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Helping The Dying

I have had no experience with death and dying. My grandparents and a
few other friends and relatives died in my lifetime but I was too
young and not skillful enough to help them at the times of their
deaths.

The content of this article has been sourced from the Tibetan book on
Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. This is a modern classic and
introduces the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in a way which can be
applied in our modern, westernized world. The chapter titled Heart
Advice on Helping the Dying is itself worth 50 times the cost of the
book. To obtain your copy please click on the link above.

A dying person at the time of death is in such a situation that he or
she is leaving behind all that he has clung to and been familiar with
all his life. Wealth, fame, prestige, family, friends, power all is
being left behind. Rinpoche asks us to put ourselves in the place of
the person who is dying at the time of death. He asks us to imagine
ourselves on an ocean-liner or a journey to the unknown. You have no
choice in the matter, the ship is already on its way out and our
friends and family are on the shore to wish us goodbye. What would we
want from our friends who had come to see us off in that situation?
Remember you can never come back and that you have no choice – you
have to leave. With a little use of the imagination we will be in a
better position to help the person at the time of death and dying.

Sogyal Rinpoche gives a lot of important advice. I have attempted to
summarize some important points in this article. For more detailed
help please read his book.

1. At the time of death and dying give the person room to express her
feelings. Allow her to express any and all her feelings. The dying
person feels fear, panic, grief, rage, in different proportions. By
allowing her to express those feelings by empathizing with them we can
offer immeasurable help.

2. Give the suffering person permission to die. Rinpoche speaks of
persons whom he had met or heard of who were approaching death and
were dying. But they were burdened by their responsibilities, by the
fact that their family depended on them. Sogyal Rinpoche says that
many dying persons refused to let go and suffered many weeks of
suffering and agony. By giving such a person permission to die his
family would make his passage much easier.

3. Establish trust and open communication; be yourself. Your job is to
behave naturally and let the person open up. Use humor skillfully in
such situations. This will establish better communication.

4. Do not interrupt, deny or diminish the person’s feelings. At the
time of death the dying person needs to feel and express his feelings.
This is the way he can be free of

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