Death and Dying: Fuck You, Cancer

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Do you ever imagine the specifics of your death?

I've instructed Marcia about which particular teachers or spiritual friends or gurus I would like to have notified. Some yogic teachings say the best way is to die alone, because there is less distraction and fewer people projecting their fears and making a big circus out of the whole thing and trying to hold on to you. Go to a cave by yourself and die like a deer in the forest. That has a certain attraction. But if it happens some other way, then it happens that way.

In what way do you deal with anger or frustration about your condition?

There is no one way. It changes. One time as I was driving back by myself from a retreat, I just started weeping. And that gave way to this tremendous explosion of anger and rage. I started screaming at the top of my lungs, 'Fuck you, cancer! Fuck you, cancer! Cancer, fuck you!' Later, I wrote a poem called 'Fuck You, Cancer.' That was a very powerful moment for me, just to be able to express that feeling.

It was anger at this thing that has come and tried to take over my life. It has to be kept in perspective, otherwise the disease has won in a completely underhanded way by taking over your life—by being what your life revolves around—when what you are fighting for is a life that is flexible and can respond in different ways. The central organizing principle is what you make it. It's awareness of Buddha-nature, and certainly cancer can put that in sharp relief. But my rage was about realizing how much it had usurped my life.

What is the role of the caregiver?

In some ways, being the caregiver is more difficult than being the person who has cancer. The caregiver is like your shield bearer. I have been very lucky with Marcia. She made a vow to help me through this. She has accompanied me to every doctor appointment, taken notes, asked the tough questions, and organized what is really a complicated military operation. Helping someone fight cancer is a really hard practice.

And helping someone die?

Trungpa Rinpoche talked about just being with the person in a genuine way and not laying a big trip on them. This is the most helpful thing that you can do. One of the most common trips that get laid on people is this idea that death is the enemy. If death is the enemy, then everybody is ultimately a failure, because they lose that battle if they see it that way. And particularly people battling with cancer or with any disease. If they see death as the enemy, then they feel that they have failed in this fight. It is a tragedy for people to have that put on top of all the suffering and the struggle that they are going throughóto feel that they have failed. The fact is that no matter what we do, how much we do, as the Buddha said, everything that is put together will come apart. Everything that is born will die. Meditation is partly about realizing that the mind is beginningless and therefore endless, open and luminous and deathless. But that has nothing to do with what happens to the physical body. The physical body does die. And that death is not in any way a failure. It's a logical culmination of each life.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print