Death and the Dharmacosm

This conversation explores themes of death, grief, and the connections we maintain with loved ones who have passed. ashe and Jaya share personal stories of loss, reflecting on their experiences with teaching, transformation, and the impact of relationships. They delve into the emotional complexities of navigating the dying process and the legacies left behind by those we love. 

In this conversation, ashe and Jaya delve into the complexities of love and loss. They explore the idea of the departed being present in our lives, the mysteries surrounding death, and the importance of navigating grief with an open heart. The discussion also touches on gender roles in caregiving and the significance of awareness beyond the constraints of time and boundaries.

Transcript

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if I didn't... yeah, I think I decided a little bit last minute. How are you? You decided for the both of us that we're doing it because okay We cannot. okay, I guess. feel like you're very often humoring me in ways that feel so graceful and I learn a lot. Just in case you don't, yeah, it's not wasted. Pat. Good to see you too. get you a little bigger. Can I? Yes. how's your day been? Great. Yeah. I did a genshin workshop in person this morning and it was good. Are you transitioning into more in person now than you have been? I guess so. I mean, I do very little here. I'm doing a monthly two-hour workshop here, basically. And then twice I have a weekend that I can do another two-hour, two-and-a-half-hour thing. But maybe that'll grow. see. What I'm happy about is that for me, it was always just a back door for people into meditation, but I didn't really express that. I just knew it. Mm-hmm. person who's organizing it for me was like, what I really want is for you to do the meditation thing that you do. And I'm like, all right. I mean, it's djinshin, but meditation. So yeah. Do you find that teaching is maybe a silly question, teaching or leading practices like that puts you in a... like changes your day, like puts you in a different place afterwards? Probably. I mean, I do it all the time, so it changes my day every day. But yeah, I can feel that. I was thinking about, yeah, well it's 7.30 in the morning and I get up pretty early usually but lately it's been funny because I just started grad school and I'm also working full time like nights and so it's shifting my clock. Well, you know, it's interesting like, I don't know, I think that sometimes when we need to like think about it person who's got a young kid or something like that. Like your body just does what it needs to do, you know? And then it's a phase and if you live long enough phases come and go and you know that, you know? I feel like I'm just getting there actually. But today's my friend's birthday who I always told you that. And when she was, when she and I would spend time together, if we had the occasion to, you know, be on retreat or stay the night together, we would always get up earlier than everybody else. so that we could be together and chat for hours before anybody sort of interrupted us. And so it made sense to me today, I got up at 4.30 and I was just fully awake, ready to chat. we did, she and I did a lot of chatting wherever she is, in me or around. And it just made sense, I wanted to prepare myself to have this conversation with you and I was like, what do I do to prepare myself? And I thought about all these different things and I was like, I could meditate or I could read this amazing book I've been reading, you know, and I didn't do any of that. just laid in bed and talked to my friend and I went and looked at, it's funny this, this era, I feel like it's probably so different than anybody else or maybe I just think it is, but I have all this media from my friend from before she died and Mmm. like listening to voice memos she sent and hearing things I've never heard before, because I haven't really done that since she died in May. yeah, it's just been interesting. it was just right. And I'm excited to connect with you about, I think whatever I have these questions that feel way bigger than me, I want to outsource. And I realized that I don't think I've ever really talked deeply with you about death. so I just, yeah, I'm excited that you had space on today of all days. Yeah, that's pretty cool. What happened for you when I told you this is her birthday? Let's start there. I just, felt like that sounds about right. Yeah. The rightness of that is that I think there's like this question I have about connectedness. Like what is the connection between us and the people we love who've died and like, or you, guess, you, however you want to take that question, but what do you know about that? I'd like to kind of like lower the excitement levels in terms of me being able to be an outsource source. But yeah, but I think mostly there's I wouldn't say that I know much at all. I've had some experiences, I have some feelings, have some sensing, some senses. But I wouldn't say I know anything about death or after death. I have some wonderings, I'm interested. I think it's cool. So do you wanna ask a question to a person who doesn't know anything? How would you? Do you know anybody who's died? Yeah. There was, maybe I can tell a story of the first time I had a more conscious experience of kind of accompanying someone who was dying, even though we were on different continents. So my uncle, my mom's younger brother, the baby of the four of them had cancer and he had been in and out of like, I would call it severe treatment, bone marrow transplant and that kind of thing. So it was that like, well, you never know. Sometimes people do have miraculous recoveries, but it didn't seem great. and my mom had gone down to be with him and my cousin was there, his daughter. we had at some point, some years before, maybe even 10 years before that, before her father's severe illness and then death, I had given her energy treatments from a distance. So that's like living to living, but from a distance. So we'd had a woo connection, you know. unlike with any of my other cousins or whatever, an overt woo connection. very simple, but great. I appreciated that. And so I just thought, well, maybe I can send a treatment to y'all three there, my uncle, my cousin, my mom. And so that was just like a pretext or a way, I think, for me to more consciously connect with my uncle, Marvin. And I wasn't sure how much I was inventing or imagining, but I really felt like I kept being with him during the day. I was preparing to start teaching a retreat in South India. And luckily I had those days there in Tiruvannamalai in South India. it's like this place that's where one of my teacher's teachers lived. I had very specific things happen. Like I felt very specific things. So it seemed like may not be my imagination. And even if it is, what's the harm? Like I'm here meditating anyway. Like why not meditate with my uncle Marvin? And it felt like as time went by, which ended up being like the last time before he passed, it felt like his process speeded up. Mm-hmm. which I feel is probably the person's receptivity. I think that's our main thing, like receptive to transformation, receptive to our own honesty and insight that allows transformation. So it felt to me like he was trying to clear up business and leave things in some way for his kids as well as he could. Yeah. and faster and faster. And then towards what ended up being the end, I had this feeling that by connecting with him, I could kind of keep his head up. I wasn't sure why, but it felt like he needed me to keep his head up somehow. And so I did like whatever that was that I was doing in meditating and this feeling. And it turned out that what he ended up actually dying of was his brain filled with fluid. And so that just gave me a little like, maybe that was true. I don't know. And then I continued to feel connected with him and I felt it felt like just company. There was this really beautiful, beautiful moment. in my imagination or in his experience or in some realm of him and his mother connecting, hugging, and it was just pure love. was incredible to be near in some way, even whatever kind of near that is. Just so amazing. And so I know like in some of the traditions, they have actually even talked literally about a mother-child reunion, but they mean that in another way. But I just wondered if that might've been his way of experiencing that in some way. Anyway, I don't know, but it was beautiful. And then it felt like just, it was nice for him to have company. It was a feeling of kind of walking or even sitting together. And there was a time when I went into the town, into this temple. ashram kind of place. And it was a feeling of as if I could let him experience through my senses for a moment, like some moments, like that he could have that again. I don't know if that was before he passed or after he passed. can't remember. But so there was a feeling of a specific process that I didn't know ahead of time, but could kind of feel something going on. And then after I don't remember how many days then. it seemed like my help wasn't possible or available or needed anymore. Mm-hmm. So yeah, I don't know how much you want to converse or, mean, cause I also, when my dad died, there was similar and more, feeling him from a distance, cause it was COVID time. And I had been with him for a few weeks in about a month before he died and we really connected. And I was able to really communicate to him in a different way about giving him some tools for connecting. and not being just awash with habit patterns a little bit. And also, I was also confronted by seeing that the power of habit over a lifetime, like what someone's priorities have been and how that takes people. But it seemed like he was, we were close, even though I was a continent away again when he actually passed. Had you been close before he got sick? I don't know if he was sick. Yeah, he also had cancer. We were close in a way, like getting along, spending time together, having a good time. He loves, I would still say loves my kids so much. I mean, me too, but like my kids, like so much. Towards the end, that was sort of the easiest connection was looking at a photo of them for him to feel love. If I was trying to help him to guide him to feel, to come to love out of paranoia or distress. then that was the easiest thing was to see a photo of them. but what he said to me at that time was he, kind of looked at me, was like, I don't think I ever saw you before. Like not like I don't recognize you, but like, I think I kind of missed who you, what you're doing or something like that. How was that to receive? It was tragic and also really good. It was, it was like true. Yeah, you didn't really. You can't, mean, somewhere I feel like in the background he did, but also not really. Yeah. It's interesting, I was thinking right before you said that, maybe as you were talking about your uncle, this question of like, am I inventing something or wishing something? Like, what is it that we see and don't see? What do we allow ourselves to see and not see? And I think there, you know, when, I'm probably gonna cry, when this, so my dad died when I was a teenager and I hadn't been close to him at all. and I got adopted to another state and was just not in his life. And wasn't really interested in it. I was trying to make a new home and be a new person and be a teenager, which is also like being a new person or becoming a person or something. And so that was, didn't let myself see or think I knew how to know what the impact of his passing when I was 16. was, but my grandmother's dad had also died when she was 16. And that was a huge part of her story. She was so close with him and wasn't close with her mom. And he died right after the Great Depression, I want to say. And it was just like a huge part of what became her life was this moment. And I remember sort of comparing my story with hers and just not having anything like that experience. And just wanting to put that out of my mind because I had some sense that Even though it was a tragedy for her, it was so meaningful. And the stories she told about her dad were so important. And everything about who he was and what he did with his life was so important to her. That, you know, he was a great grandfather I never met. And I know his whole life story because it was so important to her. And I remember thinking, I can't really imagine my kids knowing much about my dad. Like, when I eventually have kids, it just doesn't seem like... or grandkids, you know, it just doesn't seem like it would be what it was for my grandmother. And she and I were really close. So that's a part of why I know so much about her young life. But when she died, was I was maybe 30 and it was so impactful and I felt so caught up in my life. that I felt like I missed what the connection could have been, but I longed for it. Like there was a space where I was like, but if I could have only just even from afar, just been with her towards the end. And one of the things that I, because we were living in different states, but before she died, I spent a lot of time with her. When I was with her, spent a lot of very quiet time with her body and just like, you know, massaging and lotioning her feet and her. hands and just like touching her and being with her and holding her and cuddling her and these were things she didn't really do when I was a kid. She's just not a very touchy-feely person, but I am. And so, you know, she would mention things like it feels like the roles are reversed or, know, she would say something like it feels like I'm your baby and you're taking care of me. And she had, you know, lost some, I don't even know how I would talk about it now, like her. her mind wasn't talking the way that it had been. You know, she was going in and out of different ages, it seemed like, of her own and like different planes and states. And I found it incredibly comforting and very fascinating. And when other people were in the room, it was like a problem or like something was wrong. And when it was just she and I, it was just so sweet. And I was like, what do you see? What do you know? You know? And it was cool because we got to sort of explore together. all the while, you know, I'm taking care of her. And it felt like a really, she took really great care of me when I was a kid and she was only, she was one of the only adults who really did consistently. And so it just felt like the right thing. But I've been noticing lately how many times, I wonder what you think about this, things that happen are preparing you for things that are going to happen. And I couldn't have known then like what it's like to take care of somebody. who's about to die and that be like taking care of an infant. And then fast forward to last year, my friend was dying of cancer and I got to be with her for the last several weeks and just round the clock, I felt I'm younger than all of her friends. I have energy that a lot of folks just didn't at that point have. you So it felt like it made sense and it was the right thing, there was nowhere I would rather be. But I did find myself like, you know, sleeping two hour, in two hour increments and then waking up and tending. And just my mind, I don't know what it was like when your kids were small, but I mean, I was delirious, like the whole time. And I was like, when is the last time I ate? What day is it? Am I supposed to be awake or asleep? I couldn't quite understand and it didn't really matter. And everything was being taken care of. I'm so grateful. Like financially and whatever. There was food, there was a house. All of that was being handled. And so I could just focus all of my attention on her. And we did so much. And then time, right, because it becomes so funny, it was like very, very long and very short somehow at the same time. And I felt in that sort of like a sleep awake place, I felt like I could feel her walking towards something metaphorically. I could feel her moving in a direction of something that I didn't know. And I wanted so badly to go with her. And it got so confusing that there was a point where I just didn't, it's like I knew I couldn't go with her on some level, but I didn't want her to go alone. And she made it really clear that she wasn't going alone. And I just, had to, there was a point where I just had to trust that. And not because she isn't capable of doing everything that she needs to. And she proved that on the note of like patterns over a lifetime. She, my friend, so much. She accomplished so much. She started so many things. She taught so many people so many things. She impacted so many people. And the joke was that she was always doing things early and she was always rushing people along, which is very true. Today being her birthday, she's an Aquarius and she didn't really understand why people didn't understand things. Which is just my favorite because I know her in such dynamic and complex ways because I know her so well. But a lot of what people know of her is like her, she was like strict or like very like she wanted, you know, she wanted things to happen and she wanted people to motivate and she wanted, you know, she wanted all of these things to be the way they were supposed to be. And, and, and, You know, that joke being sort of bittersweet that she died at 51, that she was doing things early. just, I feel like since this question of, you know, inventing or wishing, like, I think I've had a desire to, since she died, maybe not even a desire, I think I've been very clear with people what is and what isn't about her death, like that she isn't gone. that her body died, that there's no reason to believe that she isn't here in some form or even more because she is freed from the confines of a human body. so she can, and I'll be talking about her, I talk about her all the time and I'll be like, for instance, here she is, we're talking about her. And so the inventing part, like, I don't know what other people think and it doesn't, it's not really my business, but I... Sometimes I worry, maybe, that I'm like slipping into some delusion. Do you know what mean? Like not in a real worry way, but like in a way that's like, maybe I'm like separating myself. Like in the end when I wanted to go with her, was like, when I'm wishing and inventing, or if I'm wishing and inventing, and I'm demanding that people sort of like, at least in the moments that we're speaking, believe my reality, which is that my friend is just here. Yeah. that she's here with us now having this conversation with us and that she, when I think about the things she might say if I'm in distress or if I'm wondering or if I ask a question and I hear an answer in her cadence, you know what I mean? Like, am I inventing and does it matter? And if it matters, what matters about it? And I'm curious if you have any thoughts on Yeah. I like those questions more than anything. I feel like... It's so we so easily lose sight of the how mysterious everything is like this is mysterious This is like it's so mysterious and so that can help us leave so much more space for how much we don't and Then I think with you know, there was there was a good long time that I I felt like my dad is right here Like can't you see him almost like? mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. simple. And I kind of enjoyed saying that just to make, to normalize what was normal to me for a lot of different reasons, but including to soften the fear around death, the sense of separation that people fear may, I mean, of course it is different when the body's not there, but I do think, so I think two things. One is when it's less, when you can let it be less mental, then I'm not sure it does matter. Yeah. where that insight is coming from. She doesn't care about getting credit, you know, and except for the warmth of the connection or the juiciness of the connection. That is good. Except for you, you know, like full permission for you to access that department of your being that includes her or her cadence, you know, and and how it works. Is somebody going to pretend that they can? Yeah. explain that or explain that away. Why? Like, let's start with what is a cell and how did the first, you know, let's start somewhere more basic than that before we go so far down the line, like negating things because they feel uncomfortable for our worldview or whatever. So I feel like one thing is welcoming the supportive, juicy, why not? part of, yeah, she's here. And then there's the boundaries part, like we would with anybody need to be aware of what are the boundaries, you know? What are boundaries? When we're in some way individual and in so many ways not, what are boundaries? So including with living people and other living creatures and spaces, and then also with someone who might be invisible to our eyes, but... feelable in some way. So. I think that we can get easily just in the culture, like fascinated by something and then start to make something out of it that then interferes with the beauty of whatever is or was going on. And so maybe if you're really free with, you don't need even people to believe you or understand you, but it's just your experience. It's just your... And you're not being super firm about it as some kind of concrete concept conceptual thing. But more as something that's kind of obvious in some way and beautiful. And it's kind of about love and how love can be so generous and also kind of calling upon the parts of you that are not confined to your body right now, even though your body's alive. Mm-hmm. I think that's even more important, maybe? like feeling the sort of, I don't know, like the vibrational. quality of your being that's not confined. Wow, yeah, that feels juicy. I think that part is maybe it feels a little juicy the way you say it, just because I had never had the experience that I had. I think the sleep deprivation offered me some kind of earthly reasoning in case I was just worried I was losing my mind or something. And so it was a helpful, well, this could be. why. But I really felt like I was experiencing willful, you know, interested in being with in such a deep way that I was experiencing something that I imagined she might be experiencing too. And that kind of accompaniment doesn't feel scary to me. And I don't know why maybe it was all the close people in my life who had passed before she did. You know, and my dog also, my dog and my grandmother died at a similar time and I have this beautiful picture of them resting in her recliner together that I can actually, it's right here. Yes. Let's see. I don't know if it's... yeah. my gosh Right? It's... And I just can't... If I ever... On the note of like, your dad sort of like having an easeful, like easy access to something beautiful... It's okay. That comes to me whenever I'm wondering about anything that might be happening somewhere else. You know, I'm like, what if it's just that? What if they're just... And she's this big muscular pit bull, you know, and my grandmother had become this like very small, like frail woman. And I always saw her in my life and my mind's eye as much bigger and stronger and more powerful because she was the only real adult that held that space for me as a young person. You know, and I just, I love that picture and just the juxtaposition of what's, what their outward qualities might seem to people. And like, I know my dog was just the most gentle and tender and loving, like she would curl up in a tiny ball just to be near you. You know, it's just, it's so complex to me to see that image and also just like so obvious. It's just two beings resting, you know? And so anyway, I think, you know, all of them and the ways that I initially, like the number one thing I think was it was very clear to me that I'll be okay. I will be okay. And the people who wonder if they will be okay, they will be okay when people die. It might take a while to know that, you know, but especially these, all of these beings had, they were just, cared for people. And so it's, what do you do when somebody who cares for people, you know, their body goes away? And I think that beautiful question, you know, gets answered with time. You just find out what happens. And, And so, okay, I had a very specific question now I'm thinking about my grandmother and my dog hanging out somewhere. Let me just... think about it. Maybe it's Well, I just want to say seeing that photo. Thank you. I feel like the way you described your grandma as someone who who wouldn't usually be someone that someone would be massaging her feet or her hands. That comes across. And the fact that that's what you were doing with her a lot is really very touching. And that she was like into that. Letting you be that person in her life. Yeah. I wonder too, I think that there was something about her dad's death that she thought about gender a lot in ways that I think, you I like to think that I helped make it less of a binary and less important. you know, when she got really old, I was just strong. And so I held doors and I did things that she would traditionally think men would do for her. But when it was just she and I, was like, I mean, are you going to do it? Like, come on, like I'll drive, you know, it's okay. And she liked it, she found it funny, think, maybe on the of habits, that she had had such a long sense of what should and shouldn't happen, what men and women should do and shouldn't do. And I think that part of that had to be informed by her dad dying when she was young, and her taking on some responsibilities that she wouldn't think that a girl in 1930s Alabama should be doing. And maybe some resentment for missing him got tied into some resentment for what she had to start doing around the house and on the farm and whatever that she hadn't. of how to fill the gap when that part of your race is, yeah. And so I thought, think it's interesting too, like we had some really beautiful conversations towards the end, my grandmother and I about, you know, just all the things I was up to, which just seemed very different than all the things that she was up to, but probably weren't that different. And specifically around gender and like why. me being a more masculine person is all of a sudden okay, or presenting myself in a more masculine way is all of a sudden okay. And like she got it that like if I'm going to take care, it makes sense in her mind that that's what she thinks men do. And so if I'm going to be a person who takes good, strong care of people that like, okay, I'm making it make sense in my mind. I'm making it okay before I go somewhere else that like you're doing great. Keep doing it. Everything's fine. I think that tendency, you said something about with your uncle that... you know, way of speaking or this phrasing that you used of like, what would be the end or what ended up being the end. You know how we talk about the hindsight of what we didn't know and then we knew, we know now that we didn't know. And it was, this I feel stuck on with my friend Kifu that, just because I have to go in like two minutes. So, and I want to also make the alarm not go off again. Okay. And then, okay. So, yes. yeah, this can be an open question maybe, Okay, this idea that I felt like if I had known that she was gonna die, I would have done something different. And I didn't, and you know, she had pretty intense, like very stage four, very like, there was no medical reason that she would have stayed living much longer. And I didn't avail myself to that information. And I was just like, We're just gonna go back to the farm after this and we're gonna do these plans that we had already made. there was no, didn't think she would, really, parts of me didn't think she was going to die. And parts of me really did know and was behaving as though, I gave up my job and I didn't have a care in the world, I was just there. Are you still? Okay. And so I think there's this question of knowing that, like, why does knowing give us comfort? What do we think that knowing gives us comfort? And what is it to release the desire to know? And why is that actually what gives us comfort? Maybe not why, but have you noticed the surrender to the unknown? And also what is that knowing that's a completely different level that gave up your job and was there, you know, that was the more important thing, you know, than knowing up here, she's got three more days or something that you were there so completely was some kind of knowing, which might be more like a happening or something. But I feel like making ourselves available to that or making available to that is. kind of like what we're here for. So being close to death is one of those times where some kind of knowing sometimes happens. And we can see, like, I don't know, but something knows, acts, happens accordingly. Yeah. Yeah. That feels concrete. That feels actually really helpful. Yeah. And even less emotional. mean, like leaving room for the grieving process to do its thing. But the connection to something that's beyond what we know, what we think of as knowing, what's beyond that, but we're in it and it's in us. I think that is sort of what it's all about. And so having a friend, having a dead friend can be really helpful for that. Of kind of remembering, I think when we're alive, it's like going really, really in, into our own depths. And then that just the discovery of non-separation and how vast. we are or it is or something like that. But then to really live with that sense. was saying in a group just last week, her mom has dementia but is able to articulate a little bit and her mom said, I feel I'm in two worlds, which I think is beautiful for someone to be aware of even if their mind is not working well. Again, speaking of different kinds of knowing. wow. so if only we could, like when we don't have a sense of our timeline, and so we're not feeling any pressure, we're in denial of our precious time or whatever, the opportunity or the chance that we have now for a change of awareness that matters. to feel being into a world without that being a loss of important boundaries while that's actually more nourishing and making clear what boundaries are. Boundaries can become more simple because we're not in denial or caught up. It's just like, oh no, that's not worth doing in this short lifetime. Or that is worth doing. So sorry, I need to go. I'm thank you for this time. It's so good to see you. Yeah.