5 Practices for Coping with Loss, Illness, Difficulty, and Death

Inevitably in a long life, a long, good life, a privileged life, an advantaged life, we will all encounter loss, frustration, illness, and - if we're lucky - aging, and unavoidably and inevitably for all of us, our own death and - either during our life or knowing it to come in the future - the death of all those we love. It's real.

So I want to offer five suggestions, really, about how we can practice with this.

Having Compassion

The first practice, of course, is compassion. Compassion, with its combination of clear seeing and empathy for what is true and the suffering, broadly, related to it. Empathy plus benevolence. Not indifference, not neutrality, but benevolence. Caring, tender concern. Sympathy, support, with the movement to help if we can. That's compassion.

So we bring compassion to the suffering around us and others, and we can bring compassion to our own suffering as well. We don't turn away from it.

I asked a teacher of mine, someone I respect a lot, Gil Fronsdal... I asked him once what he did in his own practice. It's a good question for anyone, really, especially someone who is pretty far along. What do you do in your own practice, Gil? He paused, and with kind of a characteristic smile, he said, "I stop for suffering."

So we can stop for suffering. We can honor it. We can face it, not run away from it, not medicate around it — I mean, in terms of drugs and alcohol — and not turn away from it, but just face it like, "yeah, it's real."

Dying is a big deal. Illness is a big deal. Being wounded by other people, feeling betrayed by family members or your countrymen, it's all a big deal. It's a big deal to get laid off. It's a big deal to struggle financially. It's a big deal to be targeted by racism or sexism or other forms of structural injustice and oppression. These are big deals. It's a big deal to look at your planet inexorably, predictably, heating up. It's a lot, inevitably. It's a big deal.

And it's okay to have compassion about it. It's okay to have compassion alongside other related feelings of fury about it or fieriness about it—hopefully without hatred and helplessness and despair invading your heart. And interestingly, compassion does help to buffer us from hatred, helplessness, and despair.

So the first practice is compassion. It's the first practice. It's the in-between practice. It's the last practice of all. As we take our own last breath, compassion.

Taking Action

Second: If there's practical action, take it.

Dealing with illness? Look for good doctors. Don't accept the first thing you hear. Get a second opinion. Get a third opinion. Reach out for support if appropriate.

A different kind of issue? Talk to a lawyer. Talk with your friends. Figure out your plan, if only inside your own mind. Know that you're doing what you can. It doesn't mean that you're doing everything you can in every moment, but in a sustainable way.

There's no replacement for taking action, and you'll feel better as you face various difficulties, including with other people. You'll feel better if you've taken the actions that you can. Take action —that's the second practice.

Living Exposed in the Golden Wind

The third practice is summarized in this Zen story from the great teacher Yunmen. and Yunmen was asked once, "What is it that trees wither and leaves fall?" He replied, "Body exposed in the golden wind."

There's the recognition that if we are to live, we must be exposed to the winds. We must live exposed. We live dependently. We live dangled by 10,000 vulnerable threads at any moment. That's the nature of our being. We are that tree. We are the body, exposed, vulnerable, frail, fragile, still here. Meanwhile, in the golden wind—both the golden wind of autumn, and harvest, and celebration, and Thanksgiving... and icy, wintry winds of mistreatment by others, loss, physical pain, illness, injustice that is not remedied in our life. We are exposed to so many winds and that's what's necessary to live, to be, at all. Body exposed in the golden wind.

And can we open our heart? Can we soften the body? Can we feel more vulnerable? Can we accept our inherent interbeing amidst the winds of all kinds in this life? Can we soften and accept that and quit fighting it? Body exposed in the golden wind. You know, face the reality of that. That's the third practice. Living exposed in the golden wind.

Having Courage

The fourth practice is to have courage. Life contains pain. There are pains we can avoid — including the pains that we create ourselves through unskillful practice that we can learn about and gradually heal and transform. That said, there is still inescapable pain, and for many people there's a lot of pain. We can have courage in how we face it.

We can know that while we must endure pain, we need not be defined by pain, and we can know — except at those most horrible and most overwhelming moments, but most of the rest of the time, even with grievous pain — we can know and remain in contact with a refuge inside everyone, deep down inside, that itself is at peace. Itself.

This core of being is not invaded and occupied and possessed by pain. It stands apart from the pain, it witnesses that it has it in some sense, but it is not identified with the pain. If we lack the courage to face the first darts of life directly, if we want to swerve away from them and fight with them and argue against them, we just add more darts. Those are the second darts we throw ourselves.

We can have the courage, really, to bear inevitable pain. There may be pain. It will not last forever. Nothing is permanent. There's a place for a certain stoicism where... and I've had my times where I knew that I just needed to do something. It was going to be painful. It was going to be hard. It was going to be scary. I was really not going to like it, but I had to do it. Maybe I had to say that thing to another person. Or maybe I had to let go of that possibility or maybe I had to go through that medical procedure.

And, you know, it's not going to go away. Whatever we need to do, the pain is not going to go away. The necessity is not going to be any less if we moan and groan about it. And then there's a moment where — call it stoicism, call it resignation, call it courage — where you just reach out and you grasp the nettel. You say, "okay, do it. I've got to do it. Here we go." And you do it and have the courage to do it. No way around it. So that's the fourth practice: Courage.

Being Grateful

And then last, fifth: Be Grateful. It may seem counterintuitive or bogus to find gratitude in the midst of the worst days of your life. Yes, I get it. I get it.

And I'm not talking about using gratitude to deny or dismiss or bypass the hard things, including the hard things that maybe you're experiencing deep down inside. But it's really helpful. Actually, it's a resource.

It helps us cope with hard things to realize that these hard things are happening as part of a vast collection of factors and experiences, many of which we can be very, very grateful for. Most people today certainly have had many, many good things happen in their life, most of which were quite small and brief in the flow of everyday life. And yet they were worthy of gratitude.

I think of every day, you know, it's like walking on a path. So we walk over the path of our day. And strewn along that path are hundreds of ordinary jewels, little pearls, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds scattered before us. We often don't even notice them. We just step over them. Bum, bum, bum. You know — got that done. Ate that food. Turned a faucet, fresh water. Flushed a toilet. Flipped a switch. Listened to some music. Talked to a friend. Got another thing done. Tasted something nice. Smelled something nice. Looked out — beauty. So many things we can be grateful for and we can appreciate.

And you know, if you look back on your life altogether, even if you're facing perhaps the last year, or month, or day, what can you be grateful for? What can you respect as what you've been given? We're grateful for gifts. What are the gifts you've been given? So many people, so many beauties.

And this fifth practice of gratitude is a blessing in and of itself. And boy, is that an important resource in grappling with hard things in life, including loss, illness, aging, and death.