Conscious dying
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
Dear all,
I was considering my uncles death in the Phillipines a little while ago. He woke up in the middle of the night, clutching his throat and an ambulance was called. He was intubated — they made an incision in his neck for a breathing tube, they noticed he was unresponsive on the left half of his body and diagnosed a stroke and a heart attack, and he was put on assisted breathing. Then they gave him medication to keep him in an artificial coma. This lasted for a few days before he was taken off the assisted breathing, he died a few hours after that.
It strikes me that as his body failed, he was not allowed to die very naturally, and he was kept from consciously experiencing the moment of his death. Now in the last few decades there has been a movement towards conscious dying, which I find interesting.
I thought his death was a lesson. If you want to die in a conscious way you need to arrange it ahead of time.
Do you have particular wishes for your dying process?
With warm regards,
Kerome
Comments
I am not sure if there is an important difference between the death that potentially occurs within each moment of meditation and the moment of a wider grouping of cellular death that we more classically speak of as death.
I expect that our attachments to either, just like our capacity to accept either, will be the important factor in what those experiences become.
Experiencing the ethereal nature of this temporary collection of skandhic energies leaves little to hang onto.
The spiritual experience, for this reason, can be called a dry run on death, for how it preps us for that inevitability.
One arrangement to make ahead of the time of your death is simply to start examining each moment that arises, lives and departs as a representation of your own arising, life and departure.
My particular wishes for a dying process is no different than my living processes.
May it precipitate selflessness.
No not really, well I guess it would be nice to have no regrets ....and through Dharma practice I'm working towards this..
According to Buddhism, karma & rebirth are true, which means "I" have died many times and in many different ways...
One can make personal arrangements for their death...but death will always have the last say...overriding any prearranged plans one puts in place... that's karma for ya...
I do believe the moment of death is very decisive but not at the expense of one's overall lifetime and the contribution one has made in evolving one's consciousness. The slow process of character formation, of growing in the virtues, loving one's fellow man, and so on, is in other words more important than the temporary 'show of force' one may make in one's final moments, as it were trying to cheat death. Though I think that too may have meaning. It depends, I think. I believe in miracles, even very radical ones. But it is still much more safe to plan and grow ahead of time, and so be ready when death finally knocks.
Somewhat tangential I've heard that most doctors and nurses get DNR/DNI (do not resuscitate/do not intubate) orders (google says 90%). Life saving measures are far less likely to be effective than they show on TV.
I think that’s very telling. But it begs the question why they force these procedures on so many other people when they wouldn’t want them themselves.
My guess is that most people aren't as familiar and comfortable with death as healthcare workers are. I think most people probably want them.
Also, in the moment it isn't always so obvious who is not going to recover no matter what you do and who might gain decades of life with a little effort.
There was an issue during Obama's passing of his healthcare bill that raised a lot of objections, though probably largely as a political tool. They wanted to add something that would let doctors get reimbursed for time they spend with patients discussing end of life care ahead of time when people could think it through, rather than wait for the moment when emotions are high.