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Liberation through Contact
Upon the death of loved ones we often notice
a transparency in the borders that normally seem to separate the spheres
of existence. Their favorite unusual bird may hover in the vicinity
of the living; their mirror may slide from its hook to the floor. I
am one of many siblings and the first of us to die was not quite forty.
After my brother Tom’s funeral in early 1999, I deeply missed
our sensory contact, and wished for it aloud. Between that evening and
next morning three epiphenomenal electrical events occurred in my motel
room, including a recurrent blinking light on the telephone’s
message button. I would raise the receiver, call for my message, listen
to the silence, and then hear the recording “your message has
been received.” Tom had lost his life but not his sense of humor.
After death, it is as though the energy contained in one body has been
released for the awareness of all beings. The two triangles that form
the symbol of the Dharmodaya are one.
During the June 2002 retreat in New York City, Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche
reminded us that when placed on the dying, tag drol creates a cause
for their joining the Dzogchen path. Tag drol means liberation through
contact, through touch. Some years ago, at the end of a Ganapuja held
before he departed from New York following treatment for leukemia, Rinpoche
gave a tag drol to each of those present, a miniature paper mandala
on which are inscribed hundreds of empowered mantras. He also gave each
of us a packet of powder called chin lab, meaning ocean waves of the
blessings of the teachings, the empowering energy of the lineage. The
powder is made of things from Rinpoche’s own teachers. He taught
us that these two objects are especially helpful for the dying. Placed
on the head, they connect the person with enlightenment here in the
Nirmanakaya.
I have had several occasions to use the gifts that Norbu gave us for
those in need, and one of these was as my brother moved toward death.
He had been ill for seven years. Following his last, and merely palliative,
surgery for ogliodendroglioma he was discharged, upon his prior request,
to rejoin his wife and children, to die at home. He had been in coma
about ten days, and the surgeon would give my sister-in-law medications
for only 48 hours since in his view that was more than enough. It was
a somber gathering of family and siblings who had traveled long distances;
at bedtime I took the first watch.
I placed the tag drol and a bit of the chin lab on Tommy’s head
and then a large chunk of crystal from Tibet on his chest, of the type
known as self-healing because of the way it was formed. I told him what
I was doing, where he was, what had happened. I talked about how much
love surrounded us, and that whichever way he chose to go was okay.
Feeling my own emotions and those of the sleeping household, I took
a long time with these prayers for all of our letting go. Then I settled
into my chair. I felt like putting the blanket that draped my shoulders
over my head. It was winter. It was dark.
Of the eight siblings, Tom got the blue eyes. Two hours later I looked
up to see those eyes staring at me, with expression. ‘Mary,’
he whispered urgently, ‘I have to go.’ ‘You have to
go?’ I said, from the realm of grieving metaphor. ‘Yeah.
I’m thirsty. And I have to go!!!’ ‘It’s okay,’
I said, realizing what he meant, ‘just go. You’re catheterized.’
For perhaps half an hour I could see consciousness reassemble in his
eyes, in his face, as we talked. At one point I asked where he had been
during those days in coma. ‘I was in God’s heart,’
he said; then after a pause, ‘I was in God’s belly.’
For three weeks a miracle unfolded. With the use of only his face and
one hand free of bodily paralysis, he dispensed love, comedy, memory
to those present. One day his wife, who is a nurse, took him to a hospital
for rehydration. They insisted on an MRI as well, and declared (a bit
huffily, according to Marie) the man should not be alive, as his breathing
reflex had been destroyed in the surgery that had taken place next to
the brain stem. Tom made it though the Christmas holidays and his son’s
thirteenth birthday before moving on.
‘Most important is not [that] you are integrating in a calm state.
That is easy. For everybody. Most important is you are integrating with
movement. Then you are educated. You can integrate more in daily life.’
These words are among my notes from Norbu Rinpoche’s teachings
in New York City on Friday, the day before he transmitted the lung of
many practices, communicating their syllable in the ear of his students.
A retreat increases the capacity of our practice; our challenge when
retreat is over is to apply the teachings. On Sunday, both humorous
and poignant in tracing the possible foibles of our intentions, Rinpoche
prepared uss for reentry to our daily lives: ‘In our idea….how
I like this practice and one day I will do. But that famous one day….Our
lives are very busy. And so pass months, years.’
Being with the dying has brought me moments beyond measure. But measure
applies to every moment I am living, when time and obligations seem
so pressing. The day for practice is today, for I may never see another.
Like malas and thankgas and other sacred objects used in our practice,
tag drol and chin lab help to increase awareness of our intention and
our circumstance. Life is not infinite, but it is boundless.
first published in The Mirror, 2002
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