Making peace with death

A guest article by Jan J.

When I first walked into the Kadampa Meditation Centre in Brighton, it would be fair to describe me as broken. Due to recurring traumatic events and heartbreaking disappointments, I had become numb and emotionally withdrawn. Looking back, I can see I was existing in something similar to the animal realm, functioning merely to meet my responsibilities as a single mother. I had to keep working, keep cleaning, keep breathing, simply so that my daughters had a safe home, food on the table, and an education. I had no aspirations for myself, only that I could somehow protect my daughters from as much pain as possible, so that they would have a happier life than mine.

I don’t believe that any of us start on this spiritual path for random reasons. When I go to our Buddhist festivals, I often ask people what brought them onto the path. It’s still extremely unusual to practice Buddhism in the West. It’s even more unusual to choose a Mahayana path, with a wish to guide all sentient beings to enlightenment. I understand that it’s the karmic imprints from actions in previous lives that have created the cause for us to meet Dharma in this life; but, even so, I find it fascinating to hear the stories of how that karmic cause manifests for each of us.

Hook-A-Duck

It all reminds me of the fairground game of Hook-A-Duck. Like those rubber ducks, we all have our own hoops – our needs and wishes – that Buddhas can use to hook us out of samsara onto the path to liberation. My hoop was the overwhelming urge to help my daughters. And the hook was a teaching given by a nun, also a mother, who talked about her intention to help her daughter reduce, or completely eradicate, her fear of death.

This nun described taking her daughter to the bedside of a terminally ill Dharma practitioner to show her that it’s possible to accept death with a peaceful, or even happy, mind. She also talked about how she was training her own mind following Buddha’s instructions so that she could eventually show her daughter her own example of dying peacefully.

And just like that I was hooked onto a spiritual path, with an aspiration beyond just helping my family to survive in a material world.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt

I was stunned by the wisdom and compassion of this mother’s teaching. In all the many ways I had hoped to help my children, it had never occurred to me that I could give them such a hugely meaningful gift. Most people spend their lives trying to control events and environments to protect themselves from harm; preferring denial to facing the truth that death is unstoppable and can arrive at any time. Occasionally, someone else’s death or our own ill health forces us to acknowledge the towering tsunami-wave of death bearing down on us, and we are briefly overwhelmed with fear. Not knowing how to manage these emotions, it seems that we turn our back on reality and busily distract ourselves with work, relationships, food, Netflix, and social media. Like children on a beach, their backs to the sea, busily digging channels in the thick, yellow sand with brightly coloured cheap plastic spades, we steadfastly ignore the wave stealthily, steadily, sweeping down upon us and our activities.

Frederick Backman addresses many aspects of life and death in his beautiful book, ‘My Friends,’ including denial:

Everyone dies, every single person. But very few get to understand that they’re dying…. Because when it comes to death the living are pretty crazy.

I knew that if I wanted to lead by example, to help my daughters, I first had to identity and assuage my own fears regarding death. So after this class I bought Venerable Geshe-la’s book, How to Transform Your Life, and then started to attend as many classes as I could as a working, single Mum. It quickly became apparent that whilst the task was in principle simple, it would require enormous effort. As Steve Jobs said:  https://tharpa.com/us/how-to-transform-your-life-us

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions.

To find and uncover this precious mind of acceptance was like searching for a tiny pea under layers of denial, a towering stack of mattresses.

The ultimate goal

Despite the enormity of the task, when I heard the story of Buddha’s life it reinforced how important this work is. When faced with the reality of death, on his first journey outside the palace, Prince Siddhartha became determined to find a way to protect those he loved from its sufferings. This determination finally led to his enlightenment, thereby also becoming the cause of his students’ enlightenment.  Venerable Geshe-la explains why this is such an important attainment for us all in Living Peacefully, Dying Joyfully:

If we base our life on a realistic awareness of our mortality, we will regard our spiritual development as far more important than the attainments of this world, and we will view our time in this world principally as an opportunity to cultivate positive minds such as patience, love, compassion and wisdom. Motivated by these virtuous minds we will perform many positive actions, thereby creating the cause for future happiness. When the time of our death comes, we will be able to pass away without fear or regret, our mind empowered by the virtuous karma we have created … When death actually comes, we will feel like a child returning to the home of its parents, and pass away joyfully, without fear.

The elephant’s footprint 

At first it seemed that the most obvious place to start my journey was with the recommended meditation on death included in the Lamrim (stages of the path) cycle of meditations. Buddha referred to meditation on impermanence and death as the “elephant’s footprint” because it leaves the deepest imprint on our mind. The basic meditation instruction is to contemplate the truth that, ‘Today might be the day that I die.’ We do this meditation regularly to overcome our habitual thought, ‘I will not die today (or any time soon)”, clinging at this boulder of denial to stop ourself slipping into the icy-cold river of death’s reality.

To be honest, it took me many years to engage successfully with this meditation. The new thought ‘Today might be the day that I die’ triggered intense anxiety – a stream of painful feelings and questions flooding my mind: “Who would look after my children? How would they be supported financially? What would their lives be like without me?” So painful, in fact, that for many years I ignored this meditation in any Lamrim cycle.

However, I found I was able to contemplate the inevitability of death through the first of the Four Seals of Buddhism:

All produced phenomena are impermanent.

Initially, this was by observing the more obvious gross impermanence of the changing seasons, the life-cycles of plants and insects, and the visible signs of aging in everyone around me. Gross impermanence helped me to recognise, and then accept, the universality of the cycle of birth and death.

Impermanence of the self

Over time, with further study, it was the teachings on subtle impermanence that had the deepest effect. As our understanding of the transitory nature of our self or I grows, our permanent-grasping weakens, just as the winter sun can gently melt even the most hard-packed snow.

In reality we do not remain the same for one moment without changing, let alone for one life. Without the I of the previous moment ceasing, the I of the next moment could not arise. ~ How to Understand the Mind

It is these teachings that led me to ask the most profound question of all, ‘Who is it that will die?’ I contemplate this regularly, and the question impacts me in different ways at different times. Sometimes it provides a shock of reality, the sharp tap of a silver spoon fracturing the amber surface of a crème brûlée. At other times it’s a more gentle contemplation observing that my self is a continuum, a flow, just as we perceive a river though its sparkling water changes with each moment. These contemplations have led me to a deeper understanding of my true nature, my very subtle body and mind, which will never die.

Through understanding the nature and function of the mind correctly, we can understand that our mind is completely different from our body, and this proves that after our death although our body will cease the mind will not. The mind leaves the body and goes to the next life like a bird leaving one nest and moving to another. ~ How to Understand the Mind

The elephant’s footprint revisited

Decades after that initial teaching, my daughters are now adults and no longer physically or financially dependent on me. I also know that, although they would miss me greatly, they are not emotionally dependent on me as they now have their own partners and support networks. This knowledge allows me to successfully engage in a more robust Lamrim meditation on death, without undue anxiety, to reap its wonderful rewards.

What are these wonderful rewards? For me there are two definite types of reward – practical and emotional. Practically, meditating on death helps to remove some of our underlying confusion caused by the simple fact that our death is inevitable but the time of our death is uncertain. I have found that facing up to this uncertainty, rather than avoiding it, has enabled a more stoic and resilient approach to life. This approach allows me to make practical choices and set intentions that realistically reflect the impermanence of my life. I don’t go as far as the elderly woman who, when asked how she was keeping, replied, ‘Well, I’ve stopped buying green bananas.’ But I do face up to the fact that all the material goods I accumulate will one day just become a difficult ‘clearing out’ job for my family, so I limit my acquisitions. This means I spend less time acquiring the money needed to buy things that will eventually pile up in a skip. I have a virtual and paper folder labelled, ‘ITEOMD,’ (I’ll leave you to work that out) and a book from Amazon called, ‘I’m Dead, Now What?’ These contain all the practical information my loved ones need to sort out my rather unremarkable affairs. Importantly, these folders also contain letters, poems and quotes I would like my girls to read after my death. Why? So that I won’t be lying on my deathbed worrying that there are things I’ve left unsaid. I can die peacefully knowing I have said and done all that was needed.

Emotionally, this meditation has filled my bucket to overflowing with gratitude and appreciation. When you truly accept that your time is limited, and you simply can’t guarantee even one more day on this beautiful earth with those you love, you drink in every single drop of your precious time. At the time of my death I don’t want to be like the parched cowboy, in old Western films, who inevitably drops his water canteen while crossing the desert, and frantically scrabbles at the hot sand trying to claw back the already evaporating last drops of water. I want to die with the peaceful acceptance of knowing I have drunk my fill of life, and it was enough.

Already I have outlived several school friends, their deaths a milestone against which I count my bonus years. When my joints are aching, or I catch sight of my rapidly aging face, I like to remind myself that growing old is a blessing compared to the alternative. Now every year when the spring flowers blossom around me, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I don’t know how many more times I will see the colourful petals of my bulbs, triumphantly unfurling on my lawn, declaring another winter vanquished. And each time I see my daughters I remember their appearance is temporary, like a luminous, impermanent rainbow; the fragile beauty of these moments accentuated by the knowledge they will soon be gone.

Evaluation

Have I been successful in my goal to remove my daughters’ fear of death? I can say, with humility, probably not. Not even a mother has the power to control her children’s fears and dreams. I do know that I have helped to reduce their anxiety and fear through my calm and accepting example and open dialogue. I frequently pray that the Buddhas will bless me with a peaceful death. I will continue to work hard to make that possible, but I cannot control my karma. I do know that my daughters will not have to endure the pain of watching a father refusing to accept his immortality, still raging ‘at the dying of the light’ because of unsettled business deals. So full of frustration that he died without feeling our love in his heart. Nor will they have to endure the pain of watching a mother totally cocooned in her unacknowledged fear of death, waking each day just to live a life filled with anxiety about each cough, each ache, each hospital appointment. She could live for days, weeks, months, even years like this, and it is so painful for those who love her to powerlessly witness this suffering.

All is well

It turns out that this goal I set for my daughters’ benefit, all those years ago, was the greatest gift they could have given me. Emanations for me. It was because I started on this journey, to help them, that I met my Spiritual Guide and my life truly began.