Andrew Holecek: The Good Death

In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle's founding editor Helen Tworkov speaks with the Tibetan Buddhist teacher and writer Andrew Holecek about how to prepare for what he calls the “once in a lifetime opportunity” of death and dying. Holecek explains how the practices that ensure a peaceful death are vital to a well-lived life. His latest book is Preparing to Die: Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Tricycle Talks.

I'm James Shaheen,

Editor and publisher of Tricycle the Buddhist Review.

Our guest today is the teacher and author Andrew Holocheck.

Andrew is known for his expertise in Tibetan meditation techniques and dream yoga,

As well as the subject of today's discussion,

Preparing for Death.

Andrew has previously led a tricycle online retreat on death and dying,

And his new book,

Preparing to Die,

Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Perspective,

Expands on the material and provides a comprehensive manual on the dying process.

The book offers a range of subjects from Western preconceptions about death and the spiritual opportunity it offers,

To more practical matters in planning for death.

Tricycle's founding editor,

Helen Torkov,

Joined Andrew at St.

John's University in Collegeville,

Minnesota,

To discuss his new book and other matters of death and life.

Now let's listen to Helen and Andrew.

Hello,

My name is Helen Torkov,

And I am here with Andrew Holocheck,

The author of Preparing to Die,

Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition,

Published last year by Snow Lion.

This is really an amazing book,

An extraordinary compendium,

A kind of encyclopedic offering of both spiritual and practical advice from the Buddhist tradition,

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

And Andrew,

My first question for you is,

Since the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying was published,

The book by Sogil Rinpoche,

Which was such a seminal extraordinary book that came out at least 25 years ago,

There's been quite a growing literature on the subject of death and dying.

Some of it has come from American teachers in the Buddhist tradition,

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition like yourself,

Or from teachers in the Zen tradition.

What is it that compelled you to add to this body of literature that we now have?

And what is it about your book that fulfills something that we didn't have before?

Yeah,

Well,

You know,

Sogil Rinpoche's book really was a groundbreaking text.

When that thing was published,

It put the death and dying movement,

At least from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective,

Really on the map.

It still remains a seminal kind of keystone text.

And what I attempted to do with this book was a bit of a kind of a distillation of the dozens or so books that have been published since then.

But my principle charter was to not only synthesize this vast topic,

But in particular to try to put it into a format that would be really practical and really applicable for people because the many books that are out there,

As marvelous as they are,

Some have a theoretical predisposition,

Others have more of a cultural predisposition.

And what I thought I would do is create something that would give people really highly helpful tips,

Things that they could use now,

Things that they could use to help others now,

That would help them and others go through this otherwise challenging time.

Well,

The book certainly does that.

I,

For one,

Don't ever even want to travel without it because it's sort of like,

What if?

Both in terms of what if I was suddenly dying or what if I was with somebody who was suddenly dying or found myself in a situation where I might be of help?

And the book really spells it out for you.

So I feel very grateful for that.

Yeah,

I tried to structure it in a way that would be,

You know,

Like you alluded to,

Somewhat encyclopedic in the sense that the particular topics that one might be interested in are very easily found.

You know,

There's a sequence,

A progression of what to do for yourself before,

During,

And after death,

What to do for others before,

During,

And after death.

And then also both those general classifications within the larger schema of both a spiritual and practical bent.

So really,

Once again,

The idea was,

You know,

Could I somehow create one volume where really most of the salient points could be condensed that could help yourself and others in this really remarkable time.

And really,

I think one of the central things I tried to convey with this book,

And maybe we can talk about this for a little bit,

Is that if we establish a relationship to these otherwise unwanted stations in life,

We really can transform what is arguably the greatest obstacle in life,

Which is the end of it,

Into the greatest opportunity.

And most people don't think of end of life and death as things that one can look forward to.

But one of the great discoveries of my extensive study of this material is that if we really look at it deeply,

We discover that it really is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

And that may seem hard to believe,

But if we can relate to old age sickness and death in the proper way,

It truly gives us something to look forward to.

And,

You know,

This reverses our kind of Western knee-jerk response to end of life situations,

Which is really just ignore it,

Run away.

But if we look at it properly,

There's a lot that we can look forward to that can completely transform the way we relate to old age sickness and death.

You know,

In the very first issue of Tricycle in 1991,

Spalding Gray interviewed His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

And one of the things he asks him about is death,

And the Dalai Lama,

Death,

Dying,

Fear of dying.

And the Dalai Lama answers by saying,

You know,

I've been preparing for this all my life.

I'm really looking forward to it.

And people were completely confused and disturbed by that.

And it plugged into a whole kind of Western view of Buddhism as kind of gloomy and nihilistic and why are these people make death the centrality.

One of the things in your book is that there are many opportunities to view it in a kind of go from nihilism to a kind of celebration of this possibility.

And could you talk more about that?

Why is it this opportunity?

Why is it this extraordinary opportunity that we have?

Yeah,

Yeah,

I think this point really should be driven home.

Well,

You know,

First of all,

In the Buddhist tradition,

They talk about three levels of practitioner in relationship to death.

And just as you alluded to from His Holiness,

That the highest level of practitioner actually looks forward to death because they realize that really there is no such thing as death for the highest level of practitioner.

It really is enlightenment.

And the second level of practitioner is one who absolutely has no fear because they really understand the mechanics of the process.

They understand their own mind,

Which is really what the journey into and beyond death is all about.

It's a journey into and through one's own mind.

And then the third level of practitioner is one who really has no regrets.

You know,

They really have established a sane relationship to life and death so that when these particular stations of life come upon them,

They really understand what's going on and how to relate to it.

So the reason it's so auspicious or fortuitous in terms of opportunities for growth is because contrary to what the Western world says,

You know,

The Western scientific approach says that the mind is a byproduct of the brain.

The spiritual traditions of which Buddhism,

You know,

Is just one along in this tradition says,

Well,

No,

I think we have this a little bit backwards here.

It's actually the body doesn't really give birth to the mind.

The body actually restricts and limits the mind.

And so when the body is actually dropped,

If one can relate to the level of freedom that's actually brought about at that moment,

When the confines and the constrictures of the body are released,

And mind becomes reality,

Then if one can negotiate that mindscape with some conviction and control,

Then the limitations of the body no longer restrict the capabilities of the mind.

And the classic analogy is that during life,

If you had a big tree stump,

For instance,

And you tried to move it,

It might take a dozen people to move a tree stump.

But if you take that same tree stump and you move it into a fluid,

You know,

Like a body of water,

Now all of a sudden it's very easily moved.

And this is the type of opportunity that awaits a practitioner is that the fluidity of the mind when it's no longer trapped in the confines of the body,

That fluidity is simultaneously a great opportunity if one is prepared.

And conversely,

If one is not prepared,

There is some peril associated with it because that fluid fluidity,

That freedom,

Instead of being seen for what it is,

From a kind of narrow restricted or egoic perspective,

Can create a sense of panic.

You know,

It's like there's too much space.

And somewhat ironically that which we most desperately seek during life,

Which is freedom and space,

Well we finally will have that freedom and space when we die.

And yet if we don't have a proper relationship to it,

Then the knee-jerk response to that freedom is panic,

Contraction,

And constriction.

So this is why it's so incredibly helpful to understand,

To have a view.

I think one of the most important things that can be brought home in these teachings is that simply with a proper view,

Just having a really clear map of what the possibilities are,

That map alone can be powerful enough to really instill a kind of what I refer to sometimes as a,

Like a psychic GPS.

It's as if even doctrinally through the mere study of this material you are starting to install this GPS system in your own heart-mind that can be brought to bear at just the moments when you need it and can really help you understand where you are,

What you need to do,

And allow you to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity.

So there are times in your book when it sounds like,

You know,

We really have to quote prepare to die.

We set the GPS system,

We do some practices,

We learn about the bardos,

The different stages that we go through,

We learn about the dissolution of the body.

There are times when your descriptions of this process are parallel to meditation practice.

And so my question is,

What role does meditation,

How much does it parallel?

How much does it prepare us in a way that has nothing to do with quote death and dying?

How do you make those distinctions or should we be making those distinctions?

One of the things I've discovered in several decades of really intensive study and practice of this material is that in my experience,

Without any doubt,

The spiritual path as I've come to understand it really is death in slow motion.

And as you alluded to Helen,

It's like virtually every practice that we do,

Starting from our mindfulness or shamatha practice,

Progressing into vipassana,

Progressing into tonglen and all the other practices,

They really are either directly or indirectly preparing us for death because they're doing so in several ways.

One is that,

As you know,

In Tibetan,

The word for meditation is gom,

Which literally means or is translated as to become familiar with or to become acquainted with.

So what meditation is doing altogether from day one is it's giving you a profound opportunity to establish a relationship and to become familiar with your own mind.

And this is profoundly helpful at the moment of death because as Kabir once said of death,

What is found then,

I.

E.

At the moment of death,

Is found now.

So the idea that I like to refer to is like mindscape becomes landscape.

I mean,

It's just like in a dream or in a particular lucid dream,

Which we can return to later because this is where a very wonderful practice called dream yoga came about in the Tibetan tradition specifically to prepare people for death.

But the idea is that by becoming familiar with your mindscape now,

Which is what we're doing when we're engaged in just conventional meditation,

We actually are quite literally preparing for death because we're becoming familiar with our own mind.

I mean,

Really,

If you think about it,

What's taking place at the moment of death is that as all these senses dissolve and as the body starts to evaporate or disintegrate,

Mind becomes reality simply because there's nothing else.

It really is like a dream.

So if we can become familiar with that mind,

Our mind now on our terms,

Then when that mind is revealed either in dream or in death,

Then all of a sudden,

Or not all of a sudden,

We have an opportunity to relate to the contents of those experiences.

And the other thing that is very,

Very helpful with traditional practices even now is that if we look at what's taking place in a great deal of our meditation,

Is we're really learning how to let go.

I mean,

Very often when we engage just in basic mindfulness meditation,

Basic shamatha practice,

You know,

Very often the instruction is you're paying attention to your breathing or your body,

A thought interrupts your mindfulness.

The invitation is to recognize that thought through some label,

Whatever it might be.

In my tradition,

Very often the label is simply just thinking.

That thought is then released and you're returning back to the present moment.

So a large part of the meditative path,

Certainly my own experience,

Is not only learning how to become familiar with our own mind,

Both in its relative and then absolute perspective,

Which we can talk about later if you wish,

But also learning how to let go,

Learning how to let thoughts and emotions just pass through our mind like clouds in the sky.

And if they do that,

Then they no longer have the power that they normally would to kind of pull us,

Seduce us,

Or yank us into unwanted states of mind.

So this is why,

Again,

Surya Rinpoche's book,

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,

Was such a seminal book because it approached the preparation for death within the context of how to live.

And that to me is one of the really marvelous,

Marvelous by-

Reviews

Excellent information and presentation. Inspired me to get his book. Thank you

Thank you. This has given me wisdom as I help prepare a loved one for the Journey ahead!

This was so informative! Thank you!

This is a wonderful talk but it is cut short. I would love to hear it in its entirety.