As a devoted student of those dying patients, I learned seven life lessons that I have been able to incorporate into my own life and that have helped me find my way through my struggles:

7 life lessons from the dying

1. Suffering

Embrace your difficulties rather than resist them. This lesson is the key to learning the most effective attitude towards challenging times. Those who resist their suffering tend to experience more pain and more complications, while those who accept that suffering is just a part of life, quickly move on to focus on other issues. Use your time to make the best of each situation rather than complaining about the things you don’t like.

2. Love

It’s all about relationships. In the final analysis, dying people care more about relationships than anything else in life. Those who have failed to love earlier in their lives spend most of their dying hours trying to rectify that situation. Pay attention now to the relationships that are already in your life. If you don’t already know how to give and receive love, start learning now.

3. Forgiveness

Move on quickly after mistakes. Nothing is gained from harbouring resentment towards self or others. Most dying patients work hard to make amends and find forgiveness with their loved ones. Start now by refusing to hold on to grudges and negative feelings. Take the disappointments of life lightly and keep moving on to deal with greater lessons.

4. Paradise

Enjoy what you have and where you are right now. Wishing for things to be different traps you in the future, and regretting what has already happened ties you to the past. The dying focus on the present moment because it is all they have. But they find a great capacity to enjoy even the smallest things and savour each and every experience. Throughout each day, stop frequently and find the pleasure in exactly what you are doing in that moment.

5. Purpose

Purpose is what you are creating in the moment right now. The dying have no future about which to daydream or fantasise. So they find meaning and purpose in whatever they are doing in the present moment. Recognise that your life is unfolding one moment at a time and that each and every moment has its own special purpose. Make every moment matter and stop living for what you might accomplish someday—there is only now.

6. Surrender

Stop trying to change what you cannot change. All attempts to change the way things are have long been abandoned by the time the dying get to their last days. But it is foolish for any of us to waste our precious time and energy trying to make things different than they really are. Once you give up this battle, direct your energy towards being creative instead.

7. Impermanence

Let go of your fear of failure. One of the most difficult tasks for the dying is to overcome the fear of death. But once they cross that obstacle, it becomes clear that nothing in life should be feared. Keep moving forward in your life and lose your fear that you will fail. Truly, no matter what happens, you cannot fail if you are on your path because failure doesn’t exist on the spiritual journey. So stop giving your energy to fear and live your life fully and courageously.

With these seven lessons from the dying as a guide, it is possible to live with joy and celebration even in times of great difficulty. Pay attention now to these things that really matter so that you can spend your life in peace and equanimity. This is really why we are here and why we are facing such enormous challenges. Become a student now, practise your lessons every day and watch as the beauty of life unfolds before you, just as a flower blossoms in the light of day.

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It’s a bit like in childhood when we feel pain in our gums before the growth of a tooth. As children, we are not aware of what is happening and so we resent the pain and cry from it—we want the pain to end. But the elders around us know that there is a reason behind the pain and they don’t panic. This pain is not to be suppressed or avoided because at the other end of the pain is growth and development.

Life begins with pain. The birth of a baby is painful for the mother and the baby. Out of this pain springs forth the breath of life and a wonderful new relationship. But did you know that babies feel pain even before they are born? Such is our intrinsic relationship with pain.

The wise know that all pain, physical or emotional, is always accompanied with self-growth, even though it may not be apparent to us. All real growth arises out of suffering and pain—courage comes from experiencing fear, compassion comes from knowing apathy, success comes from understanding failure.

It’s in the middle of our greatest challenges that we’re also given the opportunity for our highest growth, our grandest glory

Is Pain Your Enemy?

I like the way how Osho explains that Ram and Ravan are actually two sides of the same coin. Take Ravan out of Ramayan, and suddenly Ram’s greatness shrinks. The purpose of Ravan’s existence was to bring out the innate glory of Ram. So is the case with all suffering. Its purpose is served only if we are present to it, instead of escaping it.

But this goes against what we have come to believe. We have learnt that pain is our enemy—and we must run away from it. We have become conditioned to view pain suspiciously, to avoid it at any cost, to suppress it, and scorn at it, not realizing that life uses pain in its own ingenious ways.

Indeed, it’s in the middle of our greatest challenges that we’re also given the opportunity for our highest growth, our grandest glory. From this perspective, suffering can be viewed as our ally, who has assumed an unpleasant role only to help us reach our own objective of self-awareness. We can view crisis, turmoil, and grief as opportunities for growth.

Pain is not a curse. It’s a part of the natural ebb and flow of life itself, just like pleasure

Becoming Intimate With Pain

To allow this growth, we have to become familiar with the suffering, we have to know it intimately. Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist meditation master, writes in her bestselling book When Things Fall Apart, “To stay with that shakiness—to stay with that broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic—this is the spiritual path.”

Also read » Pain: A blessing, not a curse

Pain is not a curse. It’s a part of the natural ebb and flow of life itself, just like pleasure. We have to learn not to deaden our pain or ignore it. We have to learn to allow it and view it with compassion instead of disdain. It is difficult to do—but the promise it carries within it is of authentic freedom and self-discovery.

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Death and suffering

You and I are in training to be free: we’re in training to be present, open and embracing unto ourselves, not looking away, not denying, not closing our hearts because we can’t bear it. The statement, “I can’t bear it” is what burns you out in social action. When you’re in the presence of suffering and you contract, the contraction starves you to death.

When you close your heart down to protect yourself from the suffering, you can’t stand it, because what happens is you close yourself off from being fed by the life situation and you’re unable to connect to your living spirit to feed from that spirit.

When people go to a funeral and feel the real grief of the situation, it brings people so close and gives them life experience. It opens areas where often they’ve deadened their minds and their hearts have been closed. That’s why trauma is so profound; it cuts through you.

When you’re in the presence of suffering and you contract, the contraction starves you to death

Pushing pain out

When you’re frightened, you contract, and when you contract, you go into your mind, which reiterates to you what you already know in order to feel safe again. It judges everyone else as a threat to your safety, creating an ‘us’ and ‘them’ paradox. Inevitably, loneliness and hunger for company manifest throughout your own mind.

How then can we stay open to suffering? The answer to this question is to be aware of how we react to pain; at this point, the service of healing can begin. This acknowledgement softens us so that we don’t need to spend our energy protecting ourselves. A silent observing, listening part of yourself can observe the truth and provide guidance that is needed for us to truly be able to help.

Measuring our hurt

In the journey to help others who are suffering it is necessary for us to become aware of our past experiences dealing with suffering. When faced with unpleasant circumstances, it is the perception you hold in your mind that determines the extent to which you suffer. Extreme pain need not be associated with extreme suffering. It is the resistance to pain that accentuates suffering. When we are able to make room for the pain and allow it to come in without resistance, suffering begins to melt away. In fact, there is relief and release. This willingness to explore the parameters and dimensions of one’s own pain helps us to cease projecting our pain onto others and acknowledge the suffering that actually exists. It allows us to be with someone in their pain, to truly share and experience healing with each another.

Once you recognise this aspect of suffering, there’s nothing else to do but keep working on becoming more conscious; no big deal, nobody is asking you for anything. You’re just going to perpetuate your own misery and suffering along with everybody else’s if you don’t.

Extreme pain need not be associated with extreme suffering. It is the resistance to pain that accentuates suffering

What can I give?

When you meet someone who is suffering, what do you have to offer them? You could offer your empathy, “Oh, God, I just can’t imagine how bad that suffering must be.” That’s a good thing to offer, because they feel like someone is listening to them.

The other thing you can offer them is your joy, your presence, your ‘not getting caught in it all’. When you aren’t caught in their suffering, you understand the intensity of their experience while at the same time remaining  present, not clinging to anything, just watching the phenomena of the universe change. Then your acts can truly be compassionate. That is where the root of compassion is.

Living the moment

It just seems that we touch moments where we feel deeply connected; then a moment later, it’s a new moment, and we want to cling to the experience. I invite you not to cling; I invite you to open up to the next moment and let it have its own richness. Nothing will kill the glow faster than clinging. So as you are out in the universe—driving cars, cooking supper, doing laundry and answering phone calls, I invite you to look at your life as the most remarkable curriculum.

When I was with Aldous Huxley, there were just a few words he kept using; one was “Extraordinary,” another was, “How curious!” and another was “How odd!” And I realised that everything in life is extraordinary if I’m really looking at it. It’s true that there’s nothing new under the sun, yet somehow everything is still all so fresh. Just take your painful experiences and allow them to be grist for the mill of your awakening.

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