Recently in India, I cut my foot and it got infected. It swelled and became hot and tender to the touch. At the same time I had contracted amoebic dysentery, so there was much pain in my stomach. One morning, alone in a hotel, getting out of bed and attempting to hop to the bathroom to try to relieve the pain in my gut, I tripped, fell, and cut the other leg.
I lay there, bleeding, hurting, angry at myself, frustrated, and filled with self-pity. At that moment all I wanted was to get out of my body completely. I wanted to be taken care of, too. After three or four minutes of wallowing in these highly emotional mind states, I awakened to my predicament and started to laugh. The whole situation had turned into a Grade B movie, with me in the leading role. But at the same moment, now as a witness of this rather dull film, I saw that when I was “in” my drama it really hurt psychologically as well as physically.
Once I reawakened, the hurt just became fun to play with. I thought of how uncompassionate I was to other people’s suffering and how arrogant I was about “letting it go.” Later that day, talking by phone to a woman in America who was dying, I apologized for how callous I had become to her pain, how glib I was in my advice for how she should deal with it.
I can see how my own pain engages me and teaches me, and, in relation to that, I can see how much I distance myself from others’ pain and thus don’t really allow them into my being. Usually I have enough control of the situation to keep that distance, but with my family, over recent years, it has been a different matter.
In 1985 I went to Burma with the intention of meditating for three months. At the monastery where I was practicing, the days followed one another in such simplicity and increasing subtlety of mind. I awoke at 3:00 A.M., washed, and was back in my cell beginning the first meditation sitting by 3:15. From then until 11:00 P.M., with only six interruptions, in an alternating sequence, I sat an hour, then did walking meditation for an hour. No books, no telephone, no newspapers, no conversation, no letters to write or read.
The interruptions consisted of two meals, at 6:00 A.M. and 11:30 A.M., an early afternoon nap, an interview with the Sayadaw (teacher), sometimes an evening discourse, and a few minutes for laundry. Yet, despite the absence of external excitement, each day was full to overflowing with my thoughts. My mind filled all the space and invested the trivia of the situation with great import: how many flies had the spider at the window caught in its web and mummified, why was the cow down in the pasture lowing so plaintively, should I carry my umbrella to lunch, the new yogi three doors down looked sickly. And, perhaps the trivia of most significance, counting out the four M&M’s (two peanut, two plain) that I took after lunch, just before the noon fast, as my reward for being “good.”
And what was the purpose of this self-imposed, impoverished imprisonment, you might ask. The purpose was to deepen samadhi, or concentration, so that my awareness might be able to remain at rest, focused on one point, rather than being at the mercy of each sense stimulus or thought that arose. After I had been at the monastery for two months, the mind was truly quieting. I had seemingly exhausted every possible fantasy, remembrance, and plan. I was able to penetrate more deeply into the nature of phenomena and to bring to this examination clear awareness. I was filled with such peace and joy.
Then a cable arrived. It was from Phyllis, my stepmother. “I am sorry to disturb your meditation. I am being operated on for cancer on Tuesday. I thought you should know. Love, Phyl.”
Phyl had married Dad when she was fifty-eight and he seventy-two. She was incredibly strong and healthy, and I had been delighted to welcome her into the family. She would look after Dad, and I would be relieved of some of the responsibility for him. I had felt that responsibility ever since my mother’s death. Almost the last thing my mother had said to me was, “Take care of Dad.” I had said I thought he could take care of himself, but she didn’t agree. I didn’t really understand what that deathbed request meant, but, whatever, I was happy Phyllis was around to help Dad. And now she was the sick one.
By then I was so conditioned to watch my mind that I observed how calm I remained in the face of this news. At the same time, I could feel myself revving up, mobilizing for action. Tuesday was only five days away, and I was halfway around the world. As the list of actions required formed itself in my mind, the first order of business was to advise the Sayadaw. Telegram in hand, I went up to his rooms, requested a special interview, waited for the translator to arrive, and presented the message.
In the silence following the reading of the telegram, the Sayadaw studied me closely. Then he said, “Don’t go! You are arriving at a very important stage of your practice. You should not disrupt it now.”
In reaction to his response, my mind kept repeating, Don’t go? Don’t go? How could I not go? All of my cultural training created the sense that of course I would go. I said, “I must go. My family needs me.”
Another silence, after which the Sayadaw said, “You have the potential to train and free your mind so that you could truly relieve much suffering for many. If you go now in response to this call, you will forgo much of the progress you have made but which is not yet stabilized.” In all of these comments, the Sayadaw’s tone of voice showed that he understood and felt compassion and that he was simply stating the obvious.
At that moment the predicament presented itself with crystal clarity. A scale: on one side my genuinely altruistic aspiration for an enlightenment that could serve all beings and on the other my identity as my parents’ child and as a member of a family, with all the expectations that went with that. The situation brought home to me the wisdom of the rituals for sadhus (spiritual seekers) and monks and nuns, a funeral in which they and their families acknowledge that their children have died to their membership in the family in order to pursue without conflict the spiritual path. But my family and I had no such understanding. And I could hardly change the rules in midstream, especially a stream in spate.
“I must go,” I repeated.
The Sayadaw said, “If you were a Burmese I would insist you stay. But you are from another culture and I understand your decision. I’m sorry.” A great wave of sadness swept over me. I was sorry too.
We looked at each other, and it was as if my karmic predicament flashed before my eyes: who I thought I was; how I had become that thought enmeshed in a web of expectations; how it all worked; and the sadness of the human condition. And that it was all right, just as it should be.
The peace stayed with me through airports and intensive care wards, where one finds precious little peace. I talked with doctors and nurses and my father—all of whom seemed deeply in need of just the quiet equanimity I could offer. Now I was becoming Hanuman, learning to serve. Equanimity is a valuable quality, but I sensed that there was far more than equanimity that I could offer to others. Some day I might be able to provide loving compassion as well. That, however, would be available only when my heart stayed open in the presence of the suffering of others, when my heart was breaking and I’d still have equanimity.
I didn’t anticipate at the time that Phyllis’s illness was to serve as the catalyst for awakening that compassion. I moved into Dad and Phyllis’s home to help care for Phyllis during the next six months, during which her cancer metastasized, she underwent yet another operation, and finally she died. The whole period awakened incredible anguish within me. Dad was eighty-eight and had become increasingly quiet. Phyllis and I had been pretty close, as close as two stubborn old-time bachelors could be. She was really the only member of the family who showed any genuine personal interest in my spiritual life, and we had reflected about her experiences as a Christian. Now her illness and Dad’s psychological absence cast us close together in a new way. She asked me to share all the decisions about her sickness and its treatment. And, in the course of doing just this, I became deeply attached to her. With my increasing attachment came the yearning for her to live and the fear of losing her.
After the needle biopsy of the spot that a CAT scan had shown in her liver, we were both on the phone to get the results. I was in my room looking at a picture of Maharajji. As we waited for the doctor to come on the line, I found myself saying to the picture, “If it’s all the same to you, would you make the spot benign?” I was praying.
Then the doctor was there with his professional-kind voice saying, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Alpert, but the biopsy showed malignancy of the most virulent kind.” I felt my heart harden and turn cold, and with true vehemence I spat out at my guru, “You son of a bitch!” A moment later my heart was flooded with warm love. I felt as if I was being held with the tenderest love. The sadness and pain at the imminent loss of my new friend Phyllis were no less, but the harsh, isolating, bitter anger was gone.
After the biopsy the surgeons pushed for another operation to remove a portion of Phyllis’s liver. She didn’t want the operation. I called specialists around the country. Surgery was the best option within allopathic medicine, but its chance of success was only about 20 percent. I didn’t want Phyl to undergo the surgery, but I also didn’t want to close the door. She was not open enough to alternative therapies, nor could I really advocate, with any real faith, any of them. Philippine psychosurgery, wheatgrass and coffee enemas, laetrile, macrobiotics, and so on: the scientist in me found little solace in the data most of these systems put forth.
It is probably true that if the patient has sufficient faith, any treatment works some of the time. But where was such faith to come from? Phyllis had grown up with Western medicine, and my faith was not strong enough to inspire her. In addition, I could see that Phyllis wanted to die so she wouldn’t cause us any more trouble. Her deep inadequacy, which gave her a feeling that she had no right to exist, was in evidence. So the surgeon invaded her body once again, though Phyl and I both felt we were doing it because we didn’t have the courage of our convictions.
A few months later, when we visited the surgeon’s office for more test results, we sat together in the waiting room with the long-suffering patients with haunted eyes and frightened hearts who inhabit such a place. Then we were in the surgeon’s private office, which had pictures of his wife, who had been an old flame of mine in high school days, and he was saying, “The cancer is all through your body. There is nothing more I can do.”
Later Phyllis and I compared notes and discovered that we had both felt great compassion for the doctor. Here was the medicine man who could not make good the promise that seduced his patients into trusting his judgment, wisdom, and skill, and undergoing more and more suffering. In his zeal, he had oversold his product once again to make his patients and himself feel good. We saw him as an unfortunate victim of a system in which truth is bargained for some transitory solace that is no real comfort at all.
After that, Phyl and I turned our attention to the process of dying. I often lay on the bed holding her in my arms as we spoke softly and wonderingly of spirit freeing itself from the confines of such a sick body. Phyllis had been a fighter, a toughie, and she was often angry and depressed, petulant and in much pain. She and I collaborated in assessing how much pain medication she needed to reduce her pain and still keep her consciousness clear.
A few days before her death, something happened to Phyllis. She gave up. I felt her monumental struggle to control events just let go. The Phyllis with her familiar prickly personality was gone, but what emerged in its place was awesome. I felt as if I were witness to a chrysalis becoming a radiant butterfly. There was still pain, but it no longer seemed relevant. We spoke, but I felt her whispers coming from a peaceful place. Finally she was not fighting either life or death.
When the end came, she said to me with an authority that was unmistakable, “Sit me up.” I put her legs over the edge of the bed and raised her body. One hand I placed on her chest, the other on her back to keep her body erect. Her head kept falling forward and back, so I put my head against hers to steady it. Then she took a large breath and expelled it, then inhaled a second time and again exhaled—much longer and slower than the previous one. And then the final third breath, inhaled and expelled—and then she was no more. Those of us who had been caring for her gathered at the bed and all felt as if she was blessing us at the moment of her departure.
Phyl’s death engaged my heart, and, as a result, I saw that I could let down the walls that protected me from my own humanity. I needn’t be so afraid of heartbreak. It would happen again and again as I let myself acknowledge that I was part of the family of all living beings, with all its joy and sadness. However, now I could see that the heartbreak and grief did not really separate me from the spiritual dimension in which I experienced spacious peace that appreciated the universe as it is.
Dad, as well as Phyllis, had lessons to teach about being human. By the time Phyllis died—the second wife Dad had lost to cancer—Dad had withdrawn even more deeply into himself. It wasn’t that he seemed depressed. It was rather that he didn’t find the physical plane very interesting. And with each increment of letting go, he seemed more and more content.
His speech almost disappeared. We had grown accustomed to hearing him say “There we are!” after completing some task such as sitting down or finishing his food. These were comforting words, the way he said them to himself and to us. That expression came to characterize for me something very deep. When Dad had begun to lose strength several years earlier, I’d decided to make my home the basement apartment in Dad and Phyllis’s house. I traveled a good deal, but I could oversee the household affairs and make sure the two of them were safe and properly supported.
An incredible fellow, Ken Shapiro, had arrived right before Phyllis took sick and stayed until Dad’s death, serving the family with a devotion and patience that awed me. He was only twenty-eight years old, yet content, day in, day out, year in, year out, to shop and cook and attend to Dad and sit quietly with him. Ken had come onto the scene because he found himself crying while reading the stories about Maharajji in Miracle of Love. He had come to make contact with someone who had been with Maharajji. His manner of arrival, his being available just when we needed him, his devotion to his work, and his dependability led me to feel that he was a gift from Maharajji—a perfect gift.
This period of looking after Dad’s household gave me a profound sense of well-being for having the opportunity to serve my father. When Mother had been ill and dying, there was Dad to look after her—and, besides, I was far too busy being an independent, self-important somebody to find time or even acknowledge any responsibility for her care. Those were my years for slaying Dragons, capturing the Chalice, saving the World.
But now, as Dad aged, I too was aging, and my passions were quieting enough that I could penetrate more deeply into the rhythms of life. I sensed the error of my own culture in casting off the extended family, with its emotional safety net and filial duty. Having lived in the villages of India, I saw the way in which fulfilling family roles help give a form and meaning to life. But it was only as I acknowledged and fulfilled my duty to help make my father’s final years secure and happy that I truly understood this. It made the cycles of generations harmonious. Dad’s expression “There we are” said it all.
I had so often guided people to look right in front of them to find ways to serve, yet my “service” had taken me to the farthest reaches of the earth. Was that service more glamorous, more important, more appropriate? When service to my parents was finally added in, it somehow made all the service seem right. I was doing what was immediately before my eyes—the care of Dad—yet at the same time I was discovering an awakening compassion for all beings.
As good as it felt, I wasn’t above milking it. When a member of the family commented on how good I was to be giving up my freedom to look after Dad, I looked slightly long-suffering and said, “Well, someone has to do it.” In truth, my dealings with Dad and Phyllis over those years and through their deaths were a great enriching of my life, and the opportunity to take care of them was one I guarded jealously.
I was fortunate in that there were sufficient resources for us to maintain a large house that provided privacy when I needed it and enough money for full-time care that enabled me to come and go as my work required. But even with such support on the material plane, being with one’s parents in later life is often difficult. They have become set in their ways, their interests are not necessarily your own, and they know just how to “get to you,” to awaken whatever residual infantile guilt or inadequacy may be lurking in you. So unless you really want to work at using the sticking places within yourself as stuff worthy of your attention, it can be very difficult.
More and more, when the opportunity permits, we tend to surround ourselves with people who don’t shake our inner applecart. They are often people who share our values, appreciate us, and leave us untroubled by the presence of our old habits, prejudices, opinions, and preferences. What are called the “uncooked seeds”—the seeds of aversions and attachments that lie dormant until the right circumstance provides the catalytic conditions for them to bloom and flower—are ignored. But I was pulled by a yearning to be liberated from all the clingings of my mind. So I sought out environments that were “hot fires”—that is, where the conditions were optimum for exposing those uncooked seeds.
Being in Dad’s household as a fifty-five-year-old son named Richard certainly did expose those seeds. During the years I spent there, I had a chance to see, examine, and often transcend anger, boredom, self-righteousness, avoidance, and a patronizing attitude. At first it was, “Look at me, look what a good son I am.” Then it was, “Doing this is good for me.” Then there was, “Doing it efficiently.” And finally there was, “Just doing it.” In that setting I didn’t quite arrive at the state of, “He does nothing and nothing is left undone,” but it was getting closer.
Part of the wonder was in meeting Dad in continually new ways. In the shower washing his genitals, which had spawned me, changing his diaper as he had once changed mine, entering into his memory rooms as he repeated for the umpteenth time a conversation he had had in the 1920s—as if it were now and I were somebody else: his brother or his secretary or an important judge. And then there were the quiet moments in which we held hands and were silent watching the changing light and just sharing presence and now and then a squeeze of the hand. Such silence I had never known with Dad. We had always filled all the space in our family.
This very Buddhalike smiling silence, which showed a new and wonderful facet of Dad, was immensely upsetting to others. One member of the family, who had had difficulty getting along with Dad, interpreted Dad’s silence as “He hasn’t changed a bit. He still ignores me.” And for Dad’s adoring sister, his silence in response to her attempts to chat awakened the cry “Oh, Georgie, Georgie, what have they done to you? Oh, he’s gone, he’s gone!” Both of them suffered as they clung to outdated models of Dad. But Dad and I, gently holding hands in the present moment, couldn’t have been happier. He died peacefully. For me, helping Dad feel safe in his frailty and death, as he had made me feel safe in my vulnerable infancy, was a completion. In the process, having an opportunity to bring to light and release so many old habits and posturings was “frosting on the cake.”
When people are dying they often feel alone in their pain and fear. Those around them are not going through what they are, so how could they understand? It takes a lover who is not afraid of the pain to be present and wipe away the loneliness.
For over twenty-five years I have been often in the company of dying people. In the course of all those moments I have come to see just how in love I can stay with other beings in the face of their suffering. If I am afraid of pain, then in a subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle way I distance my heart from the dying person with whom I am sitting. If I am afraid of dying, then the very dying process of another awakens my fear and inevitably I push that person away so I can remain safe in my own “not dying” illusion. And if I am able to stay open to pain and even to dying but am afraid of the mystery of death itself, then at that final moment I will pull back from merging with the beloved, whose form is undergoing profound transformation.
Working with people with AIDS has offered me intensely deep experiences of my own holding and letting go. In the abstract, the thought of a person who is HIV positive and has AIDS symptoms opens my heart. The ones I have worked with have acquired their illness through being human, one way or another. I have had homosexual encounters and at one time shared needles. And so there, but for grace, go I.
As I start to open to each of these people, to his or her feelings of social ostracism, falling through the air with no economic net, dealing with the body becoming ugly, weak, painful, undependable because of the opportunistic nature of the illness—how far do I open? Who is this before me? Is this us in love to whom this is happening, or is it the safe distancing and a part of myself isolated as “him” or “her”? Each time I work with my reactions of closing down, of distancing myself from the “distressing disguise” of my guru, of my beloved, I see myself having once again “forgotten into fear.” I flicker.
I sit with the situation. I quiet my mind while holding a hand or just sitting by a bed. I go deeper within myself, far behind my identification and fears, back into awareness, mindful of our predicament but no longer lost in it. The humanity is there, but so, too, is the spacious awareness. I have come into love, and I feel the barriers between me and this other being dissolve. I am with the fear and the pain. With it yet simultaneously behind it. We are together entering into the cave where we are no longer alone in our suffering but behind and within it.
Learning to be open in the presence of dying is different from remaining open in the presence of death. With each new opportunity to be with people as they die, with my friends Carlos and Kenny, Bill and Sean, Ginny and Jean, Lionel and Kate, and so many more, I come closer and closer to staying open with the beloved through death itself. Maharajji died in 1973. Our love stayed alive through the barrier of death. The way in which our timeless love has transcended death makes me strong. Less and less am I intimidated by the intensity of the death process itself. It is just another shift in the ever-changing panorama wrought by time.