'The Befriending Tradition' - an address to the AGM of the Befriending Network charity on March 29th 2000 by Richard Reoch, author of Dying Well (published by Gaia Books).
How old is the tradition of befriending the dying? Asking that question is like asking, "How old is death?"
When a person begins to die among the Tobriander people of Papua New Guinea, they have a word for what they do: 'Kopoi'. It means to nurse or to feed an infant. They use exactly the same word for the care of the dying.
In the depths of the Amazonian rainforest, when death comes to a member of the community, the family is joined by a Shaman who guides them through the final phases of the person's life. This process is a matter not only for the immediate family, but for the whole community.
It is often said that people in the industrialised world have lost touch with death. We have handed death over to the professionals and the funeral industry. But it was not always so.
Four or five generations ago, death was very different. The vast majority of people died at home. Care of the dying was an intimate family responsibility. It often involved entire communities. Death was no stranger. The encounter with it was frequent and inescapable.
"Now," says the historian Philippe Aries, "everything goes on in town as if no one died any more."
Yet death was accorded a special place in the earliest Christian tradition. In the Middle Ages, the Christian world had its own 'Book of the Dead', the Ars Mordiendi, the 'Art of Dying'.
In the 17th Century, the Chaplain to Charles I wrote one of most renowned books of death, The Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying, in which he wrote "it is a great art to die well". He said we should learn the art of dying while we are "in health".
Much of this heritage has been lost over time, but by no means all of it.
The monks of Cluny in 10th Century France developed the practice of 'sacred midwifery'. They used plainchant to 'unbind' the dying brothers, enabling them to move with grace through their own death.
Their detailed instructions have now been decoded and put into active use by the world-famous Chalice of Repose Project. Specially trained teams of musical befrienders play and chant the harmonies of Cluny to 'anoint with sound' the dying person.
The modern hospice movement also owes its inspiration to the medieval world. The original hospices were places of sanctuary where not only weary pilgrims could be refreshed, but where care was provided for the poor, the sick and the dying. This tradition renewed itself in the middle of the 20th century, thanks to the work of Cicely Saunders. It began as a radical departure from the medicalisation of people with life-threatening illnesses.
While hospices vary enormously from place to place, their original vision remains important to the befriending tradition. At a time when medical technology was often increasing the suffering of dying people and locking patients into a treadmill of standardised treatments, the hospice movement offered an alternative based on respect for the individual, an holistic approach to care, and the importance of providing each person with a vital web of human support.
So too the Natural Death movement. Partly a reaction against the predatory funeral industry, but also a response to the social taboo that has transformed so much of contemporary life into a death-denying society.
I love the manifesto of the Natural Death Centre and I often quote it: "To civilise death, to bring it home and make it no longer a source of dread, is one of the greatest challenges of our age. Gradually, dying may come to hold again the place it used to occupy in the midst of life; not a terror, but a mystery so deep that man would no more wish to cheat himself of it than to cheat himself of life."
To cross cultures again for a moment, the book of the dead that many people tend to think of nowadays is the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. Often misunderstood, it is, in fact, a befriending manual. It is used not only in monasteries by accomplished meditators, but in the homes of ordinary folk. As the elements of the body begin to dissolve, the text is read to the person before, during and after death so that its wisdom is a companion to them on this very remarkable voyage which we all take - the profound personal transformation we call dying.
Is there a common thread that could be said to bind these cultural expressions of befriending into a tradition? If so, it seems to be an understanding, an attitude. It is something more than a belief system, because the beliefs of individual befrienders vary. Nor does it require befrienders to have a fixed view on questions about an afterlife, a heaven or hell, rebirth or oblivion.
Nor does it seem to matter who the befriender is. It may be a villager, a family members, a shaman, a lama or any group of individuals who attend the dying. The befriender is not necessarily a spiritual dignitary.
But what the befriender does offer is spiritual dignity.
The befriender does not turn away from pain. The befriender does not abandon other people. The befriender seeks them out.
What the befriender brings at a profound level, whether consciously or not, is an intuitive understanding. An understanding that the process of dying is extraordinarily precious.
Whether it takes days, months or years, the befriender knows that the period of dying is precious for the person whose life is changing so fundamentally. It is precious for all those who love and care for them. Charged with great pain and intense emotion, it deserves - and rewards - profound respect.
If the befriending tradition were comprised merely of people who had no fear of death, that in itself would make it remarkable. But it goes far beyond that. Having no fear can lead people into the personal paralysis of being closed, cold and heroic.
The nobility of the befriender is very different. It is the willingness to wear no armour and to walk towards fear and uncertainty openly and tenderly. This inner maturity seems to be one of the hallmarks of the Befriending Tradition.
Centuries ago, Socrates - imprisoned and sentenced to death for calling into question the complacent assumptions of his society - told his listeners: "Those who rightly love wisdom, are practising dying, and death to them is the least terrible thing in the world." If I were to say to people "I'm dying", I might get several reactions. Some might be shocked and exclaim, "I didn't know!" Some might want to know from what and want to go into all the medical details. Others might object: "You're in fine health. Saying you're dying simply isn't true and it's not fair to scare people like that."
All those reactions are possible. They are genuine. They are also instructive about our attitudes to dying. For me, however, the true Befriender would understand and simply say, "Me too."
So if I say "I'm dying", where does that leave me? It leaves me in the same boat as everyone else. In this leaky vessel we call a lifetime. In this boat that is seaworthy only for a number of years. This craft which is absolutely guaranteed to break-up, rot or sink.
Many people have asked me whether it isn't morbid to contemplate death. Not to me. And not to virtually all the wisdom traditions of humanity. It is one of the great apparent paradoxes that the contemplation of death unlocks the secret of life.
Among the many qualities that these two experiences - living and dying - have in common is profound uncertainty. Anyone who has been with or cared for a dying person knows that what they go through seems to highlight the peculiarly shifting, unstable and unpredictable nature of existence.
Learning to be thoroughly, genuinely present in the midst of uncertainty is the great lesson. It is the great accomplishment of the Befriender.
As Erich Fromm, one of the true giants in the development of psychotherapy, once wrote: "How can sensitive and alive person ever feel secure?" Of what can we be certain. We can't be certain of any outcome. Our "psychic task", he said, "is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity."
What is insecurity? It is just one of our responses to the reality of living in a world which is forever changing from micro-second to micro-second. A world which at first glance seems somehow solid, yet which we now know is, in reality, a dynamic dancing field of luminous energy.
This, I believe is the inner wisdom of the Befriending Tradition. A befriender is a friend of something greater than either life or death. A befriender is a friend of being.
The Befriending Network is a contemporary manifestation of this wonderful tradition.
At the same time, the Befriending Network has a pioneering feel. It is still small, still poor and still learning. It attracts eccentrics because it is eccentric. It is eccentric in the true, distinguished meaning of the word - not being part of the mainstream. Not being part of the nightmarish dementia of a society still obsessed with the demonic search for a cure for death.
Ours is a different vision. A vision made manifest is the life and work of one of the real pioneers of our time, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. I'd like to leave you with her own, remarkable words in the hope that they will resonate with you for as long as you are a befriender: "I want to assure you that it is a blessing to sit at the bedside of a dying patient. Dying doesn't have to be a sad and horrible matter. Instead, you can experience many wonderful and loving things. What you learn from dying you can pass on to your children and your neighbours, and maybe our world would become a paradise again. I believe now is the time to start."
Richard Reoch (e-mail: richardreoch@gn.apc.org).