Chapters 12, 13, and 14 in our book, A Year to Live, describe the dying process in some detail. Chapter 12 focuses on the various beliefs about at what moment do we actually die. Chapter 13 waxes poetic and, in my opinion, makes the topic palatable and even interesting. Chapter 14 is a guided meditation on dying. For me these chapters brought up the idea (accompanied by fear of course) that perhaps I don’t want to “practice” dying. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.
While contemplating this question I remembered a couple of things that I have learned to do and have practiced already and that even though they don’t specifically address “dying” they are related to the practice of dying. One is a yoga practice called shavasana or “corpse pose” a deep relaxation that usually ends a yoga class. And another is called “Yoga Nidra” which is a specific yoga relaxation process, and also mimics a corpse pose.
For many years, I took classes in yoga with various local teachers. My favorite firm of yoga is called “Hatha Yoga.” Most of the teachers were kind, gentle, and soft-spoken. The room was quiet, a comfortable temperature, and not too crowded. At the end of each class, we did shavasana or the “corpse” pose. We lay on our mats, on our backs, with arms and legs gently extended, eyes closed, usually with a blanket over us. And just relaxed. A deep quiet relaxation for several minutes. It was a wonderful way to end an hour of intensive and focused exercise in the various poses.
So what is the corpse pose like for me? It doesn’t really feel as though I am dead, a corpse. And yet, it changes my thinking from the every day bustle of thinking and doing and helps me turn inward towards a calm and peaceful mind and body, ready to slip into a meditative or sleep state.
I don’t think Levine is talking about the dying process in the same way, but maybe it is similar enough to be useful to me and maybe to you as well.
Another practice that yoga introduced to me is called “Yoga Nidra.” I first encountered this process while studying with Anna Wise, a meditation teacher who used a biofeedback sort of technology to help us go deeper into the meditative state. The process of yoga nidra is also done while lying on the back, arms and legs extended gently beside the body, eyes closed, a blanket cover if needed, and the room darkened. Anna would then talk us through a thorough relaxation process, starting with the feet and methodically examining the various parts of the body, from foot to head, and into the head to the center of the brain. It took thirty to forty minutes and at the end, I was usually so relaxed that I was almost asleep.
I do this yoga nidra process now using You Tube. My favorite at the moment is a process recorded by Jon Kabot-Zinn that he calls “Body Scan Meditation.” Kabot-Zinn created a health care system of meditation focusing primarily on relief of chronic pain. He started in a Boston teaching hospital, the method has now spread all over the United States. He correlates the Buddhist approach for physical and mental health to modern medicine. It is powerful stuff. There are many other people on You Tube who offer yoga nidra in various ways. I like some better than others, and I especially like the ones that leave me resting quietly for a few minutes in deep relaxation of body and mind before suggesting that I return to “normal waking consciousness,” a term coined by Robert Monroe in his meditation experiences.
I write about these two processes, the corpse pose and yoga nidra, to offer two ways to practice this kind of relaxation that, it seems to me, Levine is talking about—so that we can, hopefully, enter the dying moment with confidence and awareness because we have previously experienced this kind of letting go without fear.
Chapter 14 offers us a guided meditation focusing on the last breath and the first breath. I decided to record this meditation and play it back for myself. It is another powerful meditation. A little scary but also peaceful, and it was encouraging to note that I didn’t stop breathing—my breath continues to come and go automatically. This, of course, is not what happens when we actually die, but it makes the practice less scary. Can you find a way to do this meditation for yourself?
Levine has another book that I treasure. It is entitled Who Dies? An Investigation of Conscious Living Conscious Dying. (Perhaps we can study that book together next time.) In that book, Levine presents a wonderful description of the dying process from a Buddhist perspective. He describes the dying process in terms of the four elements: earth, water, fire, and air. These are present always, all around and within us. They are essential to all life. These elements go beyond the physical and manifest as personality traits and energetic forces as well. (This is true of all of the ancient religions that I explored, Native American, Egyptian, Hinduism and Buddhism.)
In Levine’s description as we approach death, we first encounter the earth element, i.e., the feeling of the solidity and hardness of the body– the body seems heavier and heavier. It is less flexible and loses its strength and ability to move voluntarily. Peristalsis slows, the bowels no longer move without aid. Then the organs begin to shut down.
The earth element dissolves into the water element. There is a feeling of fluidity. The digestion changes, the dying person wants foods that are less solid, more liquid, such as soups, protein drinks, juices. These are swallowed more easily and digest better, but there is less desire for food of any kind.
The water element begins to dissolve into the fire element. The bodily fluids begin to slow and thicken; the mouth and eyes become dry, circulation slows, blood pressure drops. As the circulation begins to thicken and slow, blood settles in the lower extremities, we see blueness in the fingernails and toenails.
As the fire element dissolves into the air element; the sensations of warmth and cold dissipate, physical comfort and discomfort no longer mean anything to us. The body temperature drops until it reaches a stage where the body begins to cool and becomes pale. Digestion stops.
The air element dissolves into consciousness itself; there is a sense of edgelessness. The out-breath becomes longer than the in-breath. Breathing itself slows; there are gaps between the out- breath and the next in-breath. Consciousness dissolves into space, and there is no longer the experience of bodily form or function but just a sense of vast expanding airiness, a dissolving into pure being.
During the last month of my sister’s life, I noted the changing of the elements as described above. I, of course, did not experience what she was experiencing, and she couldn’t tell me, but I believe I saw the steps Levine described during that month. At the beginning of the month, she was able to stand, take a few steps, and sit in a wheelchair. Soon she could no longer do that and she remained in bed. She then stopped moving herself in bed, and we had to assist her in turning from side to side to protect her delicate skin from breaking down into sores. She ate less and less and moved away from solid foods, preferring soft foods such as scrambled eggs or protein drink or chocolate pudding. Her bowels stopped working properly, and she needed enemas to evacuate. As her mouth got drier, we used moist sponge swabs to wet her lips and tongue. And as she approached the end of her life, her breaths became irregular, then shorter and shorter, lighter and lighter, until they stopped, and she died quietly and peacefully. It was a remarkable and heart-wrenching process to witness − her moving through and letting go of the four elements of life: earth, water, fire, and air.
Levine states that learning to die is learning to dissolve past the holdings of this moment, opening fresh to the next without clinging anywhere. We can do this consciously, in meditation, in intentional awareness of each day, each moment, each breath—learning to let go, to die, to dissolve into the ocean of pure beingness. That is a good reason, it seems to me, to meditate regularly, to explore this “ocean of pure being”, the awareness of awareness, to rest in the quiet, peaceful void. Perhaps, then, dying will not be fearful. Perhaps, it will feel natural, peaceful, loving.
Self Inquiry Questions:
1. How do you respond to this information? Is it new to you?
2. What experience(s) have you had with a dying person? What did it mean to you?
3. Do you feel the need/desire to “practice” dying? If so, how would you do it? If not, why not?
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