Lessons from Hospice

As a person still thriving while living with a lung disease after being diagnosed 5 years ago with end-stage pulmonary fibrosis and sent home to prepare to die, I now lead patient support groups and wrote a book on the simple life changes I made to recover and live an active life in spite of lung disease. My YouTube channel connects me with patients around the world seeking answers to many questions. A current hospice patient reached out to me for some ideas on the end that he is nearing and here’s my response:

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Having studied and practiced Christianity in various flavors as well as new age spiritual paths, and eastern religions and spiritual paths, I have reached a place that I’m very comfortable and at complete peace with the prospect of the physical death of the body.  I have over 40 years of meditation and daily practice getting in touch with my deepest core self that is unchanged, permanent and eternal. 

With all of my exploration, I have arrived at a place that is termed “non duality”. One of my favorite authors and speakers on non duality and the description of how we can wake up to that awareness is Rupert Spira. His YouTube talks, and his books are not a path to follow, but simply pointers that point the way to know our deepest core being that we find we have already known all along. Two of the most enjoyable times of my day are my meditations  on this awareness, and the rest of my days are filled with many moments of clarity and amusement at what many call the “mystery” of life.  I call these moments “vertical interventions of eternity on the horizontal timeline.” Moments where I experience a very simple peace and joy. 

These are moments when I recognize that I am still the same core, deep presence and awareness that I have always been. And that part of me is formless and unchanging. While life has a fullness of rich experiences that we consider good or bad, things that change our mind and our body and leave us with some scars and stronger muscles, wiser, etc, these feelings and experiences are fleeting and temporary. Experience is like a cloud in the sky, constantly changing and never staying the same for even a split second. However, my permanent core being is unchanged by experience, is not harmed, and not aggrandized by experience.  This Knowing of who I am brings immense strength, peace, and indescribable joy. Furthermore, this knowing and awareness brings the awakening that I am not a separate being in any way. That’s the meaning of non-duality, it is the oneness of everything at its essence. 

I also have done the specific meditations of the Buddhists that are a meditation on one’s own death. It’s like going to sleep in a cozy place where you are completely comfortable. I have no doubt that the moment when this physical body dies will be a moment of bliss. I have experienced it in meditation many times. There is a measure of fearlessness that comes as a result. 

As far as the practicality of the final stages of the physical death, I enjoyed hospice where patients were at home, made comfortable, and simply passed whether they were alone or surrounded by family. The doula training simply helps hospice workers to comfortably discuss these things with a person who is terminal so that they can become comfortable with their plan for passing on from the physical body. 

Birth into this physical life begins with an inhalation, and after about  700 million breaths it ends with an exhalation. The beginning and end are both completely personal and alone no matter how many people surround the birth or death bed. 

If the conditions of the physical body are rapidly deteriorating and difficult to keep a person comfortable during that time, I have known people who followed the method of VSED. Which is voluntarily stopping eating and drinking and is a choice made by patients since medical practitioners nor family can or should be allowed to end a life or provide a means for a person to end their life. At the same time, they should not be allowed to force feed a person to sustain life.

While I feel amazingly healthy and strong at this point in my life there may come a time when, through calamity or disease, I am incapacitated and incapable of making decisions nor recovering. For that reason, I have a non-intubation policy and a do not resuscitate order in place. 

I recommend Rupert Spira’s talks on YouTube and a couple of his books if you have further interest in exploration. 

Lee