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"I was really annoyed by an essay by an obviously young neurologist who wrote that hospice doctors are “the artists of death.” No, my friend. The dying person is the artist of his or her death. And that death started a long time before you came into the room, and it will continue when you aren’t around, and it will endure long after you’ve made your pronouncement."

"for me and for many people: it was the moment after. Not the adventure, the experience, the fulfilled desire, but afterward. The moment of tired satisfaction, of knowing one is satisfied. The moment at the end of a good day when you are going home and are a little sore and sweaty, you are getting hungry, your feet are dirty, and you are going home to rest."

"A dying person’s attention turns toward a place we do not see and that they cannot explain. They are done with the business of the living, as it were, and more or less finished with us. Now they are not a mother or a plumber or a friend. Now they are entirely a dying person, and the world begins to shine. In spite of going hours without speaking, in spite of needing help to button a shirt, he is busy. He may not have the energy to talk, because he is waiting for something and that takes everything he has left."

"

Dying, he said, gave him a new perspective on life; it gave him a way to celebrate.

“The blossom is out in full now,” he said, describing what he saw from his office window. “It’s a plum tree, it looks like apple blossom but it’s white, and looking at it, instead of saying, ‘Oh, that’s a nice blossom’ . . . last week looking at it through the window when I’m writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomiest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn’t seem to matter. But the nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous.” He couldn’t really explain, he added; you have to experience it. “The glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance . . . not that I’m interested in reassuring people, bugger that. The 

what he saw from his office window. “It’s a plum tree, it looks like apple blossom but it’s white, and looking at it, instead of saying, ‘Oh, that’s a nice blossom’ . . . last week looking at it through the window when I’m writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomiest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn’t seem to matter. But the nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous.” He couldn’t really explain, he added; you have to experience it. “The glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance . . . not that I’m interested in reassuring people, bugger that. The

fact is, if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it.”

He died nine days after his wife.

"Dying people can be quite clear about their needs, but they may also be opaque and symbolic. Either way, this is communication: needs, wants, wishes, regrets and fears, dreams and hope. "

"No one officially dies of old age. We die because something in the body fails, and in legal terms that’s pathology, disease, injury. "

In their book, Final Gifts, they describe many of the metaphorical and shadowed ways they have seen dying people communicate. They suggest keeping a notebook for everyone at the bedside to use, where they can write down what they hear and see, to help crack the code. They advise caregivers to “remember that there may be important messages in any communication, however vague or garbled.” We who are watching may not know the value of a certain act, its past meaning or importance. A person may want to hold a necklace or look at a photograph that seems meaningless to you. You have no way of knowing what the meaning is, and may never know. If a dying person wants to hold a stuffed rabbit, find a stuffed rabbit. Find it quickly.

A dying person may rely on the vocabulary of the work they did, their family of origin, or their religion. Don’t assume a person is confused just because he is responding to something that you don’t see. He is telling you something."

"Suffering is a deeply felt threat to the integrity of the self. It means that we hold on to the hope that something will remain unchanged even as it all slides away like sand in running water, like water from our hands. We can have physical pain and not suffer; we can suffer without physical pain. A very few people may have uncontrollable pain. A few other symptoms of dying can become intractable—unmanageable with drugs and nursing care. Severe dyspnea, delirium, uncontrolled nausea, muscle spasms, and depression are rare but do occur.

There are other forms of suffering: psychological, emotional, and spiritual suffering are all recognized."

:People can get stuck trying to die. Callanan and Kelley call this “being held back,” an aspect of being aware of nearing death. A person who has been restful suddenly becomes upset. Do they need to see a particular person or write a private letter? Or confess? “Telling us about ‘being held back’ is a way dying people have of asking us to ‘look again: something’s been missed!’ ”

There is a person they need to see, a goodbye to be said, plans that must be made, paperwork to sign. An anniversary to reach. Shame to be reconciled. A crime to be punished. Love to be returned. The things may seem long gone or unimportant to you, but they are filling the world of the dying person. Don’t diminish or dismiss such concerns.

A person who feels terror at God’s coming judgment or a sense of irrevocable sin is in spiritual distress."

Existential pain comes to all of us, is woven into the fact of being human. But existential distress is a crisis. This is sometimes called “unbearable suffering,” a legal concept. People can feel panic about death, experience great hopelessness and despair or awful remorse. They may have no sense of self-worth, or they may be terrified of dependence and the loss of control. A person may simply feel very scared about the experience of death itself. They are not clinically depressed or delirious. They are just suffering in a particularly terrible way: facing what cannot be stopped without any composure.

we are forced to confront the fact that we have ideals, that we believe things should go a certain way, and that certain things should be said and done. Where we find out that we do believe only a certain kind of death is a good death."

Most people stop speaking days or even weeks (or years) before death, and no one can remember their last words. But some people remain conscious until the last hours of life"

I don’t think it matters if we are conscious or unconscious when we die; the line between awake and asleep is a little like the other arbitrary boundaries we draw. Most people aren’t awake, but what kind of consciousness they have remains a mystery. Lots of people say they want to die in their sleep. They don’t want to deal with the dying part at all. Marge Piercy: “I want to click the off switch.” I do want to be awake; that’s the curious part of me, not wanting to miss a minute of life but also not wanting to miss any of this singular, unrepeatable event. What is more likely is that I will fall into this peculiar sleep like no other. I don’t know what kind of dream I will have."

Finished this.  Overall, I've learned much more about death from secular texts by professional practitioners (The Five Invitations, Advice for Future corpses, and the Four Things that matter most were the best.  Japanese books on Impermanence and poetry on Impermanence and "Death Poems" helped, but as side information)

Clearly, all fear has an element of resistance and a leaning away from the moment. Its dynamic is not unlike that of strong desire except that fear leans backward into the last safe moment while desire leans forward toward the next possibility of satisfaction. Each lacks presence. Each is a form of attachment whether "positive," grasping, or "negative," pushing away. Both this clinging and condemning ensnare us in a flight-or-fight relationship to the object of awareness that produces these states of consciousness. When the object floating in our consciousness is a hot fudge sundae, our attention is drawn toward it by desire and we attempt to materialize it at our local Baskin Robbins. When the idea hovering before us is death, we attempt to withdraw our attention, to turn away from it so it can't catch up with us, to dematerialize it at our local church, synagogue, brothel, or McDonald's, whatever makes us feel the most solid and undying. We say it is death that causes all this fear, but it's really caused by our attachment (positive or negative, as excitement or dread) to past fears. Especially in times of stress, we tend to follow well-worn paths and patterns. Our unwillingness to enter each moment fully, without judgment or the need to control it, simply produces more fear and resistance to that fear. "

Although some suicidal niche in the mind might become enamored with the prospect of dying and welcome its demise at the end of the year, such old-mind tendencies invite close examination. They are that part of each of us which would rather die than face, much less heal, our pain. They are the all-too-familiar feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy, which, when they are investigated, remind us of why so many parts of our life remain unlived.

"Recognising these underpinning functions of self-criticism indicates that the concept of self-forgiveness is very tricky because self-forgiveness can seem threatening when people’s tendencies to self-blame and self-criticise are rooted in their safety strategies. Both taking blame and seeking forgiveness can be seen as safety seeking efforts to calm the anger in the minds of the (powerful) other(s) so that the self is not rejected or hurt."

 Genuine self- forgiveness does not release the offender (the self) from responsibility for wrong actions, blame, guilt, and shame, but rather implies the severance of the negative link between responsibility and positive self-regard (Wenzel, Woodyatt, & Hedrick, 2012). Simply restoring one’s self-regard by releasing the self from responsibility or ‘letting oneself off the hook’ represents pseudo self-forgiveness only

"we tend to have the least control over those desires that have the greatest impact on our lives. We may be able to choose which cereal we have for breakfast, but we cannot likewise choose whether and with whom we fall in love. This is because our emotions are relatively indifferent to our breakfast menu but care very much about whether and with whom we have sex. "

The emotions, then, can effectively veto desires formed by the intellect. Does the intellect likewise have veto power over desires formed by the emotions? Often it doesn’t: think about someone acting in a blind rage. But sometimes, if our willpower is sufficiently strong, our intellect can override desires formed by our emotions. The intellect’s best strategy for dealing with the emotions is to use emotions to fight emotions. The intellect might point out, for example, that what the emotions want would in fact feel bad, that what they want may feel good now but will feel bad later, or that although what they want would feel good, there is something else that would feel even better. The intellect can also help sort through conflicting emotions and determine which will be acted on and which won’t. The emotions are perfectly willing to listen to the intellect as long as the intellect isn’t trying to impose its views but is merely trying to help the emotions get what they want. The intellect can also use emotions not to fight emotions but to arouse them. "

 Artificial intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky, for example, describes a situation in which he is having trouble concentrating on his research. In order to stay focused, he imagines that a competing researcher is on the verge of solving the problem Minsky is trying to solve. The trick works: Minsky stays focused even though he knows, intellectually, that the other researcher is unlikely to solve the problem, inasmuch as he has never shown the least interest in it.2 Thus, although the intellect cannot command the emotions to commit to one of its projects, it might be able to trick them into committing. The intellect has the greatest power over the emotions when it was responsible for triggering a particular emotion. Consider again the case in which my intellect informs my emotions that I have just been insulted, and I subsequently experience a flash of anger. Because my intellect played a key role in forming this desire, it retains the ability to extinguish it. 

"The relationship between the intellect and the emotions is therefore asymmetrical. Although the emotions have veto power over the intellect, in most cases the intellect has only the power of persuasion in its dealings with the emotions, and it can persuade them only if it can invoke a stronger emotion than the one it wants to suppress. Conversely, the intellect can form a desire, but if the emotions don’t commit, the resulting desire will be feeble. And if the emotions object, the resulting desire will be stillborn. Why does the intellect play second fiddle to the emotions? Why, in battles between the emotions and the intellect, do the emotions generally win? For the simple reason that they refuse to fight fairly. The emotions, in their dealings with the intellect, don’t use reason to gain its cooperation. Instead, they wear it down with—what else?—emotional entreaties. They beg, whine, and bully. They won’t take no for an answer. They won’t give the intellect a moment’s peace. In most cases, the best the intellect can hope for is to withstand these entreaties for a spell. Then it succumbs. "

"Our emotions are also capable of incapacitating our intellect by clogging our mind with intrusive thoughts. Our emotions might, for example, fill our mind with the recurring image of the person with whom we are infatuated, or if not that, with a recurring anxiety or a recurring thirst for an alcoholic beverage. Because of these intrusive thoughts, our intellect is simply too distracted to string together a coherent argument against the desire formed by the emotions: we can no longer think straight. If it wishes to regain its ability to function, the intellect has little choice but to capitulate. "

"Something like this happens with the intellect. It can’t avoid the whining of the emotions and can’t hope to modify their behavior. The intellect quickly figures out that the only sensible way—indeed, the rational way—to deal with the emotions is to unhesitatingly give them what they want most of the time and thereby conserve its strength so it can fight and win the battles that really matter—namely, to overcome the most undesirable of those desires generated by the emotions."

"Although our emotions dominate our intellect, it might seem, to the casual observer, as if our intellect has the upper hand. Most of our desires, after all, are instrumental, and since instrumental desires are formed by the intellect, it follows that most of our desires are formed by our intellect. Someone might cite this as proof of the dominance of our intellect, but in this case, appearances are misleading. "

Memory is no less an illusion than any other thought. It constantly changes perspectives and is susceptible to influence from surrounding attitudes."

 how much memory is a function of our self-image and that our self-image is no more substantial than a thought. "

"Even an unsuccessful attempt at forgiveness has the considerable power of its intention. We cannot force forgiveness because force closes the heart, but we can explore its possibilities, its capacity to heal the forgiver, and sometimes the forgiven. "

Have you ever done any research or have any knowledge of what the real vikings were like?

53 minutes ago, Joe > Average said:

Have you ever done any research or have any knowledge of what the real vikings were like?

A little. It's nothing like the TV show, which is more like romanticism/mythology

" Imagining that completion is accomplished through some momentous event rather than as a deep ongoing process of letting go and healing, they literally do not see where they are. Perhaps they do not recognize that their strong desire for some trophy of their worthiness is a trophy of their feelings of unworthiness born of a deeper disappointment. Having not discovered their own great truth, having not received the healing they took birth for, they have settled for success. Whether their dream was stardom or starshine, their book published, their true love found, or their temper defeated, they believed that their life was incomplete. I have been with many people on their deathbed who lamented that they could not die at peace because they felt a failure. It is an all too common stage we go through to the degree that we were more attached to the objects of life than appreciative of its evolutionary unfolding. Those who push through that sticky web across the path, that feeling of having not gotten what they came for before it was time to leave, feel it was well worth the effort, considering the breadth of the path opened up ahead. Like any grief, feelings of unworthiness and failure are not new, but at the point of impending loss they may become acute. Many decry their misfortune at not "getting theirs," forgetting they've already gotten it and now it is up to them to make an art of it: to build an altar to the sacred past, to merge with their heart in the immediate present, to open beyond old knowing to the mysterious future"

One fellow with cancer spoke of finding his lotus "before winter," of getting healed before the absence of cure turned his body cold. He said he wanted to "complete the course" before he died. So he explored that which had always distracted him from life and was now continuing its momentum into death. He said that right on the other side of his feelings of "notenoughness" was a remarkable insight. He saw the value of not being able to satisfy his desires. It caused him to discover, like Buddha, the cause of all his suffering. It was not only the impossibility of satisfying every desire, much less keeping it that way, it was not not getting this or that, or losing it the next day. The cause of suffering was desire itself. He saw that it was not in the object of desire that lasting satisfaction resided but in the absence of that desire. He mentioned that when something wanted was received, he noticed a momentary spiking of pleasure and the experience we call satisfaction. But to his surprise the satisfaction did not come from the having but from the momentary flash of getting when the light of his great nature was for a moment no longer obstructed by a mind full of desire. It was the absence of desire which offered that feeling of satisfaction, of temporary completeness. The very nature of desire was one of dissatisfaction with any moment in which the object of desire was not present. Desire lived more in the future than the present. It had a quality of longing rather than being. He saw the mind was doomed to feel something of a failure if it did not comprehend that it is unrequited desire itself, which, like a hungry ghost, always calls out for more. This recognition of the painful nature of desire did not make him desireless but allowed him to treat desire with a new respect. He said that he did not even care if his lotus ever bloomed now that he had found it. This reminded me that one of my teachers used to say once you have turned toward the light it doesn't really matter how far away it seems as long as you keep your eye on it. "

"An acquaintance who is subject to a hand-washing compulsion describes it in these terms. If he hasn’t washed his hands in a while, he experiences an uncomfortable feeling of tension or anxiety. He knows he can make this feeling go away by washing his hands. He also knows that after he washes them, the feeling will return. People who find out about his compulsion ask him why he can’t just decide that he isn’t going to wash his hands. This question misses the point. Intellectually, he knows there is no good reason for washing his hands as often as he does. But he also knows that his intellect is powerless against the feeling of anxiety he experiences. Indeed, the rational thing for him to do, given that he is subject to this anxiety and can make it go away by washing his hands, is to wash them. It is as rational as it is for him, on experiencing hunger pangs, to eat."

"We might pity the person with a hand-washing compulsion, but at least there is something he can do to make his anxiety go away, if only for a time. Those subject to free-floating anxieties are not so lucky. Because anxieties are usually attached to specific desires, people know what they must do to extinguish them—satisfy the desires to which they are attached. "

" Freefloating anxieties, however, are not attached to any specific desire; therefore, a person experiencing a free-floating anxiety has no idea of what action on his part will quell his feeling of anxiety. When anxieties attach themselves to the desires in a chain of desire, they play a very useful role, inasmuch as they motivate us to ascend the chain in question. But when anxieties attach themselves to desires we wish we didn’t have—such as a desire to wash our hands—they become troublesome, and when they fail to attach themselves to any desire at all, they become a source of considerable distress."

"Success is very much like a drug: it makes you feel good; you don’t know what you are missing until you experience it; once you experience it, you want more; and in your attempts to recapture that first high, you will have to resort to ever bigger “doses.” And if success is like a drug, some drugs are like success: a cocaine high, I am told, very much resembles the rush of success. Once people experience success, something strange happens. They recognize that success feels very, very good: it may not be as intense as an orgasm, but it is longer-lasting and, unlike an orgasm, is multidimensional in the way it feels good. Having recognized this, people form a new goal for themselves— to obtain the feeling of success for its own sake. "

"Our evolutionary ancestors who formed and successfully ascended long chains of desire were more likely to survive and reproduce than those who didn’t. But in forming such chains, they exposed themselves to periodic frustration and the possibility of failure. Presumably the rush of success was an evolutionary counterbalance to these negatives: it was the carrot that induced them to plan for their future well-being by forming and working to ascend long chains of desire."

"Psychological research suggests that there are indeed multiple sources of desire within us, that many desires arise out of our unconscious mind, that the desire formation process is much less rational than one might think, and that when our emotions stop functioning, our intellect finds it hard to form desires. "

"When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. —Sigmund Freud"

A growing body of evidence suggests, however, that many of our choices are not made in this fashion. We do not make them, if by “we” is meant our conscious minds. To the contrary, the choices are made unconsciously, and it is only after they have been made “for us” that we are informed of them, at which point we put our stamp of approval on them."

" “The initiation of the freely voluntary act appears to begin in the brain unconsciously, well before the person consciously knows he wants to act!”"

"Wegner and other psychologists argue that something like this happens when we will that a finger move. It may look as though the act of willing is the cause of the finger movement, but in fact a third “unseen” event both causes the experience of willing and, a split second later, causes the finger to move. The event in question takes place in our unconscious mind.
It is disturbing enough to think that our “choices” are really just reflections of deeper mental processes that are hidden from us and over which we—that is, our conscious selves—have little or no control. Even more disturbing is the suggestion, supported by a variety of experimental data, that these internal processes are often in conflict with each other. We do not have one inner self; we have several, and they are capable of making contrary choices. "

"Cases like these suggest that our brains have not one center of control, not one part that wills, but multiple decisionmaking centers that independently come to decisions about what we should be doing with ourselves. They are like army generals who each has his own idea about what the battle plan should be. In most armies, a supreme commander listens to his generals’ ideas and decides what should be done, thereby coordinating their behavior. But if a general is unable to communicate with the supreme commander, he might initiate a combat action on his own—an action that might be at odds with the actions of the other generals and with the battle plan set forth by the supreme commander."

" schizophrenics hear voices no one else hears. They spend their days in self-conflict, with the conscious, hearing part of the brain trying to resist the suggestions made by the unconscious, speaking part."

" They discovered that the brain’s two hemispheres process information differently and can therefore come to different conclusions about what should be done in response to the information in question"

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