Shades of Being
From the Wayfarer Archive, 2013
The doctors and Tibetan monk gather at the end of my bed, their urgent words, whispered, not to worry. Above them, a cloud-like substance floats just below the ceiling like a dark, depressive halo, edges lower and lower. I study it, wonder what it is and the answer comes immediately. Grief. It is their grief. And it hangs unhappily over their heads, waits to descend. I know now. I know that I am dying.
The monk comes to take my hand, his smooth palms puffed like new baby softness. Maroon robes waft spiced spiritual scents, smells that hold me, keep me present. He fumbles in his shirt front, offers me a handkerchief. I shake my head no, as I should have done three days ago.
We were part of a group retracing Siddhartha Gotama’s footsteps to Bodhgaya in Bihar. One of the poorest states in India, one of the most sacred, the Prince spent seven weeks seated beneath a Bodhi tree absorbed in contemplative meditation, rising from his reverie a fully enlightened Buddha.
We traveled choked in dust, bandanas wrapped around our mouths and noses, our coach caught in a convoy of trucks that broke down, one after the other, after the other, traffic trailing a in long patient line behind us. Exhausted, we stopped for food.
The monk offered his plate of raw white radish, fresh cut tomato. Religious etiquette has taught me to accept what is offered by ordained Sangha. Unthinking him and me in that instant, when the uncooked fruit burst through my mouth, bittersweet.
Later, when I looked over the balcony to where kitchen boys worked the restaurants roadside trade, I acknowledged our thoughtlessness. A teenage boy squatted barefoot beside a bucket of black water. Clothes sizes too big hung from his slight frame. He saturated a filthy rag, stood, and wiped over a counter where food was being prepared.
I kept knowledge of our error, the boy’s dirty act, quiet not to burden, a silence that festered known and unknown, deep in my gut.
In Bodhgaya that evening, nothing but the present mattered. Sunset descended in tones. A huge hand emptied a paint palette across the horizon, played about. Pastel finger streaks of mauve-pink and violet-blue, splayed across the sky. A tranquil calm draped over the village in heaven-time folds, peace palpable as the earth exhaled.
We spent time in the shadows of Mahabodhi Temple, seated as the Buddha had, the green sheltered grounds awash in maroon and yellow, as Tibetan monks and lay practitioners, prostrated in their hundreds. Under the Bodhi tree, dappled in scented shadow, air flowed thick and heavy. Prayers and chants and muted laughter mingled to the soft, repetitive click of stone beads, floral and fruit and herbal scents, pungent and warm sweet.
I was the only Buddhist in our group, apart from the monk. There was a moment in the Temple interior, crowded with sweat and reverence, when our eyes met, the extent of our spiritual privilege, mirrored in the other.
Now, in this humble hospital cell, I grieve silently for what the monk may eventually realize - the deadliness of his gentle offering, extended with such quiet and generous humility. For the burden of a truth that will bow him low before his masters, those that teach the transitory nature of existence, impermanent, ever-changing. Truths that hover, present and real, unspoken in this room.
Life ebbs in subtle seconds. I can no longer feel my arms, the needles sharp metal tip repeating at my veins. A doctor bends close, blinks. The tips of her lashes brush her eyebrows. A long plait falls over her shoulder, lies curled along the white sheet like a shiny black snake. Tension pulls at her face, casts deep dark shadows beneath her beautiful eyes.
Someone’s breath soft and warm in my ear, “Do you want us to call your family?” Speech remains as thought only, unformed in my mouth as my consciousness, permeable, fluid, readies itself for flight. I turn away - there’s no point worrying them yet, there’s nothing they can do. To know would only cause them undue suffering.
I see them now - my husband and children, know the difficulty they will have accepting my death. The raw shock of it, their devastation. The pain and grief they will go through, not being here with me at this most crucial of moments.
But I know also that once their grief is unfettered from the emotion, and clarity has instilled itself in their minds once more, they will realize as I realize, that I could not have died in a more significant, more spiritually appropriate place. I am in sacred Sarnath, just along the road from the Deer Park where the Buddha first turned the wheel of the Dharma. For a Buddhist, there is no better place to die. This realization, the knowledge that comes with it, brings a great, comforting, inner peace.
I visualize Green Tara, mentally construct the deities form, breathe her protective mantra deep into my lungs, hold on to the sacred syllables for a long, slow while, expel them gently through my nose.
Our teachers continually remind us that the enlightened qualities these beings possess are not removed from us. They are inherent within. Visualizing Buddha’s such as Tara allows us to stimulate and activate specific qualities attributed to them, tap into this inner source when the need arises. Now, the potency of doing so is immediately apparent. I feel the deity’s presence start to fill me with a strength I thought long past.
I close my eyes, sink into her mantra and when I open them sometime later, the monk is the only one left in the room. He sits on a warped wooden chair in deep meditation, face free of all concern. Behind his head, tired paint peels in thin grey shards. Still he sits beatified.
He senses I’m awake, opens his eyes, moves quickly from his chair, concern etched hard on his face now, “No need for worry, everything is being done to help you, everything possible, so don’t worry.”
I need to ease his fear, but it’s still so hard to talk. I breathe deep and air comes, clean and temple tinged, flows and fills my lungs, forms and floats my words, “I’m fine, believe me. I’m at peace. This place…I am blessed to be here. You know this. You understand.”
He nods his head slightly. But he still looks worried and confused now, lost to me somehow. Caught by the magnitude of the moment. And it fixes me. It fixes me more firmly to my physical self.
Energy comes now from somewhere beyond, rushes back into my body, a sparking pulsing charge so that I grab his arm, pull him close, breathe in his ear. “Should I not survive this, please do phowa.”
Phowa practices are conducted by Tibetan Buddhist teachers who have been specifically trained to help people at the time of death. Different rituals, ceremonies and prayers are conducted over a 49 day period. Prior to, during and after death the consciousness is continually informed, advised and guided. Everything that can be done, will be done to make this transition as smooth, peaceful as possible.
For Buddhists, every moment is an opportunity for practice. Death is no exception, is seen as yet another opportunity for deepening ones spiritual practice and growth, is treated and treasured as such.
One’s mental state at this time, is paramount, for it is only the physical body that dies, the consciousness continues on, journeying through various stages or bardos until its next incarnation. If the mind is unsettled or agitated, grasping to life, clinging to memories, transition can be fraught with difficulty. But if the mind is calm and at peace, able on passing to recognize its luminous clear light nature when that crucial moment becomes evident, then even at death there is opportunity for enlightenment, for great spiritual advancement.
Should I not survive this, it is important to me that phowa practice is done. Knowing there will be a teacher close to assist my consciousness as it begins the next stage of its evolution, is a great comfort.
I know the monk will honor my request. But I don’t cling or grasp at that want now. If my karma is favorable, my request will be fulfilled. If not, then it is out of my hands.
I am happy and blessed to die in the shadow of Sarnath stupa, where the Buddha taught all those centuries ago. Ancient wisdoms which have informed, shaped my life. Now my death. The merit I have already incurred, that has led me to this sacred place, what will incur from this point on, is more than enough.
My request for the phowa ushers forth the monks understanding again. I see it in his eyes. A subtle shift, a remembering - our spiritual place, his and mine, here and now and other. He nods, smiles, his voice calm, “Of course, of course …but please, have no concern. Just rest. Rest.”
I look into him, know his goodness, and it fills me with a surging strength of love I cant define - not of this world almost. A powerful surging joy infuses my being. An elation that springs, fills me with a feeling of boundless energy, ripens over my face.
I tell him then, tell him why I’m not concerned - not at all. I tell him I have no fear. That this is what I have worked towards, what our teachings prepare us for. If I cannot put my practice into action now, then what has it all been for? What good fortune I have, to be here in this holy place, at this most tenuous, most sacred of times.
That I am blessed too, by his presence, here with me now.
Sharon Landeg received a B.A in English Literature and a B.A. Hons in Asian Studies from the University of Tasmania in Australia. She lives in Queensland, is currently enrolled as a corresponding student with The New Seminary in NYC and will be ordained in Interfaith ministry in 2014. Sharon has had poetry published in Australia in the Famous Reporter Literary Journal. This is the first time her prose has been published.