Hospice reflection

In New York while attending university this past year I had the opportunity to experience many different things which carried me towards a deeper understanding of mortality. I can picture myself using that sentence repeatedly over the course of my life. Regardless, one of the insights I have yet to even sample is the continuous nature of this sense of importance that can be derived, in most, from experiences that shatter the false ground the ego stands on, and in some, deliberately staged sessions intended to remove the stronghold of the ego on one's being. Being here right now, mentally, emotionally, and logically creates this sense of importance, almost a feeling of divine responsibility for your own life. I have been participating in zen meditation on a regular basis since August of 08. My experience with this rich tradition leaves me with a shallow, yet deepening knowledge of the true benefits that undergoing a spiritual practice with dedication can offer. However my impatience causes me much frustration along this path of contemplation. How exactly can I help other people, I often asked myself. Seeing the true obstacle to helping others as a selfish desire towards self-cherishing that the ego fuels through attachment, I began volunteering for Buffalo Hospice.

In case you are not familiar with what the Hospice program is doing all over the world today, I will give a brief introduction to their services. Hospice specializes in end of life care. They offer an incredible variety of services at very low cost or even for free (utilizing volunteers) which help the patient and their family members cope with the experience of death. Some of the services offered to the patient are special visits from volunteer nurses who specialize in narcotic and non-narcotic pain management, help organizing funerals, writing wills, and providing kind and caring volunteers to keep the patients company when their families are not able to be with them. For the family there are many services such as bereavement counseling programs for adults and children and other free counseling services (which are also available to all Hospice volunteers).

I was volunteering as what I now describe as 'a kind ear' or 'a kind attention'. When volunteering I sat by patients, sometimes verbal, sometime non-verbal, and offered merely a kind ear for those who wished to or could speak, or just a kind and non-judgmental attitude and attention for the patient to derive comfort from when the family was not present. I also made my best effort to, in environments such as nursing homes, comfort the visiting family members by sometimes putting a little extra pressure on the nursing home staff to give more attention to a patient in need.

Through my experience I saw only 3 patients, 2 of whose deaths I was informed of within 4 weeks of visiting them. I found myself respectably indifferent emotionally to their deaths, mainly because I found myself in a constant meditation in their presence which left me compassionately wishing them to pass in peace and attain a fortunate rebirth as opposed to being in conflict with their state of being. I was engaged in daily practice when I was volunteering with Buffalo Hospice, which was, what I see now, as the only way I could have remained so objectively focused on the good that can come from death. Families coming together, people being forced by the earthquake that loosenes the ground their egos stand on to contemplate their own lives and future inevitable deaths, and spiritually the possibility for great change and even final liberation. Such things can really lead to growth I believe. The negative, far more omnipresent, aspect of death somehow escaped me throughout my Hospice experience. I felt some depression when I found out my patients had passed however generally found myself practicing for them and finding some kind of peace knowing I might have really helped them.

The most intriguing part of my experience in Hospice was this complete lack of a negative feeling towards death. Death is something, like most people I think, I have lived in fear of for a large part of my life. The end, the final breath, the fear of pain and unnecessary suffering and most importantly the fear of the unknown, all things which plagued my thinking and left me almost every time in a state of panic. I remember when I was younger I managed to cope with this panic by telling myself, "you'll be ready when death comes", or "By the time you will be dying life will have been enough". This however, is not reality. Most people die at unexpected times in tragic illnesses, accidents or acts of violence. Very few people are "ready when death comes", or believe "life has been enough" at the time of their deaths. Looking back on those words that offered me so much comfort in the past I wonder what they have become now? What is internally in me that copes with such existential problems with such ease? My spiritual practice as left me in a state of comfort towards death, at least without the presence of my own death staring at me (this would probably change my perspective towards the negative aspects of death). Further contemplation is the only way to find this jewel, this solution to true existential fear. Without confidence, true confidence, in the infinite nature of your consciousness existential fears will rule your mind at the moment of death.

Ultimately, what I have taken away from these experiences is a deep respect for the work Hospice does. I believe I am humble enough to say when my time for death comes I will feel very unprepared, anxious and emotionally distraught. My spiritual practice will give me some headway on accepting the inevitability of death however the most human thing to do when confronted with death is to reflect on ones life in a way which brings up so many difficult and beautiful emotions and memories. What Hospice offers the human population all over the world is a comprehensive and compassionate way to deal with the unifying human experience of death which always leaves families saying 1 thing "Donate to Hospice".