Clear Light of Death, page 1

IN THE FINAL CHAPTER of “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,” Sogyal Rinpoche states his heartfelt reason for writing the book: "I want every human being not to be afraid of death, or of life; I want every human being to die at peace, and surrounded by the wisest, clearest, and most tender care, and to find the ultimate happiness that can only come from an understanding of the nature of mind and of reality."

A beautiful wish.

I want this, too, for every human being. But in recent years, I particularly wanted this for my father.

I had heard Sogyal Rinpoche speak at a conference in 1991, and I bought his book when it came out the following year. It seemed easy to read, but dense. I put it down for long periods. I reread parts of it. There was much wise and valuable material in the book, but I failed to digest it as a whole. I fervently wanted to use the book as a guide during my parents' dying. But although I remembered some general suggestions about atmosphere and tone, it didn't prove to be a step-by-step "How-To" manual for me. Or so I thought.

THE ONE PRACTICE I BEGAN soon after reading about it was tonglen. Tonglen means "giving and receiving," and uses the medium of the breath to "take on the suffering and pain of others and give them your happiness, well being, and peace of mind." Sogyal Rinpoche instructs us to see another person's suffering as a "mass of hot, black, grimy smoke." Breathe this into our own heart area and imagine it dissolving. Breathe out beautiful clear light into the person.

At the same time that you are gathering the person's black smoke and breathing it in, you are "destroying your self-grasping and self cherishing, and purifying all your negative karma." All of this is preceded by working on compassion and opening your heart. The visualization, at least, came easily to me because of the shamanic journeying I had learned to do, and because of my experience as a visual artist.

As I look back on the last few years, I realize that practicing tonglen for my father was the only way I found I could be helpful at this stage of his life other than making sure his physical comfort was taken care of. And it was helpful to me. I loved him, and sometimes during my practice I would be swept up in overwhelming feelings of compassion for his situation and desire for his well-being. Sometimes I would feel my chest and breath get huge. After a while the "giving and receiving" became a powerfully flowing circuit.

By the end of 1993, I was caught up in day-to-day practical matters which grew more numerous and pressing as my parents began to decline. I sought to be "ready for anything," a mode of being I had read about a decade earlier in Chogyam Trungpa's “Shambhala: the Way of the Warrior.” This book had had a big influence on me; I had painted ten large pieces based on Trungpa's ideas of living with courage and heart, and of pushing through one's fears into the unknown.

Never knowing what was going to happen with my parents the next year, month, or day challenged me to be "ready for anything." At least I felt at peace about death itself as a part of life, a transition to another realm of being. But I feared watching my parents declining and in pain, feared being inadequate to the job of helping during their dying. Thank goodness my sisters and I were working through these challenges together.

Mother died first, in November of 1997. She gently and even sweetly declined. She quit breathing about 18 months after moving to the "healthcare unit" of their retirement community. She was well cared for by the staff, plus a devoted nursing assistant we hired privately.

My father visited her daily, and we visited as often as possible. Her little strokes gradually reduced her ability to respond or to express herself. When she quit eating and drinking, we all came together and spent the last six days with her, reading poems, singing, talking quietly, or just being close to her. She was in little discomfort, she was not distracted by tubes or other medical technology, and the atmosphere in her room was gentle and quiet and respectful.

I felt she was spiritually prepared to go, had made the decision when she quit eating, and simply needed a few days of peace in which to concentrate on it. Her passing was very peaceful, in the arms of her dear nursing assistant. I felt that she chose the time, shortly before we would have arrived for the day, so as to avoid her daughters' presence; our presence may have kept up an "attachment" holding her to this earth.

I KNEW MY FATHER would follow a different path. He was full of agitation and secrets, frustration and fear. Although he was now far from independent, he still lived in the "independent living" apartment in another wing and took lunch and supper in the community dining room.

We hired certified nursing assistants, or CNAs, to help him. We were determined to keep him in his apartment as long as possible, knowing that he would have even greater exasperation in the "healthcare" wing.

At length he was no longer able to eat in the dining room. His mobility lessened, but, using his great willpower, he was still walking until five days before his death. We managed to deal with the many details of his physical safety and comfort as each new problem presented itself. Although we constantly fretted about it, we were far less useful in giving him peace of mind. Of course no one can "give" another peace of mind, but we wanted to.

Even before Mother died I had been concerned about what I could do to help my father as his abilities declined. I did a shamanic journey on that question, and the images helped me to accept his decline and---on the practical side---encouraged me to get more involved in his care.

I "saw" a magnificent tiger, an "unknowable" animal, in a field of tall grass. I followed him into a bank of thick fog. Everything was quite dim; we were unable to see where we were going. We came to a hillside into which had been cut a room with four walls but no roof. He went into the room and felt safer, more contained, although everything was still dim and unknown. He settled into the room.

This experience confirmed my intuition that we needed to provide more care, and soon after that we hired CNAs for all three shifts, telling Dad we were doing this so that we would know he was safe and cared for. I welcomed the image of that powerful and beautiful tiger voluntarily and bravely walking into the fog, ready for whatever happened, and prayed that on some level Dad was doing this, too.