On Dying

I occasionally read something that resonates with my own personal experiences. This following concept, by Katie Byron ("A Thousand Names for Joy"), is not unique, no matter what others may say or think. She herself is not unique in her thinking, no matter what others may say or think about her. It is just her time to speak about it...I've already had my experiences and thoughts about death...and I live with them, with joy, daily.

"If you stay in the center and embrace death with your whole heart,you will endure forever.
A doctor once took a sample of my blood and came back to me with a long face. He said he was bringing bad news; he was very sorry, but I had cancer. Bad news? I couldn’t help laughing. When I looked at him, I saw that he was quite taken aback. Not everyone understands this kind of laughter. Later, it turned out that I didn’t have cancer, and that was good news too.
The truth is that until we love cancer, we can’t love God. It doesn’t matter what symbols we use—poverty, loneliness, loss—it’s the concepts of good and bad that we attach to them that make us suffer. I was sitting once with a friend who had a huge tumor, and the doctors had given her just a few weeks to live. As I was leaving her bedside, she said, “I love you,” and I said, “No, you don’t. You can’t love me until you love your tumor. Every concept that you put onto that tumor you’ll eventually put onto me. The first time I don’t give you what you want or threaten what you believe, you’ll put that concept onto me.” This might sound harsh, but my friend had asked me to always tell her the truth. The tears in her eyes were tears of gratitude, she said.
No one knows what’s good and what’s bad. No one knows what death is. Maybe it’s not a something; maybe it’s not even a nothing. It’s the pure unknown, and I love that. We imagine that death is a state of being or a state of nothingness, and we frighten ourselves with our own concepts. I’m a lover of what is: I love sickness and health, coming and going, life and death. I see life and death as equal. Reality is good; so death must be good, whatever it is, if it’s anything at all.
A few months ago I was visiting Needles, the small desert town in southern California where my daughter lives. I was at the grocery store with her when some old friends of the family whom I hadn’t seen for decades spotted me. “Katie!” they called out, and they came up to me, beaming. They hugged me, they asked how I was, I told them, then they asked, “And how is your dear mother doing?” I said, “She’s wonderful. She’s dead.” Silence. Suddenly the smiles were gone. I saw that they were having a problem, but I didn’t know what it was. When Roxann and I were outside the store, she turned to me and said, “Mom, when you talk to people like that, they can’t handle it.” That hadn’t occurred to me. I was just telling the truth.
Until you experience death as a gift, your work’s not done. So if you’re afraid of it, that shows you what to question next. There’s nothing else to do; you’re either believing these childish stories, or you’re questioning them—there’s no other choice. What’s not okay about dying? You close your eyes every night, and you go to sleep. People look forward to it; some people actually prefer that part. And that’s as bad as it gets, except for your belief that says there’s something else. Before a thought, there’s no one, nothing—only peace that doesn’t even recognize itself as peace.


What I know about dying is that when there’s no escape, when you know that no one is coming to save you, there’s no fear. You just don’t bother. The worst thing that can happen on your deathbed is a belief. Nothing worse than that has ever happened. So if you are lying on your deathbed and the doctor says it’s all over for you and you believe him, all the confusion stops. You no longer have anything to lose. And in that peace, there is only you.
People who know that there’s no hope are free; decisions are out of their hands. It has always been that way, but some people have to die bodily to find out. No wonder they smile on their deathbeds. Dying is everything they were looking for in life: they’ve given up the delusion of being in charge. When there’s no choice, there’s no fear. They begin to realize that nothing was ever born but a dream and nothing ever dies but a dream.
When you’re clear about death, you can be totally present with someone who’s dying, and no matter what kind of pain she appears to be experiencing, it doesn’t affect your happiness. You’re free to just love her, to hold her and care for her, because it’s your nature to do that. To go to that person in fear is to teach fear: she looks into your eyes and gets the message that she is in deep trouble. But if you come in peace, fearlessly, she looks into your eyes and sees that whatever is happening is good.
Dying is just like living. It has its own way, and you can’t control it. People think, “I want to be conscious when I die.” That’s hopeless. Even wanting to be conscious ten minutes from now is hopeless. You can only be conscious now. Everything you want is here in this moment.
I like to tell a story about a friend of mine who was waiting for a revelation just before he died, saving his energy, trying to be completely conscious. Finally his eyes widened, he gasped, and he said, “Katie, we are larvae.” Profound awareness on his deathbed. I said, “Sweetheart, is that true?” And the laughter simply poured out of him. The revelation was that there was no revelation. Things are fine just as they are; only a concept can take that away from us. A few days later he died, with a smile on his face.
I had another friend who was dying and felt sure he knew when his last moment was coming. But we die at exactly the right time—not an instant too soon or too late. This man was intent on doing the Tibetan Book of the Dead thing, and his friends had promised to come to his bedside and do the rituals from the book. When he called them, they all came, and they went through the rituals, and then he didn’t die. They went home, and a few days later, once again, he was sure he knew when his last moment was coming, the friends showed up, they did all the rituals again, and again he didn’t die. The same thing happened two or three more times, and finally everyone was thinking, “When is this guy going to do it?” They had been called so many times! It was like the boy who cried wolf. He asked me if I would be there on such-and-such a day for so many hours, and I said, “If I can get there, I will.” But as he was dying, finally, the people he left in charge didn’t even bother calling me. It wasn’t the way he’d planned; it was perfect instead.
Oh, stories—I love them! What else is there?"

Stories, indeed. My life is my story.