Equanimity At The End, My Mother's Last Teaching

The intention was to start unpacking equanimity slowly, from the beginning, starting with today's Wake Up Call. However, that's not what happened. Instead, events overtook me and I ended up writing about what I learned from my mom about equanimity at the end of life. It's a stretch to share but it's what I've got. And who knows? Maybe it'll end up being an interesting beginning to equanimity after all. Happy listening.

Transcript

Welcome to the wake up call everyone.

This is Judy Cohen.

This is the wake up call 293.

And today's call is equanimity at the end.

Or my mother's last teaching.

So my mom,

I'm going to talk about my mom today.

My mom wasn't a words of wisdom kind of mom.

She wasn't also like the hugs and snuggles kind of mom.

She was kind of a whirlwind.

She was a force.

And yesterday was the first anniversary of her death.

She chose the date March 17th,

2020.

We're Jewish,

We're not Irish.

So didn't have anything to do with St.

Patty's Day.

And of course,

She had no way of knowing what 2020 would bring.

Although we did go into lockdown in San Francisco that day.

But she just knew she was done.

Her name was Carol.

She grew up in San Francisco.

Her father,

My grandfather was a lawyer.

He went to Berkeley,

Where I teach.

I kind of wonder what he would have thought of my mindfulness for the legal mind class.

I imagine him with a scotch and water in his chair in the den with the news on,

Trying to understand what those words even mean.

My mom suffered from poor health from the time she was a baby.

Her illnesses were pretty serious.

Sometimes they were pretty debilitating.

She was allergic to almost all the foods,

Almost all the fabrics,

Many environments.

She had chronic,

Pretty serious asthma.

And for 40 years,

She also carried around almost 80 pounds of extra weight on a really tiny frame.

And she considered her illnesses to be her adversaries and she fought them like,

You know,

Like the hundred year war.

She was a fighter in all ways.

And yet despite that,

She was determined to do everything,

Learn everything,

Taste everything,

Visit every great city,

See all the art,

Hear all the symphonies and leave,

Basically leave no stone unturned.

When she was first diagnosed with heart failure,

It seemed like she had time,

She kept traveling,

She kept going out for Thai food or Indian food.

Most nights she took care of her.

Most nights she took care of my nephew.

She was one of my daughter's best friends.

And you know,

In this practice of mindfulness,

We talk a lot about the breath,

We practice with the breath and we do that because the breath is always there.

It's kind of rhythmic.

It's interesting.

It's a good anchor.

It's a good home base.

But because one of my mom's lifelong adversaries was asthma,

And even though during the last few years of her life,

She practiced a little mindfulness,

She had a kind of adversarial relationship to her breath.

She was accustomed to struggling for air.

It terrified her and she hated it,

But she knew her enemy.

She knew what to expect.

And then heart failure came along and with heart failure,

You know,

The heart can't pump enough oxygen and no matter how hard you try,

You can't get enough air.

So it's different from an asthma attack,

Which at least if you get help,

It will end almost all the time.

My mom struggled to breathe with heart failure.

You know,

That only goes in one direction.

Slowly,

Her heart started to give out.

And then about 13 months ago,

She went and got her nails done and she tried to go to her favorite shop,

Which was next door right after,

And she couldn't make it.

She didn't have the breath.

She had her walker.

She didn't have the breath to get from one doorway to the next.

And she'd spent her whole life feeling this kind of betrayal by her own body and feeling angry about that and feeling betrayed by the anger itself,

Which tended to dog her and feeling angry about that.

And I guess,

You know,

Anger does this.

The Dalai Lama says it does.

He says,

Anger chases all happiness away and makes even the most peaceful features turn livid and ugly.

It upsets our physical equilibrium,

Disturbs our rest,

Destroys our appetite,

Makes us age prematurely.

Happiness,

Peace and sleep evade us,

And we can no longer appreciate people who have helped us and deserve our trust and gratitude.

Under the influence of anger,

Someone of normally good character changes completely and can no longer be counted on.

Anger leads both oneself and others to ruin.

But anyone who puts their energy into destroying anger will be happy in this life and in lives to come.

I don't know if my mom ever saw this,

But a few weeks before her death,

She revealed something to me that I'd known and my brother had known,

But neither of us had known that she'd known.

And she told me,

I've been angry my whole life.

But then she added something she said,

And I don't want to die angry.

So for a while,

I would drop hints about loving kindness,

Hoping my mom would,

You know,

Shine a little light on herself.

And,

You know,

Leave books behind in her apartment about self-compassion and compassion and hoping she'd reach for a little of that.

But in the end,

Loving kindness,

Compassion,

The third Brahma Vihara that we've been looking at,

Sympathetic joy,

Those weren't really so much what showed up.

In the end,

My mom kind of leapfrogged over all three and went straight to equanimity.

And I said last week that equanimity is both taking the long view,

Which is a translation of one Pali word,

Upekka,

And that it's also standing in the middle of things or standing in the fire of things,

Which is a translation of another Pali word,

Tatramajahatate.

And when that day came that my mom couldn't walk next door from the nail salon to the shop,

I think she did both.

Yeah,

She looked out with the long view on her privileged life as a white woman,

Well-educated for her generation,

Brought up in a beautiful city,

Wanting for nothing,

Surrounded by art and good food and family and friends.

And then she looked down on the battlefield at the armies that were gathering,

And she saw death at the end.

And although she had been so fierce and so angry for so long,

She did what the great Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah said to do.

She let go completely for complete peace.

She just dropped the anger.

You know,

Like that hot coal in the hand,

She just turned her hand over and dropped it.

She took that longest of long views and she decided she wasn't taking it with her.

And then with barely enough breath to stand up,

She stood up and she located herself in the present moment of her 81 years and her literally broken heart.

And she stood in the middle of that,

And she was just standing there in the middle of that,

And she stood in the middle of that,

You know,

In the fire of that,

And she was done with anger in the present moment too.

And then she said her goodbyes and we weren't super happy about her decision,

But she stood in the fire of that and she stopped her medicines.

And then she began to smile in a way that none of us could really remember.

And on the morning of March 17th,

2020,

A year ago yesterday,

She let go completely.

And from where I was sitting on the bed with her,

It really seemed like complete peace.

So that's how I learned what equanimity can look like at the end of a life.

That was my mom's final teaching to me.

It was more valuable than the pearl necklace and everything else put together.

And,

You know,

Maybe some of you have this lesson and you learned it this way as well from someone who's dying and who's not,

And you're not learning it this way as well from someone who's dying and who's also at peace.

And so you received this transmission as well.

I hope so.

Or that you will,

That all of us will,

Maybe that this story is helpful.

So let's say,

I'm hoping for all of us that none of us are having to learn this particular lesson right now in our lives,

But we can start together at the beginning with just the investigation of what's here right now and being at peace with that.

So as you settle in,

See what's present.

And if settledness is here,

Let go into that.

If agitation is here,

Let go into that.

Impatience,

Confusion,

Frustration,

Anger,

Whatever is here,

Whatever arises as you pay attention,

Breath by breath or sound by sound.

Using the breath as an anchor,

If that's supportive,

Using sound as an anchor,

If that's more supportive.

And then let it go.

Noticing what's arising and passing,

Not clinging to anything.

Taking the long view.

And also standing right in the middle of everything.