Pushing Through Solid Rock: The Burdens and Benefits of the Dying Process by Wesley Burwell

Once for each thing. Just once; no more.
And we too, just once. And never again.

There are spiritual benefits available to each of us in our dying process if we want to claim them. It all depends on whether we want to intentionally live our lives, up to whatever fullness is possible, or choose instead a living death.

Nancy Wood, a poet who lives at Taos Pueblo uses the four seasons of the year as her image in talking about death:

You shall ask
What good are dead leaves
And I will tell you
They nourish the sore earth.
You shall ask
What reason is there for winter
And I will tell you
To bring about new leaves.
You shall ask
Why are the leaves so green
And I will tell you
Because they are rich with life.
You shall ask
Why must summer end
And I will tell you
So that the leaves can die.

“What good are dead leaves?” “They nourish the sore earth.” Life goes on, dying and living, two phases of one process.

Living and dying are not two separate processes; they are both at work in us together at the same time – at both the cellular level and the spiritual level. While we don’t have much control over the processes themselves, we do have considerable choice about how we are going to react to living and dying and what meaning we choose to make of it.

The process of living is a process of building up connections: connections to others, connections to our own way of being in the world, connections to our own body and the world of nature, connections that when they are all put together constitute the meaning we make out of life. In each stage of our life — from childhood to elderhood — we work hard to make these connections. And just when we begin to feel comfortable with what we have built, it all begins to fall apart.

We may be reacting to something in the familiar old way, when we notice that there is something about our response that doesn’t quite fit. Later on we respond to the familiar situation in the same old way again, and this time it is even less appropriate. What is going on here? What is wrong with me? Other ways of being and responding begin to fall apart. We feel confused. We descend into chaos. What worked so well yesterday when we were 12 years old, is not working today when we’ve turned 13 — something about hormones, they say, and growth spurts and hair growing in strange places. Something is dying. Something is out of control. We’re losing the comfortable connections we worked so hard to put together. And we suffer because of those losses.

And sometimes in the midst of our suffering, we choose what the sacred scriptures of the ancient Mayan culture called the Way of the Worm. We just don’t want to hurt anymore. We’re tired of being confused. We slither and slide and crawl around the pain. We’d do anything to feel better.

The alternative is to choose the Way of the Cougar. We face the darkness within us, wrestle with the conflicting shadows and turbulent energies. We try to figure out what kind of person we want to be. We make mistakes but discover what we don’t want. We try again. And gradually, what at first had felt as scary as the Devil turns out to be an Angel. Like Jacob who refused to give up the struggle until he was given a blessing, we emerge from the darkness chastened, but with new strength, new purpose and maybe even with a new name.

The suffering of dying is inevitable. It can come in the form of physical pain, and it can come in the form of spiritual pain. It can take the shape of losing one’s independence, after spending a lifetime of gradually winning a modicum of control over one’s own life. The deepest human suffering is seen, as a person realizes that he or she is losing the connection to all of the attachments of a lifetime, from the smell of morning coffee, to the intimate sharing with a spouse, to the graduation of a granddaughter from college. Suffering can be seen in the fear of anticipation as everything in the known world dissolves and begins to disappear exposing the great darkness of the radically unknown. These are the inevitable sufferings that death thrusts upon us.

The great religions suggest ways we can begin our preparation for death through practices of reflection, contemplation and meditation, approaching death directly rather than denying its reality. A Tibetan monk was asked why he spent so much time contemplating death. He responded, “I practice dying so I will know how to live.” This has been the attitude of all religious contemplatives and mystics, regardless of their specific religious traditions.

But in addition to the inevitable suffering that accompanies dying, there are other things which people commonly suffer, which may divert them from the more important work of attending to the inevitable suffering. These are really unnecessary sufferings because they can usually be taken care of long before the time of receiving a terminal diagnosis. Unnecessary Suffering is sometimes caused by a simple lack of knowledge. I continue to be surprised to find people who do not know about hospice, what it is and what it provides for services.

Many people may also endure physical and emotional pain because they do not realize that most pain can be controlled by competent management of medications.

Perhaps the most tragic of unnecessary sufferings concerns broken relationships and the failure to have made some reconciliation or to have come to an acceptance that reconciliation is not possible in this life. In hospice work, life review with patients sometimes reveals painful unfinished business with parents, siblings, children, or former friends. For years people have carried the anguish of resentments and betrayals. Sometimes they are not open to any attempt at reconciliation but still carry the anger and hurt as though the rupture happened yesterday. It may be possible to help them talk about it and consciously decide to accept the end of that relationship and lay down the burden they have been carrying.

In other situations reconciliation may be possible and can be facilitated by bringing the people together face to face, by phone, or if one has died, by making emotional contact and asking forgiveness and offering it in return. Would that each of us might do a periodic review of our relationships, attend to any unfinished business, exchanging forgiveness where necessary, and set our spirit free from guilt and resentment. Anyone who has worked with the dying has seen instances where unresolved relationships have prolonged the dying process and made it more difficult.

So there is an inevitable suffering that any loss brings, including death. No matter what the loss and when it happens in life, we are forced to work through the painful process of letting go and moving on to begin to live without what had been such an integral part of our lives. And there is the unnecessary suffering brought about by:

The more we understand dying and living as the two parallel processes that constitute life, the more we will do the necessary work of grief and suffering, throughout the life span, as we experience recurring losses. The more practiced we become in dealing with the “little deaths” as they come to us, the more ready and able we will be to face into the inevitable suffering of the “big death”. If we have done our grief work at each life stage, we will be less encumbered with ungrieved loss and freer to give our energy to the inevitable suffering that comes with the physical death of our bodies. But suffering is never easy and it is always an open question whether we can marshal the inner resources to let go of everything we have ever held on to.

Most people find, at least in the “little deaths” that happen throughout life, that slowly, almost imperceptibly, they find themselves moving. Not that they get over it or out of it. But rather they learn to live with it. They learn how to breathe again. They learn how to move again. They learn how to see again. So that on this side of the “big death,” in the lesser deaths that we all have experienced, most people survive.

And many people do more than survive. Something happens to them in the process of letting go that transforms the suffering. For some it’s a quietness that comes over them in the midst of stormy grief. Perhaps that is what is meant by the biblical promise of “the peace that passes understanding.” For some who have cared for a loved one in their dying, I’ve heard them say that it was the hardest and most painful thing they have ever done. And they go on to say they would not want to have missed it. They feel somehow enriched by it, as though they had touched something in themselves and the other that was more enduringly real than death; almost as though they had been standing so close to the edge of this life that they could see through the veil and catch a glimpse of the next life.

So most survive grief’s suffering and for many there is some kind of alchemy that transforms the suffering into a profound and meaningful experience that both enriches and deepens their life.

Those who survive a great grief deserve to take pride in their achievement. Indeed, they have followed the Way of the Cougar. Those who have found their suffering transformed into great meaningfulness, understandably feel gratitude for having received an unexpected gift and blessing. There is yet one further possibility that I have seen happen for some. And that is that the suffering is not only transformed but is transcended. The suffering itself becomes the source of healing for others and fulfillment for oneself.

You’ve seen people whose suffering has given them a special sensitivity which they use to help and heal others who suffer. It’s as though they have become part of the healing energy of the universe — the archetype of the Wounded Healer whose purpose in life is to share this healing energy with those who need it.

I have taken the title of this essay from the poem (to the right) by the German poet Rilke. In his suffering and feeling small he cries out to God and asks him to enter into his pain to transform it. And then in one of the most daring lines in all literature Rilke offers God the opportunity to come to dwell within him in order to learn what human suffering feels like.

The mystics in all religions have seen union with the Divine as the spiritual goal of human consciousness. One of the early Christian mystics is quoted as saying, “God became human so that humans might become Divine.” Rilke saw the purpose of human life as collaboration with God in expanding the knowledge and wisdom of the universe: “Inside human beings is where God learns,” is the way he put it in another poem, "Just As The Winged Energy of Delight."

Surviving the suffering of letting go of all the things we have held on to is an important achievement. More important is the transformation of suffering into the wisdom that enables us to place our trust in God rather than in things — any things. And most important is the transcendence of suffering in which the Wounded Healers collaborate with God in the healing of the universe.

Once for each thing. Just once; no more.
And we too, just once. And never again.
But to have been this once: to have been
at one with the earth,
seems beyond undoing.