Thich Nhat Hanh - How to Live When a Loved One Dies: Healing Meditations for Grief and Loss

Parallax Press
2236B Sixth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
parallax.org

Parallax Press is the publishing division of Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism

2021 Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism

All rights reserved

Cover and text design by Katie Eberle

Typeset by Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

All poems in this book are by Thich Nhat Hanh

The material in this book comes from previously published books and unpublished Dharma talks by Thich Nhat Hanh

Edited and with complementary practices by Sister Tri Nghiem and the editors of Parallax Press

LCCN 2021011340 | ISBN 9781946764805 | ISBN 9781946764812 (e-book)

1 2 3 4 5 / 26 25 24 23 22 21

1. The Art of Living: Peace and Freedom in the Here and Now
2. The Energy of Prayer: How to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice
3. Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practices
4. How to Connect
5. How to Sit
6. How to Walk
7. No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life
8. No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering
9. Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child

Oneness

The moment I die,

I will try to come back to you

as quickly as possible.

I promise it will not take long.

Isnt it true

I am already with you,

as I die each moment?

I come back to you

in every moment.

Just look,

feel my presence.

If you want to cry,

please cry.

And know

that I will cry with you.

The tears you shed will heal us both.

Your tears are mine.

Here are some of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanhs most insightful teachings on grief and loss, together with self-care meditations and practices in the Plum Village tradition compiled by the editors. We hope these meditations and practices will help you find relief, comfort, and healing in the face of grief and loss, and help you reconnect with yourself, your loved one, and all of life.

Our loved ones are in us and we are in them. When a loved one dies, a part of us also dies.

Sometimes we think that our loss is so great that we will never be able to be happy again.

When we lose a loved one, our heart is filled with a deep suffering that we cannot express. But we can express our pain in tears. We can cry. When you cry, you feel better.

Men can cry, too. I wanted to cry when I saw someone else crying. It is human nature to cry. To be able to cry brings comfort, relief, and healing.

If you want to cry, please cry.

And know that I will cry with you.

The tears you shed will heal us both.

Your tears are mine.

I stamped my feet and

cried the moment mother

died.

That morning was a beautiful rosy

morning, but at midnight the wind blew

hard.

When a painful emotion comes up, stop whatever you are doing and take care of it right away. Bring your attention home to what is happening in your body. The practice is simple.

Put your hand on your belly and feel the movement of your breathing. Bring all your awareness down from your head to your navel and stop thinking about what has upset you. In a storm, the leaves and branches at the top of the tree thrash about wildly. The tree looks so fragile and vulnerable, as though it could break at any moment. But when you bring your attention down to the trunk of the tree, you see the trunk is very calm and still. You are no longer afraid because you realize that the tree is strong and stable, that it is deeply rooted in the soil and can withstand the storm.

A strong emotion is like a storm, but if we know how to practice, we can survive the storm. When we are caught in a storm of strong emotions, we need to identify what is causing our emotional response and gently disengage ourselves from it straight away.Whether it is a thought, an image, a sound, a smell, a touch, or a person speaking, we turn our attention away from it for a moment and bring all our attention back to our breathing. If we continue to pay attention to or think about what is causing us to suffer, it will only increase our strong emotions.

So, we practice deep belly breathing. Whether standing, sitting, or lying down, we become aware of our breathing. If our breathing is rapid and shallow, we notice it, and shift our attention from our throat and chest down to our belly and focus on the rising and falling of our abdomen.

The practice is simple:

Breathing in, I am aware of my abdomen rising.

Breathing out, I am aware of my abdomen falling.

Gradually the storm will subside, our breathing and our heart will calm down, and we will feel more at peace.

When you are suffering greatly, if you have suffered a profound loss, you need people who are able to just sit and listen to you with compassion. But what is even more important is that we can listen to ourselves with compassion. To do this, we need to learn the art of deep listening. We stop whatever were doing and come home to ourselves. We look deeply to recognize and name our suffering and embrace it tenderly. Listening deeply to our own suffering is an act of self-compassion.

When we lose a loved one, especially if it was sudden and unexpected, we may feel like we have lost the ground under our feet. It takes our breath away.

The first thing to do is to regain our footing. The practice of conscious breathing can help us come back to the present moment and come back into the body.

How to calm a racing heart and erratic breathing? It is actually very simplewe bring all our awareness back to our breath and focus exclusively on our breathing. We stop thinking about anything else and follow the breath as it moves in and out of the body.

Continue to follow your breathing. Feel the cool air entering your body and notice that it is warmer when it leaves. We become aware of which parts of the body are moving as we breathe in and out, and we focus on the rising and falling of the abdomen.

When we maintain awareness of our breath, our breathing naturally becomes lighter, calmer, and more peaceful. Gradually the storm subsides and our mind and body calm down.

Your breath is your life raft in a stormy ocean, the anchor keeping you in your body. Follow your breath and notice what is happening in your body. Feel your abdomen rising and falling. When we are very upset, our breathing may be fast and shallow and our chest may heave. Just focus on these bodily sensations. Become aware of any constrictions in the body, any tightness or pain, and do your best to breathe into those places and release the tension. Keep your awareness on your bodily sensations and the flow of your breathing. Do not try to change or force anything; just become aware of what is happening. Your breathing will naturally start to calm down, and your mind and body will begin to relax and calm down as well.

Wherever we are, we can practice conscious breathing, whether were sitting, walking, standing, or lying down. Just following your breathing can already bring a lot of peace and relief. Whenever we become overwhelmed with grief, despair, or sorrow, our breathing is the stable, solid ground that we can take refuge in.

To help us stay focused on our breathing, with each in and out breath we may like to say silently,