For those of us on the path of a contemplative practice, it is a gift to witness the dying. For two hours, or two days or– as the case may be– weeks on end it is possible to witness a person, together with their entire lifetime and karmic history dissolve into the infinite. When else are we afforded such a glimpse through the curtain to the other side? Possibly in some late night hallucinogenic tea ceremony, sky diving from 10,000 ft out of an airplane, or walking through the pitch black of an underground cave. Being with the dying is a profound, immediate, soul-stirring experience. And it is a window that each of us, without exception, must pass through.
The process of death is like evaporation where, hour by hour, the life-force moves from solid, to gel, to vapor, and finally into thin air. It becomes more and more clear to me in sitting bedside with my mother, that the collection of cells, fibers, membranes and collagen that we identify as a self is just a scaffolding, a bulwark design, to contain the in-dwelling spirit. Like a dandelion or an ash tree, a beehive or a whale, the framework of the body is a kind of prop, a stanchion, that holds us together. It is astonishing to witness the moments when the stays and sinews loosen and the vital force breaks free.
I sit a kind of vigil with my mother. Minutes and hours and days all bleed together. Being with her in this way is itself a kind of sadhana– a contemplation practice. In the same way we attend to our breath in yoga, observing the changes in our pulse and heart-rate, I observe the atmospheric changes in my mother. At times, her internal winds are blustery and erratic and at other times she remains still as granite.
As she sleeps, I hold her hand. At 91, her skin is as delicate as the silky sheath that surrounds the pupa of a gestating butterfly. There are moments when she opens her eyes to let in the smallest band of light, like slits in the blinds pulled down over her bedroom window. When she looks out she is still looking in. Whether her eyes are opened or closed, her consciousness seems to have slipped away like an escaped helium balloon from a child’s unknowing hand. She is becoming part of the infinite that surrounds us and moves through us all. It is a process that we rarely see– and routinely fear– until we drop everything we are doing and sit by its side and pay homage to its mighty presence.
