Q1-19990217-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_5-43037 Leandra Tejedor

Talk: 19990217-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-shining_the_light_of_death_on_life_part_5-43037 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 01:09:16 Display_question: How do I help my son be less fearful of someone who is dying? Keyword_search: illness, death, fear, meditating, wisdom, concentration, anxiety, clarity, calm, reaction, response, intimate, father, Alzheimer’s, Nathan, perception, dharma, helpless Question_content: Questioner: Actually, I have two questions. Larry: No, it's okay, I give the same answer to all questions. I do. So, what are you going to have 20 questions? Questioner: My question has to do with being with someone who's very, very ill. He may be dying. Larry: Yes. Questioner: (inaudible) And I’ve had association with this type of journey. And it’s my son who is very afraid…. Larry: But yes, but you want some kind of miracle. Questioner: No. It’s not that I want him to be better…. Larry: I mean, if he's not meditating, he can't make use of these things. Now, I want to qualify that a little bit because you could give a person verbal wisdom. There's a certain amount of wisdom that is possible with any level of concentration. The person doesn't have to have a strong samadhi, or anything of that sort. So sometimes, if you can talk to him in a way that expresses your wisdom, your understanding, but you can't give him anything that you don't have, and he can't do something that he can't do. I mean, I get asked this all the time. In fact, I get asked more about what I can do for someone else, than I do about what I can do for myself. Break_line: If it were that easy, none of us would have to learn how to meditate. We just pay a few people to meditate, and then just tell, when I get sick, take care of me. But here are a few things that you can do. One is, and I think you know this because I think you've asked this in a different form, right? Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm cursed with a good memory. If you see the anxiety that you have. In other words, if you're aware of it, the apprehension, or the frustration, or the sadness, because you realize that what's happening to him, and how he's taking it, and if you can practice with that, then some of that will weaken, or even fall away. Then there's a space of some clarity, some calm. And you have a better chance of, when you're with him, for the quality of how you're with him being, much more helpful. It will be more of a response than a reaction. Otherwise, it tends to be kind of a reaction, where we say the right things, oh, don't worry, or you'll get better, or whatever it is, to make the person feel good. Break_line: Now, you may even say the same words, once the mind is clear, but they're different. It's like you're more intimate with the situation. It's fresh. It's a response that it's not just a mechanical reaction, that comes from the old mind, about illness. So again, if you take care of yourself… there's another aspect that actually can be of some help. Does his disease have a name? Break_line: Okay. Often, we have a diagnostic label that we put on the person, because society has, and the person has come, to take it on, as an identity. And so, have we done that. And when you have that, and to some degree, are treating the person that way, in a certain way, you're an accomplice, to his problem. Your kind of digging him deeper, and deeper, into that kind of identity. If you can dissolve it in yourself, and just be with a person who has suffering. It's not that you don't know what his ailment is, because some of that colors what you see. So that we have a definition, and the outcome. Break_line: I'll give you a concrete example, happened with my father, and myself. My father had something like Alzheimer's. They didn't know exactly what it was, but it was in that family. And he finally had to be moved to a nursing home. And for a number of months, when I visited him, often I thought of my father, who has Alzheimer's. And that word kept being used by the nurses, by the doctors, by the family. And at a certain point I realized, it was a bit of a filter, sort of, I was seeing, not my dad, but I was seeing my dad, the Alzheimer's patient. I have to communicate. The words are not adequate. And once I let go of that, I was just able to make just contact with him, as he was, without a label. I didn't realize. There are a lot of suppositions, and assumptions, and ways in which how we name somebody, influences even the process of perception. Okay, once I stopped that, I was enjoying him much more. Which, of course, helped him. Break_line: For example, he had a very good sense of humor, when he had his full faculties. But even when he had Alzheimer's, he didn't lose his sense of humor. But sometimes no one else could get it. I mean, he'd be saying things, and he would laugh. He enjoyed his humor. We didn't know what he was talking about. Okay, now, if you have him categorized as, Nathan the Alzheimer's patient, we kind of laughed (haha) because we couldn't make any sense out of it. Once I dropped it. Who cares if I don't understand? He's having a good time. I just had a good time too. I just laughed. I didn't have a clue as to what was funny about it, but so what? And we had a good time, father, and son. Do you see what I'm getting at? Break_line: Now, I don't mean to make that into a formula, but this might open up some more creative ways for you to relate to him, that come from clarity. But I don't think you can…and verbally. If you can talk to him in ways that have some wisdom, based on your own experience, as much as you've learned from Dharma practice. Ways of helping him to conceive of what's happening to him, that even if it's only cognitive, or intellectual, that maybe are more realistic, more natural, that may be a little more soothing, that can be helpful. These reflections are just thinking. Everyone is of the nature to grow ill. There are no exceptions. It's inevitable. I don't mean to give him that. But you would put together words, in your own words, that draw upon your wisdom. You have wisdom. We all do. It's innate, and it's obscured, but you see what I'm getting at. Break_line: But other than that, maybe there's some transmission, and it's also learning for you to live with the frustration, of being helpless. That there's…this is an important one, you don't own life, your own, or his. You can't even control your own body, and your own mind. So, what are you going to do to someone else's? You have to get comfortable with that. You'll be much more relaxed with him. End_time: 01:16:21