Summarised from an article in The Quest (Autumn '95; Quest is the magazine of the Theosophical Society of America), monitored for the Natural Death Centre by Kevin Core. Joan Halifax has written a new book called Being with Dying and is the founder of Upaya, a Buddhist Centre in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she works with dying people.
Each week I sit with a group of people, some of whom are dying, some of whom are care givers. I have worked with dying people for 25 years. I sit and listen.
In this work, I am defined in various ways: as a Buddhist priest doing pastoral work, as a medical anthropologist, as a care giver, as a friend. I prefer the last because I do not want to be distanced by roles and titles. I am simply a person in the community who brings a certain quality of mindfulness and compassion to those who are suffering.
From one point of view, there is nothing special about what I do. I do what any care giver does, what any friend or relative might do, for one who is suffering or dying. These activities range from sitting in ease and silence for long periods with a dying person, to giving a sponge bath or foot rub to alleviate discomfort, to entering the questions around dying that many people are fearful of asking or exploring. People want a peaceful death, a gentle death. We all want to die well.
We in the West need to articulate a psychological and philosophical foundation, a point of view, and a practice for working with the dying process.
Dying is a completely natural event. But there are things we can do, ways we can be that help the true nature of dying come forth. These 'ways of being' are expressed in terms such as compassion, tolerance, ease, kindness, humour, warmth, wisdom, authenticity, mindfulness, stability, openness, concentration. These are qualities of a psychologically and spiritually mature person. How are these qualities fostered in our culture? What can we do to open these sensibilities within our communities, so family members and friends can have the internal means to work with suffering in a compassionate and skilful manner?
Dying well is not only for ourselves, but also those who survive us.
Death is not an individual act. The dying person is a performer in a drama that will be observed by others and participated in by others. Like the last will and testament we leave upon our deaths to materially benefit those who survive us, we also leave a legacy of how we have experienced our own death.
We need to develop and support programmes for care givers, dying people and professionals that are based in a contemplative perspective and that offer spiritual care.
Training in contemplative approaches and practices is important at the professional level, where dying and death are encountered on a daily basis, and where the pressure of work and 'patient load' is great. It should be a core element of the medical curriculum.
We need to identify already existing groups and institutions that are doing this type of contemplative work and infuse them with support to deepen and expand their efforts. This would include Christian and Jewish groups and congregations, elder community volunteers, hospice groups, and so on. Grassroots work can be very effective because this is not only where dying is happening, this is where low cost, effective support can be given.
Training in contemplative work with the dying needs to be developed. An inter-cultural and inter-religious group should be formed to accept the challenge to create culturally relevant, flexible, and effective training and care giving programmes in spiritual care for the dying that are appropriate for different cultural contexts.
- Just as there is sex education in the school system, there should be
education in the awareness of death and dying, which should cover not only
the physiology of dying, but also its cultural, spiritual, and psychological
dimensions. There should be a curriculum to train young people and adults
in the awareness of death.
- Programmes in community building around the issue of death and dying should
be created. Such programmes can deepen relationships in the community, and
can deepen inquiry, making genuine and effective support more available.
It can alleviate care giving families, who are under great stress and pressure,
take some of the work load off the professional community, and put dying
where it most often should be - in the home and community with loved ones.
- Model projects using a contemplative and spiritual basis should be
created, supported, and evaluated as to their effectiveness in helping dying
persons and their families, care givers and physicians.
- There should be a computer network for dying people and care givers where
information and support can be given.
- Small group meetings should be supported for the exchange of ideas among
care giving and physician groups. Dying people should be included in such
meetings.
- It is important to support the development of pharmaceuticals to manage
pain that do not diminish mental acuity. It is also important to explore
contemplative techniques for dealing with severe pain.
- There should be a wide range of audio, video, and CD programs for care
givers and dying people on aspects of dying process, including contemplative
work with the dying.
Editorial note: In the UK, the Befriending Network attempts to build community networks to support those who are dying - and is in need of volunteer visitors. The Befriending Network is at Claremont, 24-27 White Lion Street, Islington, London N1 9PD, UK (tel 020 7689 2443; e-mail: info@befriending.net; web: www.befriending.net).
Timothy Leary, the 60s champion of LSD, died on May 31st '96. The following is summarised from a conversation between Tim Leary and Laura Mansnerus, entitled 'At death's door, the message is tune in, turn on, drop in', in the New York Times (Nov 26th '95) monitored for the Institute by Roger Knights.
Dying, for Timothy Leary, is the experience of a lifetime. "It's called designer dying," he explained. "It's a hip, chic, vogue thing to do. It's the most elegant thing you can do."
He learned in January '96 that he had an inoperable prostrate cancer, whereupon he called his old Harvard colleague Ram Dass, among others, to share "the wonderful news" and began the "directed dying" that he had been writing about for 20 years.
"I'm looking forward to the most fascinating experience in life, which is dying," he said. "You've got to approach your dying the way you live your life - with curiosity, with hope, with fascination, with courage and with the help of your friends."
In his latest book, Chaos and Cyber Culture Ronin Publishing, 1994), Leary wrote: "Let us have no more pious, wimpy talk about death. The time has come to talk cheerfully and joke sassily about personal responsibility for managing the dying process." And he wrote about "creative alternatives to going belly-up clutching the company logo of the Christian Cross."
Leary is setting up his own event at home, in his bed, with particular attention to that sliver of time between life and death, or near-death and death.
"When you heart stops beating, there's a period of 3 to 15 minutes while your brain is still alive," he said. "It's that period that's never really been explored ... I can't wait for the moment when I'll have the experience of being in my brain without my body being around," he said. "I'm working on ways of sending signals, my eyebrows moving, that sort of thing."
When dying, he advises, "do not be alone. Dying is a team sport. It may be a farce, but people will learn from my experience of dying."
He continues to deride authorities of all kings. "I would say to everybody, do not let the priests and popes and medics tell you what to do."
Joan Halifax (see previous article) writes of the needs for pharmaceuticals for those who are dying that do not reduce mental acuity. The following is a list of Timothy Leary's daily intake of drugs during the week of April 14th to April 21st '96 - seven weeks before he died. This list appeared in the LA Weekly (May 17th '96) monitored for the Natural Death Centre by Greg Wright.
During the week, he smoked 50 cigarettes, and consumed two Dilaulid, two lines of coke, 45 cc of ketamine, an unspecified amount of DMT, a phentynol patch, 12 balloons of nitrous oxide, and two Leary Biscuits - made by adding a lump of butter or cheese to a Ritz cracker, topping it with a fresh marijuana bud, and heating it until the cheese or butter melts and the THC comes alive.
Dr Timothy Leary's final book, Design for Dying, was published by Harper Edge, an imprint of Harper San Francisco, in 1997 (ISBN 0 06 092866-2).
This webpage forms part of the Global Ideas Bank (www.globalideasbank.org).
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