Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death - Joan Halifax

7/30/2019 Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death - Joan Halifax

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Roshi Joan [email protected]

As I stood there

looking at her gentle

peaceful face

in a cofn

at the funeral home,

I made the

commitment

to practice

being there for others

as they died.

R

Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death:An Interview with Roshi Joan Halifax

By David Jay Brown

RosiJoanhalifax,P.D.medical anthropologist, Zen priest, hospicecaregiver, civil rights activist, ecologist, and renowned authorhas an un-

usual talent for integrating scientic and spiritual disciplines. Halifax has

done extensive work with the dying for over forty years. In 1994 she found-

ed the Project on Being with Dying, which has trained hundreds of health-

care professionals in the contemplative care of dying people.

Halifax served on the faculty of Columbia University, the University of

Miami School of Medicine, the New School for Social Research, and Naropa

University, and she has lectured at many other academic institutions,

including Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Medical School. She is

the founder of the Ojai Foundationan educational and interfaith center

in Southern Californiawhich she led from 1979 to 1989. Halifax currently

serves as abbot and guiding teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New

Mexico, a Zen Peacemaker community which she founded in 1990.

In the 1970s, Halifax and her ex-husband Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D.

collaborated on a landmark LSD research project with terminally-ill cancer

patients at the Spring Grove Hospital in Maryland, which we discuss in the

following interview. (I also interviewed Grof about this research for this

Bulletin.)

Halifax is the author or coauthor of seven books, including Being withDying, Shaman: The Wounded Healer, and The Fruitful Darkness. Being with Dy-

ing is the very best book that Ive ever read about caring for people who are

dying, and I cant recommend it more highly. Its a book that I think every

human being should read. Halifax also coauthored The Human Encounter

with Death with Grof. This important book discusses their LSD research, and

describes a number of psychedelic experiences which in some ways resem-

ble reports of near-death experiences. (The Human Encounter with Death has

recently been revised and updated by Grof, and was republished by MAPS

as The Ultimate Journey.)Halifax is a Zen Buddhist roshi. She has received Dharma transmissions

from both Bernard Glassman and Thich Nhat Hanh, and previously studied

under the Korean master Seung Sahn. The procedure of Dharma transmis-

sion refers to the manner in which the teachings of Zen Buddhism are

passed down from a Zen master to his or her disciple and heir. It establishes

the disciple as a transmitting teacher and successor in an unbroken line of

teachers and disciples, a spiritual bloodline, so to speak, that is said to be

traced back to the Buddha himself.

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...it is a very

profound experience

to contemplate

ones own mortality,

as is the experience of

actually caring fora dying person.

I interviewed Joan on December 16, 2009.I felt a lot of gratitude that she took time fromher busy schedule to speak with me for thisBulletin, and she was very kind and gracious.We spoke about her work with people whoare dying, some of the most important lessonsthat she learned from this work, and how the

LSD research that she participated in duringthe early 70s helped to motivate her to domore work with dying people.

David: How did your experience with yourgrandmothers death as a child infuence yourmotivation to work with dying people?

Joan: One of the people that I was clos-est to as a child was my grandmother, whoworked as a sculptor carving tombstones forlocal people in Savannah. She was a remark-able woman who often served her communityas someone comfortable around illness anddeath, someone who would sit with dying

friends. And yet when she herself became ill,her own family could not offer her the samecompassionate presence. When my grand-mother suffered rst from cancer, and thenhad a stroke, she was put into a nursing homeand then left largely alone. Her death waslong and hard. When she nally died, I feltdeep ambivalence, both sorrow and relief. As Istood there looking at her gentle peaceful facein a cofn at the funeral home, I made thecommitment to practice being there for othersas they died.

David: What other actors led to your interestin helping to care or people who are dying,

and how do you think that caregiving can beviewed as a spiritual path?

Joan: We all are facing our mortality. Platoclearly said the bedrock for spiritual experi-ence is understanding death. And it is a veryprofound experience to contemplate onesown mortality, as is the experience of actuallycaring for a dying person.

David: Can you talk a little about the LSDresearch that you did with Stan Gro, and howthis aected your perspective on death anddying?

Joan: Stan and I worked with dying people

at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.Prior to this, I had been at the University ofMiami School of Medicine, where I saw thatthe most marginalized people in that medicalsetting were individuals who were dying. Thephysicians would say that medicine and drugsare about saving lives. So when Stan and Igot married, and I moved up to the Baltimorearea, I joined him in his project, working withdying people.

It was a very extraordinary project. It wasreally a contemporary rite of passage. I had

studied rites of passage as an anthropologist,and to engage in such a powerful one wasvery interesting. So he and I worked with anumber of people who were dying of cancer.Subjects were referred to the project by socialworkers and physicians.

There was one patient, a doctor who had

referred himself to the group. He was dyingof pancreatic cancer, and through that work Ihad the opportunity to have a real experiencein seeing that the human spirit, the humanpsyche, is profoundly underestimated. LSD isreferred to as a nonspecic amplier of thepsyche, and I felt very privileged to sit formany hours with a person dying of cancer,and share his or her psyche in the most inti-mate wayaspects of which that were, in gen-eral, not normally accessible in a non-alteredstate of consciousness.

David: How did this aect your perspective on

death and dying?Joan: It inspired me to continue the work.I began this work in 1970 feeling very con-cerned about dying people. Prior to that Id

been inspired by my grandmother, who wastaking care of dying people, and then herselfhad a very difcult death. I made a vow thatI would try to make a difference. Then I sawthat the work with LSD was so effectivein facilitating a deep psychological processfor people who were dying, that actually itenhanced their quality of their life and theirrelationships. It enhanced their experience ofdying and of death.

David: How do you think a psychedelic experi-ence is similar to and dierent rom the naturaldying process, or a near-death experience?

Joan: I think that you cant really say. Atleast I cant say, although maybe Stan can.But the unbinding process that individualsgo through on physiological and psychologi-cal levels, in the process of dying can be verypowerful. From my point of view, sitting withmany dying people over the years, has basi-cally been a psychedelic experience. We hadat least one patient tell us that he died, wentthrough a near-death experience, and came

back. He reported that he experienced whathad happened to him in the LSD therapy. Hedidnt die in the end. Well, he died in the end,

but in the middle he didnt die. However, hewent through a clinical death experience,came back, and said it really transformed hisview of death. In the end, he was much moreaccepting of his mortality as his death drewnear.

David: How has your Buddhist perspectivebeen helpul in working with people who aredying?

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...sitting with

many dying people

over the years,

has basically been

a psychedelic

experience.

Joan: Buddhism has many important per-spectives on the truth of impermanence, therealization of the absence of an inherent self,or the experience of meditation and lettinggo, and on bearing witness to suffering, andthe experience of compassion. Quite frankly,I think that if our patients at the Maryland

Psychiatric Research Center had had more ofa Buddhist orientation, or Buddhist practice,they would have gotten a lot more out of theirLSD experiences. Its not to say that their LSDexperiences were not profound, but sometimesits very hard for people to let go. Thats justnot what happens in our Western culture;Buddhism is about accepting and letting go. Soit certainly has a profound parallel to what wehad hoped to see happen in LSD experiencewhen we were working with dying people.

David: How do you think the prevailing West-ern attitudes about death hinder our ability to

properly care or, and learn rom, people whoare dying?Joan: I think that we have not reconciled

ourselves with the experience of dying, be-cause people in Western cultures fear deathso much. But I feel that Western cultures arecoming alongin part through their in-sight from psychedelic experiences, and alsothrough Buddhist forms of meditation.

David: What would you say are some o themost important lessons that youve learnedrom working with people who are dying?

Joan: As you can imagine, there are somany. Id say read my book Being with Dying.

But in essence, I think that the most impor-tant part of working with dying people isabout encountering the sanctity of lifetosee life in all of its richness in the presentmoment, to appreciate ones life, and sharethe fundamental joy of being alive and help-ing others. I think that its really importantto ask ourselves on a daily levelhow do weserve people? And this is one of the frequentoutcomes of people who have had the LSDexperience. Stan and I often found that thepsychedelic experience was a source of pro-found inspiration, which motivated people towant to be of service in the world, even if theywere facing the end of their life.

David: What do you personally think happensto consciousness ater death?

Joan: I have no idea.

David: Have you ever speculated or thoughtabout what might happen?

Joan: No. I stay away from speculation.

David: So are you saying that you value notknowing?

Joan: Its not a matter of not knowing. Ireally dont know! Its not theoretical, its justpragmatic. I dont know what happens afterdeath. When people ask me, I say I dontknow. And when a dying person asks me,

I say, I dont know, but what do you thinkhappens after death? I listen and learn fromtheir perspectives, which I value. But from myown experience, I have no idea.

David: What do you think is the best prepara-tion or death?

Joan: Meditation. No question about it.

David: I heard that years ago you had spokenwith Laura Huxley about developing a conceptcalled dying healthy, which was about dyingin a healthy and balanced way. Is this a con-cept that you could expand upon?

Joan: I feel that the work that Im doing,

and were doing, in all these dimensions tobetter the care of the dying, is, in a certainway, very much in accord with what Laurawas trying to establish at that time. My ownwork in the eld of death and dying now, andfor many decades, has been in the training ofclinicians, in bringing more presence, morecompassion, and more wisdom in their careof dying people.

David: Can you talk about the Project on Beingwith Dying, and what youre currently workingon?

Joan: Ive been working on a big project

for many years that is engaged with trainingclinicians in compassionate and contemplativecare of the dying. We work in four transfor-mational areas: transforming the experienceof the clinician, transforming the experienceof the patient, transforming the and trans-forming the institutions that serve dyingpeople. We do an intensive training programannually. Were also working on the devel-opment of regional projects throughout thecountry, where I teach in medical schools andmedical settings.

David: Is there anything that we havent spo-ken about that you would like to add?

Joan: Just that I feel very grateful for hav-ing met Stan, and having had the opportunityto engage in the LSD project at Spring Grove.It was a pivotal process in my life, where I sawa very deep kind of therapy, which was also asacred therapy. It was a rite of passage, guid-ing individuals in the experience of living anddying. So my gratitude for working with Stanand having that opportunity, which openedup new doorways for me is really profound.

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Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death - Joan Halifax