Saturday, March 17, 2018

Frank Ostaseski: Whenever There Is an Absence of Fear, There Is Also a Presence of Love

Frank Ostaseski has been a compassionate guide to thousands of people facing death. He is an amazing and courageous writer, healer, visionary, and wisdom-keeper who I have adopted more recently to be among my many treasured teachers. Deep bow of gratitude to Frank and to all those who in some way help us to remember what we have forgotten and grow into our wholeness as souls who are here walking a human path. Molly


Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. 
Death is always with us, in the marrow of every 
passing moment. She is the secret teacher 
hiding in plain sight. She helps us to
discover what matters most.

Dying is a stripping-away process, a release, a surrender, a change that holds profound possibilities. Change, like death, is inevitable. We have seen that transience is in the nature of all experience. Yet change itself does not guarantee transformation.

Transformation is a deep internal shift through which our basic identities are reconstituted. It is a metamorphosis, as radical as the caterpillar's movement from chrysalis to butterfly. In the process of transformation, the scales fall from our eyes, and we see and experience everything in a new way. We realize that we are more than our stories. Limiting personal boundaries dissolve. A deep peacefulness and universal sense of belonging infuse our awareness. The expansive freedom of being is beyond our current understanding and almost unrecognizable to our former selves.

The transformation of consciousness, which is possible for each of us in our day-to-day lives, requires our active engagement. We cannot think our way through it. It is not a strategic plan that we execute. Transformation requires an open-ended willingness to be fully vulnerable to the experience of the unknown...

We are aided in our journeys of transformation when we open to mystery, an intangible experience or force that we cannot predict, measure, or explain. The mystery I am speaking of is not like those Agatha Christie novels you might enjoy reading on a summer's beach. It is not about adding up the clues like the hero detective does and then declaring that the butler did it! The encounter with death is pervaded with mystery. It cannot be solved or even fully known by the conceptual mind. It cannot be captures, but, as when we listen to an extraordinary piece of music, we can give ourselves over to the mystery completely. We don't just observe mystery, we realize that we are mystery. It lives through us.

In my experience and that of so many people I have accompanied, the encounter with mystery is often marked with awe and wonder, as when our jaws drop open at the sight of unimaginable beauty. The usual activity of the mind stops and our consciousness rests. We become absorbed in tranquility and humbly bear witness. In such moments, time no longer devours our lives. We enter the eternal now. The future doesn't exist; it hasn't happened yet. The past doesn't exist; it has already happened. Here in the place beyond the tyranny of time, there is no fear of death. And whenever there is an absence of fear, there is also a presence of love. Love is the lubricant that lets us slip out of the boundaries of the body. Love is the longing that calls us home.

In life-transforming moments such as dying, giving birth, meditating, making love, being immersed in the beauty of nature, connecting with a great work of art, or falling into the eyes of an infant, we have a sense of looking into the vast unnamable. Here it feels utterly safe. There is no deficiency. Everything we need is present. Each taste of this experience expands our love and draws us further toward the endless, inexhaustible mystery of being.

The contemplation of life, death, and the inherent mystery in each moment is too important to be left to our final hours. Coming to terms with our fears and discovering what dying has to teach us about life are essential to our transformation. These Five Invitations are a call to that transformation. They can take you to the threshold, but it is up to you to walk on. As Rumi wrote, "The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep."


* * *

Sono lived alone, on the edge, surviving on a meager Social Security check. Now she was living out her final days at the Zen Hospice Project. She was a straightforward, no-nonsense woman, and I remember asking Sono a few days after her arrival how she thought it might be living there. She said, "I think it's going to be all right because in this place, I can die the way I need to die."

It was clear that Sono had come to us to face death directly. I knew we would get along well.

One day, we were sitting at the kitchen table together. Sono was writing in her journal, and I was reading the book of Japanese Death Poems. There's an old tradition in Japan of Zen monks and others writing short verses in preparation for death. Myth suggests that these poems, composed on the day of one's death, express an essential truth discovered in one's life. In general, they are short, intense poems, sometimes profound, sometimes satirical, often expressing an immediate beauty and natural simplicity. They remind us that we are most alive when we are present at the edge of the unknown...

After hearing these death poems read to her aloud, Sono became inspired to write her own... Sometime later, Sono called me to her room. "I've written my death poem," she announced.

"I would love to hear it," I responded.

"I want you to learn it by heart," she instructed. And then she went on to say, "When I die, I want you to pin it to my clothes. I want to be cremated with my poem."

"I promise, Sono," I said, my tears expressing the honor I felt in being given this gift.

Sono's poem was an invitation to be open-minded and openhearted, even in relationship to the great unknown of death. She read it to me several times. Then she has me recite it over and over, to be certain I had learned every word.

That is where it has lived ever since, in my heart. I've never written it down until today. I share it as a beautiful reminder of what is possible when we live fully in the light of death. Sono found her way. It is up to each of us to find ours.

Sono's Death Poem

Don't just stand there with your hair turning gray,
soon enough the seas will sink your little island.
So while there is still the illusion of time,
set out for another shore.
No sense packing a bag.
You won't be able to life it into your boat.
Give away all your collections.
Take only new seeds and an old stick.
Send out some prayers on the wind before you sail.
Don't be afraid.
Someone knows you're coming.
An extra fish has been salted.

 — Mona (Sono) Santracroce (1928-1995)
* * *

Frank Ostaseski
Excerpted from the final chapter, "Dying Into Life," from
The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death 
Can Teach Us About Living Fully

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