Meditation and the Dying Process

Abstract

Ancient traditions have employed powerful meditative practices at the time of death. This article explores one of these practices originating in Tibetan medicine, which relied upon specially trained practitioners in the science of consciousness. The goal is to maintain "clear mind and peaceful heart," which is accomplished by sharing a meditational breathing technique that brings about a deep state of relaxation. Studies in autonomic nervous system response and in the physiology of pain indicate that stress reduction is becoming a necessary modality in modern health care. I describe a breathing and meditative procedure called comeditation to deal with anxieties and stress associated with life-threatening illness. This method involves no religious belief system and brings some of the psychological and physiological effects of the meditative state to patients who have never meditated. The meditative practices described in this article were transmitted through the Clear Light Society, Boston, Massachusetts (Patricia Shelton Harvey, executive director). I offer these techniques to deal with the pain and anxiety that may flood one's consciousness during a life-threatening illness. The methods can be used by anyone, sick or healthy, who wants to center their spinning mind and achieve serenity. Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf. -Rabindranath Tagore THE WAY THINGS ARE The Way has neither Beginning nor End. But in the course of this eternal and circular flow, individual beings die and are born. The perfection of these ever-flowing beings cannot be relied upon (and is not an absolute perfection). Empty now, full at the next moment, nothing remains in one state even for a moment. The years cannot be kept back; time cannot be stopped. Now decaying, then alive; now replete, then empty; ending is immediately followed by a beginning. Such is the interminable flow of all things. The life of existence in this world of things is like a horse galloping and rushing along. With every movement they change; at every moment they shift. What could you at all do (against this universal change of things)? Whatever you may do, everything will go on naturally transforming itself. -Adapted from Chuang Tzu, Inner Chapters XVII