He I can't remember when he transitioned, maybe eight years ago, even if the person has lived a very unwholesome life, if he had, if you have been able to positively affect that person's final state of mind, a beneficial rebirth may occur. This is one of the highest benefits you could have affected in the life of another person. So this is, this is taking advantage of the same principles that are involved with actually pure line practice, with POA, with the nocturnal meditations, the laws of proximate karma. There are four major laws of karma that are applied during moments of transition, and this notion of proximate karma is the one you have the most control over. It's just what it sounds like. It's just the immediate, you know, the preceding state of mind, conditions perfumes the succeeding state of mind. And so you can, you can have a powerful effect on this. And so this is why, because the you know, this is the opportunity and the peril of the Bardo journey is everything is magnified. So a healthy state of mind, a healthy state of openness, receptivity, release, can really be, you know, hyper helpful at the moment of death, and then, conversely, the opposite things can go on, also a little bit off the rails in an exaggerated Fashion, because everything, everything is heightened. Unconditional presence means unconditional acceptance. Radical what Tara Barak talks about is radical acceptance. So this is also connected to the practice of meta maitri, unconditional radical acceptance. This is the best holding environment. If the death is rough, we accept and work with that. If it's easy, we accept that we don't judge, impose, expect or desire anything. When does this sound like meditation or what? So you're bringing your meditative mind to bear here, right? This atmosphere of acceptance is contagious and will help the dying person slide into a similar state of mind. Yeah, it's like entrainment, right? You're actually kind of in training, resonating with them. So one of the, I mean, in my community, you know, the Varjo dacha community before, I wish Shambala, this is what we did when Sanga members were dying. We would literally just sit in their space, obviously, with their permission, their invitation. We would literally just be around the person. You weren't there, preaching anything or reading The Tibetan Book or the dead. You're simply just being with them, practicing with them, creating this holding environment of unconditional acceptance and also release. Psychologist Marie de henzell, I don't know how you pronounce her name, writes, creating this atmosphere of warmth and calm around a sick person who is in torment is unquestionably the most beneficial thing one can do for him or her. End quote, she relates that for one nurse who was able to do this consistently, the patients on her shift always required fewer tranquilizers. How cool is that unconditional presence is developed by meditation, and it propagates the space of meditation. And in particular, right? What's the crown jewel? Really, the formless practices, open awareness, massively important formless practices, if you know these from Mahamudra Chen, same but open awareness, a little bit more accessible practice for most of us, absolute gold. Therefore, one of the best things to do for the dying person is to practice with them. If the person isn't a meditator, ask them first if it's okay to sit quietly with them or just do it unobtrusively. Never force anything an excessively spiritual atmosphere, quote, unquote, can have the opposite effect and unsettled the dying person. Yeah, just be honest. Honesty rules today, because their heart mind is spilling into space. We can mix our heart mind with theirs and actually practice for them. Oh, so I did take this from Christine. Oh, this is great. She's a rock star at the time of death. Or spiritual practice can affect the person's mind and heart in an extraordinary way. When we are resting in the vivid presence of the true nature of mind or invoking the radiant, loving presence of a Buddha or divine being, we are literally creating a sacred environment for him or her to die within our devoted spiritual practice may become his actual experience at the moment of death. Beautiful. It will make a strong imprint on his or her mind, and this last imprint is what he or she will wake up to after death. So this is this law, proximate karma, also called the immediately preceding condition. It's a big deal. And the dying person tunes into all kinds of unconscious messages. So honesty, particularly honesty with ourselves, is crucial.

Now is the time for Heart to Heart communication. But don't be too forward, even though the raw nature of death invites truth, this doesn't mean we have to express every thought. Unloading on the dying person only serves ourselves. Sacred listening helps us decide what needs to be said. Yeah, it's amazing, right? I mean this, these, these principles apply to anything. These principles apply to effective communication with people in life. You know, if you really just have to slow down, open enough disconnect, you know, in very, very brief, short motions of verbal speech, you express what's really going on, instead of the relentless stream of consciousness when someone's always filling space, this often happens when things are falling apart, because things can get uncomfortable. People are afraid of silence in space, and so they tend to fill it. I mean, the ego of mind does this by filling it with discursive, relentless thought, you know, the subconscious gossip and chatter that continues. And so we do this also vocally when we're uncomfortable, instead of just again waking down, being with the discomfort, resting in that space, being true, being true to your experience. If your loved one is open for guidance, it's important not to give too many instructions, and that they may not be, that they not be too profound. This can overwhelm a person when their energy is low, share something pithy and heartfelt, an inspiring message they can take with them. Gently repeat the instruction. Keep it simple, yeah. And then Trungpa, Rinpoche, good old CT, it seems that actually relating with a dying person is very important to provide the whole ground of dying. Death is no longer a myth at that point, it's actually happening. You are dying. We're watching your dying, but we are your friends, and therefore we watch your dying. We believe in your rugged quality of leaving your body and turning into a corpse. That's beautiful. That's the finest and best example of friendship that you could demonstrate to us. That you know you are dying and we know that you're going to die. It's really beautiful. Why? Because it's true. We are really meeting together properly and beautifully, exactly at the point it's fantastic communication, yeah, that's real communication, right? Transpersonal, transferable communication, that in itself, is such a beautiful and rich quality of communication that it really represents a tremendous further inspiration as far as the dying person is concerned. Cool one central ingredient in good holding environments is the reliability of it. Dying. People are dealing with unpredictability and groundlessness, so it's important for them to know that they can count on something or someone never offer more than you can deliver. Oh, yeah, I'll be back. I'll be back next week, and then you don't show up, right? No, don't do that. Their body and mind Life itself is already letting them down. Don't let them down further by not showing up when you said you would, or not keeping a promise. The bedridden have few distractions. Every outside contact becomes disproportionately important. Your visit might be an insignificant part of your week, but it may be the one event that the person was eagerly awaiting. Be firm in your commitments. Cool, okay, creating the environment. I think we have a few more minutes. Yes, totally, yeah. This is, I mean, really, after all, there's like, heavy lifting, concentrated stuff we just spent so many weeks on. This is a little bit more flowing, which is nice. Creating an environment with this guiding view. There are many things we can do to create a good holding environment. The dying person can help by planning this environment in advance and leaving instructions in the Dharma box. So this is what we'll get to later, the incredible importance of Dharma whales, advanced directives and getting Dharma friends, executors, so to speak, agents to so to speak, enforced to supply this for you. In addition to the farewell checklist, independence in appendix one, here are some suggestions. Set up a shrine in the room. Put up photographs of their teachers. Burn incense, play recordings of their favorite talks of chance, play uplifting music. Yeah, there's this whole branch. It's been around for a while now. Music thanatology, pretty cool. And I think Chelsea, right, you do this cool thing with the choir, right? The singing thing, maybe you can say something about that during the Q and A. I mean, just fantastic. The power of sound. Music, beautiful lamp. I Dream A Rinpoche. I remember this. I interviewed him in Kathmandu, and he told, this is where he shared this, that it's important to have a statue of Guru Rinpoche in the room. So this, again, obviously, is if you're a student of this, and it speaks to you. So this comes for, you know, for those who are connected to tantric Buddhism, bring flowers, beautiful art, whatever the dying person feels will enrich or uplift that space. This is, this is where, you know, it gets challenging, like when you're in a hospital situation, the TV's blaring and you've got, you know, you're sharing a room. This is where you have to really be skillful and use your smarts, also with caretakers, to do whatever you can, you know, to create this environment. Sometimes it's, it's, it's not all that simple, especially in a hospital setting, create a space that elevates the mind of the dying person or anyone who walks into the room. People often want to come by and lend support or say goodbye while this is a wonderful offering, caretaker should be sensitive to how this can drain the dying person. Dying means that the life force is being exhausted, which implies the energy is low. You notice this, right? Sleeping, sleeping more and more and more. So really it's interesting. It's like the complete inverse right of what happens when you come into this world, right? You're mostly sleeping, you're mostly in Delta, and then theta when you're coming into the world, same thing happens when you're coming out, spending more time in theta, spending more time in Delta, kind of just reversing the whole strategy. The need for sleep increases. Don't be shy to tell people that visits may not be possible while the dying person, when the dying person stops communicating or is slipping in and out of consciousness, it could be time to curb or end the visitation altogether. So this, again, is advanced directives. You want to have this as clearly as you can. Some people do want people connections and people coming through to the very last minute. Others want to kind of close door so to speak in advance of that. And so the more articulate and specific you can be in advance, with your directives, with your agents that can so to speak and force it, the better limit the space to carry caretakers and loved ones, you know. And this gets a little tricky. So in the Tibetan tradition, you know, they talk about, you don't want to have somebody in there who's like wailing and grasping and all that and and obviously there's you can see why that might not be the best thing in terms of what we were talking about earlier, that if someone is really graspy from their side, you know, it sure is not going to help them when they're transitioning. So these are the sorts of things that sometimes enforced. I wouldn't say enforced, that's a little heavy word. But when you're doing your advanced directives, and if you can meet with intimate family members who are not part of your circle of Dharma friends and spiritual space holders, these types of conversations in advance, even though they're never easy, can also be really helpful. So just just tell them, this is, this is the way I want to transition. Could you please respect my space? Could you please respect this type of environment, the preparation in advance, I mean, my training in dental school, we always talked about this maxim, you know, pave your way with words. Pave your way with words, or in this case, written words. They may be dealing with perplexing experiences as the outer world disappears and the inner world takes over. For sure, now is the time to let them go into that inner world. Tugging them out, may confuse them, so honor their silence with your own. To let them rest in peace, we have to let them go in peace, sometimes easier said than done. When death is imminent, overly emotional people should settle themselves or leave strong emotions while understandable, can disturb the dying person and adversely affect their transition because of the law of proximate karma, the last thing on a person's mind before death often becomes the first thing on their mind after death. Same thing that happens every night when you fall asleep. This is where the again, the basic principles of dream incubation and some of the nocturnal meditations apply Absolutely. It's the same thing's going on, same phenomenology. The wailing and weeping of loved ones can make the dying person grasp onto life and prolong unnecessary suffering. This is the over and over and over again. You know, death is not a defeat. I mean, the West doesn't abide by those principles. Remember twin bees. Comment, death is un American,

right? Jack LaLanne, my favorite, I can't die. Remember him, the fitness guru, I can't die. It would wreck my image. That's a really good one, actually, right? And the West, death is a defeat. It's just a defeat, super materialism and physicalism and all things, you know, form wise, it's related to properly, remember Eckhart tolle's quote, it's a victory. It's a release, liberation, but only with a proper relationship. Otherwise. You know, rage, rage against the dying of the light. Don't do that. How would you feel if you knew you had to go but your loved ones were holding on to you and begging you to stay? I Sticky, sticky. Don't do that openness. I mean, again, there's understanding these basic fundamental parameters will basically. They will inform everything. This is this kind of trickle down. Remember Reagan trickle down economics. This is trickle down spirituality. So if you have these, these fundamental principles in mind, everything else kind of falls suit. You know, this notion of holding environments is incredibly important, but even underneath, even deeper than that, is this notion of openness. Openness, openness. I mean, death is the grand opening. That's what's happening you come into this life. It's the grand closure you're slamming into form. Death is the reverse of that opening, opening. What is meditation, habituation to openness? What is death, the return to emptiness? What's the synonym for emptiness, openness? So really, this underlying narrative, I would say, of the whole not just death, but the whole meditation business is what Rumi right, opening into wider, wider rings of being. So if you understand that's what's happening, they're just opening, opening, opening, releasing, releasing, you know, so then the grasping and the contraction and bringing them back. I mean, that's completely antithetical to what's actually taking place nature at this point is forcing you to let go, do what nature is inviting and then eventually commanding. This grasping mentality favors rebirth as a hungry ghost. So this is you from your side, right? So if you're really sticky grasping and not letting go, it's just the basic principles that kind of grasping quality is kind of a characteristic of this hungry ghost mentality. You know, sticky, super sticky mind. More helpful is to try to lift the dying person into a higher states of mind and send them on their way. It's not going to happen. It's rare that this happens without some level of preparation, and whether that preparation is informal. I mean, if a person just lives in this kind of non stick fashion, you know better, you don't have to be a practitioner, for goodness sakes, but for a lot of people, I mean, it doesn't work that way. So the qualities of understanding of what's actually happening here. Releasing, releasing, opening, opening, opening, okay, looking forward. And then we can have some Q, A, if the dying person is receptive, remind them. Essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. This is the other thing that's happening when you're you know this process of remember, of Plato's and amnesias, the process of recollection. In certain ways, you're opening you're remembering who you really are. So this that's another fundamental kind of deeper spiritual narrative. Remembrance. Remind them that their nature is completely pure and good, and they are about to experience that purity and goodness. Tell them that their innate brilliance and perfection are about to shine forth. This gives them something beautiful to look forward to. For a strong practitioner death and rebirth, are they going to sleep and waking up to a new day, go to sleep satisfied with your life and realize you have something to look forward to tomorrow. It doesn't stop, right? Just keeps going. Mine just keeps playing out from one dream to the next. One of the best things we can therefore do to benefit the dying person is to help them look forward. Sonia Rinpoche said this, yeah, I remember. I interviewed him with this is great. Tell them that the relative is dying, the ultimate is not dying, right? Who you really are is it's indestructible. Doesn't die because it was never born. Remember David Loyce, wonderful summary Maxim, such as the Buddh goal to discover that which cannot die because it was never born. That's who you really are. The ultimate is not dying. The ultimate cannot die. Give them hope that they can recognize the ultimate, the nature of their mind, a mind that is unchanging and Undying. You have to give a little promotion on the deathless side. That's a great line from him. Give a little promotion on the deathless side. So this is why, this is the heavy lifting, right? This is why you go through all this stuff now. This is why you study this stuff. It makes sense to you. You do the practices. You understand. It's like, oh my gosh. This makes so much sense. That's all that death is. It's only a mystery if you don't know, right? Yeah. So here we go. This is why it's so important to understand what happens after death. So much suffering occurs because everyone is looking back, right? We go into the Bardos looking through the rear view mirror, yikes. I mean, that's okay for a while. Reminiscing and whatnot is a form of honoring and respecting. I mean, that's okay, but not if you become pathologically retrospective, while it's healthy up to a point to reminisce over life well lived and to celebrate one's accomplishment, it's more important to let go of that life and look forward death forces the issue and demands release. The sooner we get this lesson, the easier the journey will be. So again, remember, this is the painful Bardo dying. Why is it painful? Because it hurts to let go. You let go in advance. The painful Bardo dying just simply turns into the Bardo dying. There's no more pain. The transition still takes place, but it's no longer painful because you're no longer grasping. It's that actual very grasping. Again, this is so central, is that this is another meta narrative. Grasping is applied contraction, all born of ignorance. That's what's going to journey you through the Bardos and then involuntary back into another form, into another body. So this grasping thing, this is the this is the fundamental narrative, all of samsara, rebirth into samsara, moment to moment to moment. It's about contraction, grasping, distracting. This is an archetype of the whole show. If we remain anchored in the past even during life, we will suffer unnecessarily. Depression is nearly synonymous with having nothing to look forward to, and a great deal of psychopathology is born from our inability to let go, right? So there's, if you haven't heard this song, this is so great. So T bone Burnett, so Cindy, my wife, is doing this really cool film project she's creating. Actually, it's going to be, it was originally going to be a documentary. Now it's going to be a 10 part series, maybe for Amazon Prime or Netflix. It's really cool. So she's filming with, you know, T bone Burnett is, I didn't know he's the guy that did, oh brother, wear out thou, Academy Award winner, producer, director, really, actually, really cool guy. So he just cut an album, like, four months ago, and there's a song in there. If I could pull up the track, maybe Alyssa, remind me see the essence of spiritual practices remembrance, and this is why I empower all these people, because I forget. I'll see if I can get a clip of this song. It's such a great song, but here's, here's the verse this. This is such a dharmic verse you're gonna get over it someday. You might as well get over it now. I mean, what a great line, right? So he's a country western. He's more a producer and director than he filmmaker than He is a singer, but he also does his album, and this is such a great line, right? We should all sing it together. I wish we could unmute, right? You're gonna get over it someday. Yamada as well. Get over it. Now, it's just like, that's like, genius. What a great song, right? That's like, pure Dharma applies totally to the transitions of a bar door, right? Get over it. Man, beautiful. I'll see if I can pull it up for next time. It's a great song. I on.

If we do, if you, if we view death as a total annihilation with nothing whatsoever to look forward to, we may suffer in direct proportion to the strength of that view, which is actually no view at all. That's depressing. Death is transformed when we replace that dark view with one based on light. This is why the greatest practitioners, like consonant I remember the song of seven delights, look forward to death with sheer delight. The greatest opportunity for awakening enlightenment is about to unfold. If that doesn't excite you as a spiritual practitioner, nothing will. So if you haven't read this book, this is great. This book came out 3040, years ago. It's called graceful exits. How great beings die. It's a short book. It's been out forever. It is totally worth reading. Basically a chronicle, not a chronicle, but just excerpts from great wisdom beings from a ton of different traditions, and how they actually transitioned. How great a graceful exit. How great, how great beings die. Something like that is the subtitle, highly recommended. Okay, two paragraphs. So if the dying person is open to it, remind him or her this view, but pointing out that the greatest practitioners look forward to death. It's never too late to be inspired. So again, says, quote, even if we have accumulated a lot of negative karma, if we are able to make a real change of heart at the moment of death. It can decisively influence our future and transform our karma. For the moment of death is an exceptionally powerful opportunity to purify karma. End quote, so this is, actually, this is a semi big deal, right? Everything is like, it's like, it's so interesting. It's a little bit like, like psychedelics or dark retreat. Actually, these are all non specific amplifiers. Docker treats a non specific amplifier whatever state of mind you bring into you in the dark, boom. There it is, heightened, psychedelic, same thing, death, same thing. It's a non specific amplifier. So if you come in with the proper set and setting, in this case, your mindset setting is the holding environment. So this is why, this is why this this program with with Anthony nebassimella, is going to be so cool because he's going to be talking about set and setting and classic psychedelic journeys. Bob and I are going to be talking to the about how this applies to dark retreat, and also the ultimate dark retreat, which is the Bardos. So these psychedelic principles of set and setting, oh my god, they totally apply Absolutely it's another meta narrative that's involved with the whole Bardo journey. So many similarities remind the departing, the departing one that they are about to merge their mind with the wisdom mind of their master, and that the compassion the builders are waiting to lead them to a pure land remind them that the truest aspect of their being, the very subtle inner body, does not die. Replace fear with hope, alright, anxiety with anticipation. People often grow great deal when they are faced with their own mortality. Never underestimate someone's capacity for progress. Many hospice workers and spiritual caretakers say that the changes are sometimes phenomenal. With a proper view, it's easy to become inspired about death, not in a suicidal way, but in realizing the incredible opportunity that lies ahead the end of life is a culmination of life. It's crowning moment. So elevate your view and look forward to the coronation. Yeah. I mean, easier said than done, right? I mean, because we live in it, in a in a culture where we've been conditioned aging, you know, right? Ageism is a totally real deal transition when we when everything is crumbling and falling apart. There aren't too many people that look forward to that. So I love, I love this whole movement of replacing aging with saging. I think that's spot on. Instead of waking up, waking down, waking down, into the wisdom of the body, into what's actually happening, it then becomes a journey. So there was one question that came in, I don't have my computer. Can you read it? Alyssa, can you read it to me, dear? Or otherwise?

Of course, let me real quick. And

then Chelsea, if you want to say something about the the sacred songs, the the choir that you're in, we talk about it in our podcast that we did with PDP. But if you want to say something about that, you're more than welcome. But go ahead and fire off that question. Off that question. Alyssa, okay, here it goes,

sir, exactly. How does one balance generating the strongest intent possible while maintaining openness ease and a relaxed attitude? How does one maintain these inner Would you let me keep going

until you get to the toothpaste question so you can stop before you get to that. Yeah, okay.

How does one maintain these inner dialog and feelings used to generate the strongest possible intent without it creating tension? Yeah,

it doesn't have to create tension, because you're working with two different qualities of mind. So you're working with, you know, the fundamental environment is this environment of openness. And so when you're setting an intentionality or directing the mind in a certain way, then that openness is being focused and it's being guided. It's just basically directing the mind, you know, through intentionality and volition and that sort of thing. And so at first they it's really well for the deeper divers. This is the same thing that takes place when you first separated out generation from completion stage practices. But that's a different sidebar. Sorry. The idea here is that first, you may, you may see them as somewhat, I wouldn't say, necessarily, in opposition to each other, but somewhat seemingly irreconcilable. That you know, one level there's this openness. On another level, you're creating this intentional, led directedness that can create a kind of tension, but no, not at all. I mean, the minds is being applied in these two different ways, in these two different facets. Eventually openness can actually infuse the so called focus and intentionality, so they can seem eventually kind of separate, disparate. But then eventually you can maintain that quality of spaciousness and openness even within the context. So at this point, if it's you know more it's better for you. You can alternate between the two. You can alternate with this quality of openness. And then there's, there's no inherent tension in it. The mind is simply taking form. The mind is simply being birthed into this particular quality state of mind, and then you can focus on that, and then return to the openness, so they don't have to be in conflict at all. So that, hopefully that settles it. But that's what comes to mind. And then the second question was, this is kind of hysterical. This is a toe lol. When I read this, the

next one says, What toothpaste do you use? That's great. The active ingredients and toothpaste people should look for and what should be avoided?

Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, when I read this, I said, this is just great. I mean, this guy's yanking my chain, or he has a really great sense of humor. So, yeah. So, okay, so here's my plug, right? So you know you want to get one like, has, like, aluminum, height, hydroxide in it, calcium carbonate, hydroxyl, appetite, fluoride. I don't hate to say it, fluoride is incredibly effective. 14, like 1450 parts per million. I always recommend fluoridated toothpaste. Hey, super important, usually in the sodium fluoride kind of form. But outside of that, you know, when we do all our work in Asia, we don't hand out toothpaste. I mean, we just, the most important thing is mechanical agreement, right? Get in there with a brush and just work it. So this is why so many tooth I mean, look, if you look at the variety of ingredients and toothpaste, it's like ridiculous. And a ton of them don't have fluoride, yeah. I mean, if that floats your belt, that's fine, because, again, mechanical debridement is the most important part. But to me, both endogenous and exogenous fluoride. I know some people are going to go, you know, the anti fluoride people, sorry, the data's in. The science is there. It's extraordinarily effective. And I can tell you, in decades of clinical practice, at least before I retired, the difference between fluoridated communities and non fluoridated communities was colossal. So I know it's a slightly maybe fractious, contentious thing, but you asked my opinion, that's what I think, outside of that, just get the damn brush in there. Man who cares, you know? I mean, you can put anything on there. Just get the brush in there and let it do its thing. So from the sublime to the ridiculous, I love the juxtaposition of questions here, really, I read this and I just cracked up. I said, Is this for real? Like, what toothpaste do you use? I love it completely. It was a dream sign. I actually jumped off my chair when I read it, because it was so such a juxtaposition. And so in Congress, I said, is my dreaming? Is this weird? So anyway, thank you for lighting up my day with the juxtaposition. It's kind of cool. So Chelsea, do you want to say something? You want to say something about your work in the choir?

Yeah, I'd love to. That was a great question.

Toothbrush.

So what I do is I sing in a threshold choir, which I can put the website in the chat here, because it's all around the United States. You might be able to join one where you live as well. And what it is is we go into hospices, spaces where people are dying, and we use music and singing as a form of healing, so it can support people with their fear around death, it can support people feeling more joyous, and lots of other things. The songs are actually spiritual. They're not religious. And so I highly recommend you go on the website and check it out, and maybe listen to a few songs and see if it's something you'd be interested in doing. It's a great opportunity to be with dying people and support them in their process.

Yeah, it's very cool. Thank you. Thank you for offering and also for your work in that area. That's beautiful. Okay, question came into me from last session. Didn't some practitioners stay in took down in Colorado last 20 years. Yeah, for sure. So we talked a little bit about this two, I think, two sessions ago. This post, post death, meditative absorption thing, you know, the took down again. It can last anywhere from from minutes to hours to days. And there are a fair number of people. I don't want to name names, because I think that's somewhat inappropriate, but there are definitely practitioners that, that I know, that have transitioned, that show all the signs of took down this post death meditative absorption thing. This is actually quite inspiring to me, because we might think that this is out of our pay grade and this is just for the elite, enlightened masters. No, not at all. Not at all. I mean, we share the same with the same basic mind and heart as the great masters do. And this is a great the fruitional quality of doing this type of work. Because, again, everything's exaggerated, depending on the Tantra, seven to nine times it's it's an archetypal number. I wouldn't do not, I wouldn't necessarily take it mathematically accurate. But the bottom line is, everything's exaggerated, and so if you have you know the child luminosity, you have some level of nascent recognition of the nature of mind that is vastly expanded and magnified at the moment of death, so that, using that image, the child can grow up very quickly. The level of recognition doesn't have to be rock solid. You know, the stability, of course, is helpful, but it's, these are meditation days, right? And so everything is amplified, and that's why, that's why it's worth the lifting. That's why it's worth this effort. Because this is, this is your real IRA. This is your immortality retirement account. This is where you really want to invest your portfolio, because, like every other conventional market that's going to crash this market will not crash this market. You know, this is the cash and the dividends come in when you're actually dying, right? Hey, Gail, unmute yourself, dear.

Yes, that was my question, and so did some of the people I'd heard about this. You know, in the last 20 years, did some of the people stay in meditation, or US posture, or did was, were most people like culturally, we, we lie down, but lying down? Yeah, yeah, not too many set up.

Yeah, correct, correct. So, you know, you'll notice this if you watch the took down film, yeah, it's a, it's a cool film between worlds. Or, believe it or not, if you Google it, there's a two part documentary made in, I think, film mostly in Australia. Most practitioners from Asia, when they die, they actually die sitting up. But you can have took them in any posture. It doesn't really matter. So in the West, we generally don't die sitting up. We die like down, but still the same art, the same other metrics are there, you know, the warmth in the heart area, the kind of plasticity of the of the skin, all the things that are mentioned in that film. And then mostly they just don't look dead. I mean, basically it's it. They just look like they're sleeping. And so then the prana, the mind, is still in the heart center. They're definitely still there. And then, you know, for reasons that maybe a little bit more than we want to get into here, I mean, they're resting, they're basically completing their completion stage practices. They're stabilizing the recognition of the boomies. And so that's why, you know, we don't have exactly the most sophisticated exit poll strategies here, but this is really good news for practitioners. You know, it doesn't take a lot of recognition for that recognition to come to fruition.

Yes, here

in the West, yeah, we could use a recliner where you go, because you remember, both of us did the three year retreat, and remember they told us, you know, sit sit up. It helps your witness to be sitting up better than lying down. Remember that? Oh, absolutely, yeah. So I have a recliner. I could, use that. Are we? That's

actually not a bad idea. Yeah,

so

Gail and I, she you were in Group C, I was in Group D, so she was in the group just before me. Gail's a physician, and I remember you came in, you were in the area. You gave us a talk about diabetes. I remember,

didn't you have a diabetic in your group? Yeah, that wasn't well controlled? Yes, yes.

So Gail's a dear, dear old friend, and we're both very dear students of Kempo Rinpoche. Kenpotra Rinpoche, so she's about your sister, and always so great to see you. I'm always so honored when you're here. Means a lot to me. Cool. So any other questions, comments offerings doesn't have to be a question. Can also be an offering. Otherwise, I'm going to have to sing the T bone song yet again. Just kidding, I won't torture you. Alright, I'm going to go through this make sure I didn't miss anything. Otherwise, we're

almost come in either Oh, this is great. So,

yeah, so I'm in a sleep lag next week as I'm going into Ken paler's lab. He's a sleep scientist, specialist in in memory studies. So I'll be in his lab next week as a guinea pig doing some stuff with him. He's the dear friend. But otherwise, we're actually not scheduled for this for two weeks. Anyway. I think I'm around in two weeks, I'll be back outside of that all the other activities that are happening around nightclub. You know what's happening? Chelsea knows. I mean, sorry, Chelsea and Alyssa know more than I do in terms of all the things that are cooking. So things are developing along that front. Otherwise, I'll be back hopefully. This is amazing how many Thursdays in a row I've had to, like, either miss or reschedule. It's like crazy. It's like five, six crazy. So as far as I know, two Thursdays from tomorrow, unless some, you know, Obama wants to have dinner with me or something, you know, then I might have to run away. But until then, remember, always remember right, right, dedication to merit. We're not doing this for ourselves. If we're not doing this for the benefit of others, it's irrelevant. Right? Only way, not the only way, but one of the best ways to accelerate your path is to do it for others. Do it for others. So to whatever extent, dedication to merit means something to you, send out the goodness of whatever we've done here for the benefit of all sentient beings. Otherwise pleasant dreams, lucid dreams, and I'll see you in this dream we call Planet Earth in cyberspace in a couple weeks. Bye, everybody. Nice to see you all. Touch out you.