Why Are We Interested
in the End of Our Life?
If you accept that death is part of life,
then when it actually does come, you may face it more easily.
—his holiness the fourteenth dalai lama
A few years ago, I went through an extraordinary experience of confronting the end of my life. The experience started during a heat wave at home in California. I had a two-hour appointment in a very cold air-conditioned office. When I left the office, I walked out into the afternoon summer heat. When I started my car, the temperature gauge read 99 degrees. I didn’t open the windows to let out the hot air, and I drove for a while before turning on the air conditioner. It took me a while to get home, as I made stops for several errands, getting out of the car into the heat and then getting back into the car heat. As I neared home, I started to feel awful. I had a headache, felt fatigued, and had an upset stomach. When I finally got home, I felt even worse.
I searched the Internet and found that I probably had a condition called heat exhaustion. I made a telephone call and was warned by a doctor friend to stay in a cool place, be quiet, drink liquids, and rest because my condition could develop into heatstroke. This meant a heatstroke could damage my brain, heart, kidneys, and muscles, as well as increase my risk of other serious complications leading to death. My doctor friend said that I needed to maintain a balance in my body temperature for at least two weeks.
This news of needing to rest for two weeks was very disturbing to me. Months before, I had made plans for a month-long meditation retreat outside of Boston. I was scheduled to fly from my home in California to the East Coast within the week. Given my heat exhaustion, I was anxious about going on the retreat, as I read that the East Coast was in an intense, humid heat wave.
Even with my condition, I still decided to go. Fortunately, by the time I got on the plane I was feeling better. In the Boston airport, the evening news on a TV monitor announced, “This weather is the most humid heat wave the East has experienced in years.” I immediately took an air-conditioned shuttle and arrived at my retreat destination at 8:00 p.m. When I got out of the shuttle, I was stunned by the heat and humidity. The night heat together with the humidity was off the charts, and I could feel my anxiety about heat exhaustion percolate and rise.
The next morning, I began to have the same heat symptoms I’d had at home. My room did not have air-conditioning, but the meditation hall did. As I went back and forth between the heat and the cold, the heat exhaustion symptoms got worse. I was now in the same boat I’d been in at home, but it was not the boat I wanted to be in. My body did not feel good, and I didn’t know what to do. I became increasingly anxious and scared. The symptoms were getting worse each day, as was my anxiety.
The third night after arriving at the center, I woke up in a state of terror at about 2:00 a.m. This is the time at the retreat center when there are no teachers and no one else available to contact. I was totally alone. The twenty-five other meditators were in their individual rooms. I had been in many long retreats and had experienced fear and anxiety before as I struggled with thoughts and emotions, but this was different. I felt the tension, fear, constriction of breath, and all the heat symptoms welling up inside of me. I was increasingly confused and full of terror. The question kept coming, What do I do?
I tried to meditate, do yoga, sing softly to myself, and listen to my meditation music. Nothing worked. The inner voice kept saying, How can I stop this terror? What should I do? Finally, I sat up in bed and questioned myself, “Patt, what is making you so frightened, so anxious, that it’s driving you into complete terror?” The answer came quickly: “I am frightened to die.” I remember saying to myself, “Well, there is nothing I can do now, so I might as well die.” With that, I laid my head down on my pillow, pulled the covers over me, and went to sleep.
I slept soundly until my alarm rang for breakfast. I got up, free of the heat exhaustion symptoms and also of the terror. What happened? After a lot of reflection on this event, I realized that I had confronted pieces of this terror of death in many of my long meditation retreats. With the threat of heat stroke and the physical symptoms growing in me, I finally faced that inner terror, looked it straight in the eyes, and let it go. As I faced the fear directly, I called its bluff and the fear, physical symptoms, and terror vanished. I felt free!
This was not a mental or even an emotional reaction, as I realized in some deep place within that death had been stalking me for a long time. As long as I pushed this unconscious fear of death away, I was stuck in growing terror. In a real way, the heat and terror were my friends to help me face this deep part of my life and open me to sense my inner freedom. The next day, I told my teacher what had occurred, and she supported me that I had been very courageous.
Of course, I am quite aware that someday I will physically die. There is no doubt that death will come for me, as for everyone. I know that my body will get a disease or I will wither away from old age or perhaps die in an accident. What this experience and awareness left me with were burning questions that kept repeating in my head throughout the month-long retreat. What happens to the mind when I die? Where does it go? What quality of mind is imperative for me to be in as I die? I remember reading a quote from a spiritual teacher that helped me focus to contemplate these questions. Although I am not a follower of Osho, when I read this quote, it gave me a direction to search out the type of mind we need when we leave the body and go on to our next journey. He said, “Remember, only that which you can take with you when you leave the body is important. That means, except meditation, nothing is important. Except awareness, nothing is important, because only awareness cannot be taken away by death. Everything else will be snatched away, because everything else comes from without. Only awareness wells up within; that cannot be taken away. And the shadows of awareness—compassion, love—they cannot be taken away; they are intrinsic parts of awareness. You will be taking with you only whatsoever awareness you have attained; that is your only real wealth.” 1
From my research into many spiritual traditions and my own meditation experience as well as scientific research, it has become clear to me that when we die we take only our inner qualities that, hopefully, we have been cultivating all our lives. Osho indicates that meditation is a key and a means to develop awareness of these inner qualities we need for our death and rebirth—whatever that rebirth will be for each of us.
During that month of retreat, I kept asking these two questions: What is this awareness I gain from meditation? How do I continue to develop it? As these questions repeated in my mind, I came to discover that when awareness is found and developed, it cannot be taken away.
In the months after the retreat, a deep yearning pressed me forward to find answers to my questions about death and to find the steps that would help others find their own answers. Something new was arising in me, and I was excited that I was birthing a new process for myself and perhaps for others. I no longer wanted to seek outside myself for inspiration, but rather to follow the inner lead of guidance of this force I was experiencing. Like a flashing mental sign, I kept seeing, “Death is the next big journey in my life.” I became conscious that time was of the essence. I wanted to develop those inner qualities of awareness of peace and serenity without a mental struggle and without emotional terror when I came to my dying. This journey to understand and explore the practical and spiritual aspects of death and dying has become my passion and mission for my own sake and to share with others.
Let me pause to say that my exploration of my own death and the passion to help others face their death followed many years of critical illness, long meditation retreats exploring the fears and darkness of my inner world, hospice training in which I volunteered with the dying in a hospice hospital and home hospice, counseling people facing their own death, and being present for the death of both my father and my mother. Now later in life, the opportunity arrived for me to put together my life experience in a manner that could help others face this doorway called death that each of us will walk through.
This guidebook is the result of my journey. Along with the research I did on dying, the moments of death itself, and what is beyond our dying process, this book is also the result of my inner discovery. My research led me to explore and develop a map of the physical, psychological, and spiritual journey of both death and spiritual awakening. Through the descriptions of others, who have explored the process of dying, I discovered that in going through the journey of death we are transformed. What the transformation through death means is to die and awaken to be free of affliction. When you die and the quality of your mind is consciously aware, that gives you inner peace, a feeling of calm, serenity, and a release of fear into a deep comforting of inner love. In the dying process, your mind goes through the most important spiritual experience of your entire lifetime.
What became clear, as I researched the dying process, is the understanding that there is a release or a letting go that we can do to be free and live a fuller life now. Without a doubt, I became convinced that while I am alive I must train my mind to let go both for how I live now and for my death. The purpose of this inner preparation to die is to develop the quality of a conscious mind now.
One of the reasons I was so frightened of dying was that my mind was not prepared for the process of death. I had the direct experience that I was frightened of the unknown because of the incredible fear surrounding death that our culture teaches. I felt alienated and disconnected from death. So I avoided the idea of death and kept focused on outer-world activities, believing that some day, without conscious awareness, life would be snatched away from me. However, the Dalai Lama has given us an important reminder: “If you are mindful at death it will not come as a surprise. You will not be anxious. You will feel that death is merely like changing your clothes. Consequently, at that point you will be able to maintain your calmness of mind.” 2
In our culture, we know we will die, but at the same time we all tend to deny it, ignore it, and cover it up in many ways. How to prepare for death is not talked about or focused on even by our doctors, caregivers, and religious teachers. But I also see this “cover-up” changing with the emergence of Death Cafes, conversations about death with dignity laws, and films and books about death. Also, because there is a growing pressure from the aging Boomer generation as death is arriving at their generational shore, there is what is being called a “Death Awareness Movement,” or DAM!
Even though there is a growing awareness about death at a cultural and societal level, there are core questions I believe each of us needs to explore at a personal level. Some of these questions you may have already confronted. Other questions may not be in awareness for you. Here are some of the critical questions I’ve asked myself as I began to write this book and now ask you in order to help you begin to frame your thoughts and feelings as we begin this journey of exploration. One or more of these question may stand out to you now. However, we will explore all of them and more over the course of the book:
• Do you have a fear of death, and, if so, how do you work with that fear?
• What in your life keeps you from dealing with the practical issues of preparing for your death?
• How do you prepare your mind and emotions to confront your dying when it begins to happen to you?
• Would you be willing to give up your power to the medical community to continue heroic methods to preserve your life in ways that keep you from a peaceful and conscious dying process?
• How do you prepare for the actual moment of your death and what may lie beyond your dying, whatever your beliefs?
• What legal preparations do you need to create now for your eventual death?
Those of us in Western society are generally disconnected from ourselves as to what we feel, as well as lost and adrift when it comes to the reality of the meaning of our death and what the process will be of our death. Generally, there is little around us in our families, friends, and society at large to help us understand and make critical choices about the death process, other than medical decisions. The current approach to the dying process centers primarily on the medical model of mitigating pain and not on dealing with the inner fear and suffering that arises in moving through the various stages of death. This medical model highlights alienation from the actual fact of death. That alienation is what you might face if you are not prepared for your dying process. Death is simply one more aspect of being a human being. In our culture, we’ve made death a taboo.
As our society pushes the fear of death away from us and hides it in hospitals, hospice facilities, and nursing homes, I decided to develop a map of the physical dying process in order to understand what I would face at death. My effort in this research and the accompanying practices I’ve developed have been done to alleviate my own fear of dying and to help others who are interested in exploring this area of their life.
My previous book Heal Your Mind, Rewire Your Brain3 examined the functions of the brain waves and the wealth of growing research about the brain-mind relationship. As I got deeper into the research on death and what is occurring in the brain and mind, more clarity came on how the mind progresses through the dying stages and how it unravels at death. This discovery answered one of my core questions. The process of my research showed me that as the body goes through a transformation at death, so does the mind. I realized that if the mind is trained to be aware and continually conscious, then the dying process is the most powerful spiritual experience and opportunity of our lifetime. You need to know enough ahead of the time of your death process to be willing to work with your mind and to have challenging discussions with your family, with medical people, and with your friends to prepare you and others for what is to come at your death.
The Path Toward Death
There are two kinds of courage when you face sickness, aging, and death. The first type of courage is to confront the truth and reality of your mortality so as not to be fearful. The second is to act on the truth you find. The path toward your death is frequently unclear because you do not know what will happen, so it is hard to know what to do. The challenge is to explore your unique path toward your own death and how you want to face it. My dream is that this book will increase your courage to unwind the challenge of your own death and that you will learn and know the truth of your own path for yourself.
In the course of the material I present about death, I will also discuss the journey beyond death. My bias is that there is a “something” that is experienced beyond our physical death. This view comes from my exploration of many spiritual traditions, my own inner experience of traversing many levels of mind states in meditation, the growing body of research of brain states at death, and the experience of people that “return from the dead,” called a “near-death experience.” Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, however, preparing mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and practically for this inevitable event provides clarity, strength, and understanding for how you choose to approach your dying process and how you awake to your dying today.
The focus of the book assumes you want to learn about your own death process or you are concerned about those in your life who are dying of old age or of some illness. The information and exercises will also be helpful if you or someone in your life has had a sudden health event, such as a heart attack, or lost a loved one in a car accident. Understanding what happens at the moment of death helps prepare for sudden death or protracted illness. In the case of sudden death, information on how to recognize after-death experience is even more vital to this journey into dying and awakening.
I decided to call this book a guidebook instead of simply a book because I want it to help guide you to explore the key questions of your own process and discover the outer as well as the inner conditions of preparing for your death and your awakening to a more vital life now. The book is designed to have you create your own guidebook of how you want to prepare for your dying and living now if you desire to do so. As a guidebook, the exercises, visualizations, meditations, and, if you choose to use them, the bonus videos, will help you explore and question your personal understandings and values about death, how to engage caregivers and family in what you want as you go through the dying process, how to establish practices and ways to give yourself feedback about your inner explorations, and the very practical preparation of financial and legal issues to attend to.
You will be presented with information, questions, and exercises to think and write about. I encourage you to get a notebook or a journal or put a file on your computer that is devoted solely to the exploration of questions, exercises, and “things to do” about your own dying process. This will be your “How I Want to Die Manual” that you can provide to others as you enter your own dying process.
The book also provides practical wisdom on the dying process as well as a step-by-step program on how you can wake up to a place of freedom in yourself while still alive. My intention in this book is to give you a context, a structure, as well as a helpful guide to familiarize yourself with what you need to know and prepare for as you look across the horizon to your own death. This book will also allow you to experience your practical concerns, contemplate how you want to die, and prepare you and your loved ones for the journey.
Besides the exercises in the book, there are bonus videos that can be used with the second part of the book if you choose to do so. These videos can accompany the guided meditations, and they use colors, coded color music, and binaural beats that put you into deep brain-wave experiences as you attempt to go deeper into our own dying and awakening process. You will be provided information in the appendix on how to use these videos.
In this book, I am encouraging you to have a meditation practice as part of death/awakening training preparation. If you don’t currently have a practice, you may find helpful my book Heal Your Mind, Rewire Your Brain and its accompanying meditation CDs that teach you how to have deep meditation experiences using your own brain-wave patterns. The book and CDs can give you a beginning point to establish a meditation practice for yourself.
Although you will be working individually with the exercises and responding to the material and questions I pose, the book is also intended to be a guidebook for groups who want to come together and explore and support each other. I have found coming together in groups to work with this material provides a cross-fertilization of insight, support, and deep honesty that deepens connection and community. I designed the material to be used by families, circles of friends, churches, meditation groups, and other organizations. The purpose is to create communities of support and guide people in learning how to prepare for their own death and to know how to support each other in the dying process. We prepare for babies, professions, trips, and more, but we do not prepare for the most important experience that will ever happen to us. Within a supportive community of life and death, you are preparing to go home.
The first part of the book is the overview of our death process. In this part, you will explore the process of how you physically, psychologically, and spiritually die and how to work with your fears about death and your dying.
The second part of the book lays out the psychospiritual transformation journey we all can go through long before we die. This part gives the understanding of why you need to train your mind to live fully now and to prepare for your death. Preparing for your eventual death now enables you to release the uncertainty and fear of dying.
The first process is for you to learn how the mind is developed step-by-step and how it develops over time into an identity that I call a constricted self presence of fear.
The second process is to learn the steps for unraveling the constricted self. This is done by the incorporation and the transformation of the constricted self into what I call the expanded self of love. This transformation awakens your unique awareness. Recall what Osho said, that awareness is consciousness that cannot be taken away at the time of death. My desire for you in writing this book is that you discover this awareness for yourself. It is to discover your freedom!
I am deeply grateful for my teachers through the years who have pointed the way into an exploration of the inner world. For this book in particular, the years of research opened to me the many authors who have explored the dying process. Both within the text and in the bibliography, I acknowledge their contribution to an understanding of what it is to pass through this doorway of death.
It is my hope that this book will serve to further a broader understanding and preparation for the dying process and what it means to awaken to a different life now and beyond through my own experience and the digestion of others’ insights. I am excited to begin this journey with you to learn how to prepare to die and discover the process of awakening to a full and vital life now.
1. Osho Rajneesh, Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy (New York: Osho International, 1992), 33.
2. Dalai Lama, The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom, edited by Renuka Singh (New York: Penguin Books; Reprint edition, 1999), 4.
3. Patricia Lind-Kyle, Heal Your Mind, Rewire Your Brain (Santa Rosa, CA: Energy Psychology Press, 2010).