Beauty of Human Being
~Being with Dying 24th May, 2016
“Practically, for end of life people, it’s very difficult to teach meditation at the moment. So as soon as possible it’s better to start meditation practice”
Roshi answered when one student asked her at the end of evening session.
In my opinion, it’s not completely impossible. It’s up to the patient’s will and his/her condition from my experiences.
This is the story of my father who suffered from lung cancer with multiple liver metastasis. Since then until he passed away for 8 months, I tried to be with him as much as possible. And I encouraged him to practice mindfulness include visualization like Tonglen meditation.
While inhaling, he focused on lung cancer, and while exhaling, he visualized it melted away and went out from his lung along with breathing. Especially during chemotherapy and radiotherapy, I recommended him to do this visualization. It worked very much for him. His anxiety, nausea, insomnia and even anger had released obviously.
As his life approached to the end, his perception became very sharp. Every moment, he could see beauty in ordinary things, weeds, mountains, just green rice paddy even just the morning sunshine…
He transformed totally in the end of his life.
I’ve learned from him that human being has tremendous capacity to transform in a difficult moment. Many patients in palliative care unit also have showed me their potential to find ease in their painful moment. Not always though…
I want to believe this potential which everybody has. That’s why I’m here.
