The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

SPIRITUAL HELP FOR THE DYING 215
may never have suspected. The sources of healing and awareness
are deep within each of us, and your task is never under
any circumstances to impose your beliefs but to enable them
to find these within themselves.
Believe as you sit by the dying person that you are sitting
by someone who has the true potential to be a buddha. Imagine
their buddha nature as a shining and stainless mirror, and
all their pain and anxiety a thin, gray mist on it that can
quickly clear. This will help you to see them as lovable and
forgivable, and draw out of you your unconditional love; you
will find this attitude will allow the dying person to open
remarkably to you.
My master Dudjom Rinpoche used to say that to help a
dying person is like holding out a hand to someone who is on
the point of falling over, to lift them up. Through the strength
and peace and deep compassionate attention of your presence,
you will help them awaken their own strength. The quality of
your presence at this most vulnerable and extreme moment is
all-important. As Cicely Saunders wrote: 'The dying have shed
the masks and superficialities of everyday living and they are
all the more open and sensitive because of this. They see
through all unreality. I remember one man saying, 'No, no
reading. I only want what is in your mind and in your
heart.'" 1
I never go to the bedside of a dying person without practicing
beforehand, without steeping myself in the sacred atmosphere
of the nature of mind. Then I do not have to struggle
to find compassion and authenticity, for they will be there and
radiate naturally.
Remember, you can do nothing to inspire the person in
front of you if you do not inspire yourself first. So when you
don't know what to do, when you feel hardly able to do anything
to help, then pray and meditate, invoke the Buddha or
any other figure whose sacred power you believe in. When I'm
faced with someone going through terrible suffering, I call
down with fervor the help of all the buddhas and enlightened
beings, with my heart completely open to the person dying in
front of me, and compassion for their pain filling my being. I
invoke as intensely as possible the presence of my masters, the
buddhas, of those enlightened beings with whom I have a particular
connection. Summoning all my powers of devotion and
faith, I see them in glory above the dying person, gazing down
at them with love, and pouring down light and blessing on
them, purifying them of all their past karma and present agony.