Wakil
Welcome everyone. And we want to give a special welcome to Reverend Bodhi Be. The warrior of the heart and protector of the sacred.
Reverend Bodhi Be is an ordained interfaith minister and a teacher in the Sufi lineage of Samuel Lewis and Hazrat Inayat Khan.
Annalouiza
He is the founder and executive director of Doorway Into Light, a nonprofit organization on Maui. Doorway Into Light operates Hawaii's only nonprofit funeral home since 2012.
The Reverend Bodhi is a funeral director and end of life and bereavement counselor and educator. He is continuing the work Ram Dass held first in the fields of conscious dying in America.
Wakil
So Bodhi, thank you again for being here. It's really an honor and a privilege to spend time with you, a good friend and a good teacher and a mentor.
So we would like to start out with a question of when did you first become aware of death?
Bodhi Be
Well, first of all, thanks for inviting me. Maybe many of us first became aware of death watching TV. I lived in a city so I didn't really have any pets.
So I never experienced the death of let's say, a cat or a dog. I'd hear about it, certainly, very rarely though, people didn't really talk about it.
It wasn't really until I was 17 and my dad suddenly died. That was in some ways, in many ways, the giant turning point in my life.
There it was. I mean, I could go on about that piece.
Wakil
Yeah. Well, if you'd like, if you have more to share, we'd certainly love to hear about it. We have.
Bodhi Be
I've never been. That is exactly what we have, the time of our life.
Wakil
Yeah.
Bodhi Be
I'm having the time of my life.
Wakil
It's so good.
Bodhi Be
I'd never seen a dead body. I'd never really seen anybody grieving. My family didn't really express emotions. I had a number of mixed emotions about it myself.
I was a high school senior and hated my dad at the time. But maybe the most important piece, or one of the important pieces, was when we were at the cemetery, which was this gigantic cemetery that went on and on and outside of New York City.
It was just, I'd never even really spent any time in a cemetery. So that in itself was, wow, being in a big crowded cemetery full of tombstones, was pretty much as far as I could see, but what I could see beyond the cemetery was New York City off in the distance.
In a different direction was a giant auto wrecking yard where there were piles and piles of rusted cars. And my brother and sister, they never saw what I saw and I saw that when my dad's casket was being lowered into the grave, a giant crane was lowering a rusted, flattened car onto a pile of rusted, flattened cars.
And when I was 17, I didn't even understand what I was seeing and certainly didn't have any language for it.
But I saw something, I saw both those things. And that's a very strong impression for me.
Wakil
Wow, a lot of symbolism there. That's going on around you.
Yeah.
Annalouiza
That's so beautiful, Bodhi because I think that people who are death-aware are also noticing other aspects of death in the world.
Like that flattened car is an end to that car. And, you know, I'd say a majority of Our culture doesn't attend to any of those little details that walk past.
Bodhi Be
Or the truth that we're going to die and we don't know when. Right. I think most people don't know that except as information in their head.
Annalouiza
Mm-hmm.
Bodhi Be
If it's even that. We know that other people die. Yeah. We see that. We hear about that. I mean, when I ask people, how many of you know you're going to die and you don't know when?
And Wakil you’ve been in that group where everybody raised their hand and looked at me like that’s a dumb question - that everybody knows that.
But people know that as a piece of information. It's not realized, embodied.
Annalouiza
Yeah.
Bodhi Be
It’s a truth that affects how people live every day except other than to run away from it and not think about it.
Annalouiza
Right. Oh, I love that. I think about death every day, but just as an aside. have a printout of how many weeks you have if you live to be 90.
And it's in my kitchen cupboard. So when I open that particular cupboard door, I can like notice it. And sometimes I actually stay on there and be like, this is where I'm at.
If I live to be 90, this is how many weeks I have left to do whatever I want to do.
So I've had people say that's really bizarre. And I'm like, it's so exciting though.
I'm so excited.
There's just like so much to do here now. And I can't wait for the other side.
Like what's going to happen?
Bodhi Be
There's a built-in entitlement to that particular graph, which I give out at our training. The notion is that we expect to have 90 years.
Annalouiza
That's true too. That is true. My dad loves to check actuarial tables to see how long he's going to live based on all these little random things.
And that's also a little strange to me because he keeps thinking he's going to die at 87. And I was like, what if we don't?
Like, is it going to be disappointing? Like you didn't get it right?
Bodhi Be
A failure.
Annalouiza
Yeah, I'm like, I don't know.
So, what are you doing day to day? Especially since you have this foundation of awareness around death and dying. What is your current role?
Bodhi Be
Well, I'm on call as a funeral director. That's an ongoing thing. So they don't have a way to make the phone ring if it's good news or bad news, either way, the phone rings the same. So I pretty much am on call, at least during the daylight hours, and need to show up to maybe help go pick up our body if someone has just died. everything that comes forth from that. But that's an ongoing thing.
What else am I doing? I'm doing quite a bit of counseling. This is certainly what you can imagine around grief.
In general, who's not grieving what's happening in the world right now?
In terms of what happened here on Maui and the fires in Lahaina,
We've all been changed by that. And maybe that's a permanent change in some ways from Maui. So I'm being called on to counsel.
Our funeral home is now offering and has been since the Lahaina fire, absolutely free, no cost, burial, you know, ocean body burial and cremation services for the Lahaina families who had somebody dying in the fire.
So that's an ongoing thing, meeting the families, very challenging in some ways for what they're going through. in the midst of having everything they own gone and burned down, they might be the only person in their family that lived. Those kind of stories, common stories.
What else am I doing? I just taught a class on Saturday for choosing to end one's life and touched into that whole piece of what's happening in our culture.
And now that's becoming a bigger and bigger issue. I'm designing a training, online training that will start in January that I'd love people to know about.
About facing death, and nourishing life, which is threefold. It's about doing the work of preparing for ones own death, religion, the physical pieces, the emotional, psychological work, and the spiritual work.
And completing a life and coming to peace with one's life. I'm going to begin a certification program also in January.
Annalouiza
It's all death.
Yeah, I actually love it.
Bodhi Be
That's only one part of my life though, because I live in the jungle with my wife and my kids and grandkids that live very close by.
One of my kids is now engaged to be married and they're going to have a baby in the spring and we have gardens and orchards.
So there's a lot of different ways I'm called upon in the community. But it isn't specifically about death at all.
Let's say an elder or an elder in training. Or good friend.
Wakil
Yeah. The class you were talking about, I did take that class with you last year and I highly recommend it to anyone.
Bodhi Be
Yes, it's evolving that particular course keeps evolving and I think will become the foundation of a book.
Wakil
And it actually inspired the little class that I'm doing about more of the practical pieces. It inspired that and has added to that as well.
And I know what you mean. every time you do it, something gets changed. It gets a little better.
Bodhi Be
I'm so delighted to see that you've taken it in a direction to bring more benefit to your community. So congratulations.
Wakil
Yeah. Thank you for your support on that.
Annalouiza
I'm inspired too. I woke up this morning. I sometimes teach at the seminary and I've been teaching death and dying for BIPOC people and how it's different from the white mainstream culture.
I'm like, I need to start teaching that everywhere because nobody's kind of coming to me and saying like, this is a place where folks need more information.
They don't get enough information. And they don't actually don't get supported at the end of life. Often times. So I'm so excited we're here.
Wakil
Yeah. What would you say are the biggest challenges that you have in the work you're doing?
Bodhi Be
Showing up absolutely fully and completely for some very intense situations. We went and picked up a five-month-old baby from the morgue that has been autopsied to bring back to our facility and unzip the bag and meet this young boy.
And oftentimes we actually do meet people after they're dead. That's an example of a very
Bodhi Be
And all the pieces that come with it. I'm mean, just staying healthy is a challenge as well.
Wakil
Sure.
Bodhi Be
Again, I would say to be able to grieve and to even still be able to have fun. And fortunately, my grandkids and my wife and my family really helped me remember about all the rest of it.
And then I make sure I’m in the ocean as often as I can be, the ocean is a great support.
All the ways I'm challenged to show up no matter what, no matter what I'm feeling or going through to be able to drop it and meet it.
Which I think probably is challenging for many of us to meet with us being basically.
I don't get overwhelmed but I can see it from here sometimes.
I think my experience is that's true for a lot of people right now.
So that’s how it's in here, staying healthy, mentally emotionally experientially, and that most usually we should survive and guide over the year.
Annalouiza
So, Bodhi, I think that, I'm picking up that five-month-old. was very difficult for you.
When you pick up, when you meet somebody who has died, and it's like a shock to you, when you have to unzip that bag and see that it's a five-month-old baby who's been autopsied. How do you have a physical process for yourself to be certain that you can stay resourced during that moment?
And I guess because I'm asking you through the shaman lens, how do you show up and stay safe, energetically, spiritually?
Bodhi Be
First of all, it’s not anything like shock. It’s more about relaxing into what I’ve been called to do.
Of course, now I have 15 or more years of experience in meeting the unknown. We all do, I mean that’s the nature of life - to not assume its just going to be like it was yesterday.
Being relaxed is really big. Again, having a spiritual foundation sometimes shows up really well. Not always.
Annalouiza
I like that being relaxed
Bodhi Be
No, I ask for help. I ask for help from God or whatever name we give to that.
But what did we hear - we heard a prayer the other day, Please help me my boat is small, the ocean is so vast. I can’t do this by myself please give me the strength, the courage and the heart, what I need to go meet.
That works, that works. And you know attuning, just like we started here. Taking a moment.
I feel actually, in the same way that this feels big. I feel honored that this is the work I’ve been called to do.
All of that makes it so I can show up for this kind of thing.
Not only that, but show up for the mom of that five-month-old baby who when she came to see him wouldn't leave. Understandably so. And you know how to hold space for that.
You know I cry a lot. I don't try to keep myself separate at all. I don't know that I could. It's amazing how easily I cry about all that stuff with people who are, you know, they may or may not be crying.
I don't hold back.
It's funny. We went to see my granddaughter's high school play last night and it was Shakespeare and just to see these kids giving everything they had to it I was bawling at the end of that play.
What's up with that?
But no I don't even think what's up with that. It's just like I don't get in the way of a family.
You know I don't want to become part of the story at the same time.
I'm very aware of if I need to get out of the space to feel what I'm feeling I do
Wakil
Yeah, I have that same tendency to cry at any moment my kids are always giving me trouble about it, but it's true, you know, I think there's an energy of acceptance.
You know we had a choir concert last night and we had this one gospel soloist it was so beautiful and I told her afterward, you know the hardest part for me was I was crying because it was so beautiful And it's really hard to sing when you're crying Yeah, that's great.
It's funny that we've heard that from I think our last two guests. They've both spoken about the fact that they cry easily.
Annalouiza
They do.
Wakil
Yeah, so there's something about this work, maybe Yeah, I feel
Annalouiza
Like, I don't cry. That's something my kids actually notice too. Like, you, I tend to be like really great when everybody else is falling apart.
And I relax, I really do. I like notice that moment when everybody needs to emote and cry and fall. And I just, I don't know.
I'm like, I just breathe and I'm just holding it. But I don't have this desire to join in the crying or, yeah, but I think that's a gift.
I'd like to sit with that one and hopefully I will become a crier too.
I just, I've never been a crier.
Bodhi Be
Hey, don’t be calling me a crier.
Annalouiza
OK, a weeper?
Wakil
Just be who you are darling, you're perfect.
Annalouiza
I cry in other ways. Okay.
Wakil
There you go.
Bodhi Be
You know the Hawaiians, I don't know if they do it now, but they had people who were like not professional, but they were the wailers.
Oh, yeah, they would come to memorials or funerals to get every get everybody else connected to yeah
Annalouiza
That's an ancient tradition actually because uh one of my Tias who passed away a few years ago.
That's what she liked to do She actually went to random funerals and sit in back of cry as much as she wanted to like and she that's what she decided to do for her service work
Wakil
Okay. Is there anything that you would say frightens you about the end of life or about you know and again what kind of resources do you have or what kind of support do you need
And from your community or from your family, you've said a little bit about your family giving you that place to be.
Is there anything else you could speak to around that?
Bodhi Be
Well, if I was afraid of anything about it, it would be to, I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm afraid of dying today or tomorrow.
So, this is too much I want to do and contribute. And at the same time, I work with that to not feel that it’s a failure because I didn't do as much as I wished I could because I don't live that way.
I don't want to live that way. In fact, I told somebody the other day, I wish I was 50 instead of 70.
Not because I care about being younger, but because there's so much I still want to bring forth in terms of contributing.
You know, that's what I've been my path.
Wakil
Yeah.
Oh, just talking about, you know, what kind of resources you have with that fear. What kind of things do you turn to when you're feeling that sense?
Is there anything else you'd want to speak to about that?
Bodhi Be
Of course, it's so about practicing letting go. It's not only the practice for healthy living, but it's the supreme practice for letting go and we're dying.
I've seen all kinds of dying. In fact, when I was first a hospice volunteer, or first made a hospice volunteer in like the year 2000, I'd never sat with dying people.
And they, you know, hospice started asking me to go into homes to sit with dying people. And I did, and I thought, wow, I'm kind of in the school of how do people actually do this?
Or as it turned out, how do people refuse to do it? Well, they're dead. That became a huge teaching for me.
And I'm not afraid of the dying part. I don't have an answer about how I'll respond to it. Because people ask me about this in this class the other day, what would you choose to end your life?
I don't know. And I do my best to practice. I don't know and not feel that that's lesser than or isn't valuable.
Actually, I think I don't know is one of the most valuable things and important things to stand on, really.
Wakil
I don't know.
Bodhi Be
I'm certainly not afraid of being dead at all. Some part of me could look forward to it. But that's not my work.
I don't spend time to looking forward to it. The dying pieces. I've seen so much about how your dying isn't just about you.
And, that's an important piece that I've I bring to the conversation, you know, what if you're dying isn't just about you and it's not.
Even your life really isn't your life, which of course is a radical thing to say in the west where it's my life, I get to do what I want.
Just do it. Be all you can be, you know, that kind of stuff. Have it your way.
Wakil
Yeah. Yeah. That's really good. Really important.
Annalouiza
It is. Bohdi, would you expand on the life is uh, death isn’t all about you or just about you?
Tell me more about that.
Bodhi Be
I'll give you an example of who's at um this five-month-old baby for example, I just saw it.
So the mom came one day by herself. She came back two days later and brought her other four kids and her sister's three or four little kids and her brother and her brother's partner.
And imagine that those little kids have that experience at the age of, that some of those kids are three or four or five.
And that's a story that lives on for them to tell their people and their kids. It's a healing story that goes out about making death globalized, let's say.
I've seen that a number of times where kids, not just kids, but family, have participated in the dying and the death of someone.
You know, in terms of people being afraid of death, in this culture, we're not around it. It's kind of hidden away.
And the normal muscle is grandma died. Quick. Let's call the funeral home to have her taken away and of course that does a tremendous disservice to the family to be there with grandma.
if you send grandma away the next time you see her she's either been embalmed and looks kind of like grandma or you go to pick up her ashes or you know the bone fragments and that's a huge disconnect in terms of not participating and grieving throughout the whole of those steps.
So I mean that's the most obvious example of how it's not just about you.
Wakil
Yes.
Bodhi Be
I don't think your life belongs to you so it's only I mean the next thing obviously is how you choose to die ripples out and even if you choose and your own life it ripples out.
And mostly what I saw as an early hospice volunteer was how about people were refusing to die while they were dying.
Kind of backing into their death. The silly notion that you could live as normal a life as possible while you were dying, which to me is a bizarre statement.
Or that you could be able to any psychological structure to working with depressed dying people. To me, that's bizarre.
Dying is not the same as anything else.
Annalouiza
Mm-hmm.
Wakil
So true. Yeah.
Annalouiza
It is a little bit like childbirth, though, because the folks that I've sat with, sometimes it takes a day, sometimes it takes a couple of weeks.
And in my childbirth with my kids, it took a while. you kind of thought it was coming, and it didn't.
And you got better, and you walked around. I always think about that. I watch people at the end of their life, if they're not constricted against it, they go through these waves of...
processing.
Bodhi Be
I would say yes and the ways they are similar are very beautiful and powerful and important in terms of moving from one world to another world.
And yet the the way they're most obviously different, which is the overlay on the whole thing which makes them completely different, is that in birthing of course, the prayer is healthy, baby that lives and in dying it's really the opposite, right?
It's success when you die in the night and so that changes the dynamic. might be completely. I've been in a number of births and I've been in a number of deaths so it's the same and it's very different.
Wakil
Yeah, I was wondering about... If you wanted to talk more about some of the work that you're doing there as far as the land that you're looking at and some of those things if you'd like to talk a little bit about some of that.
Bodhi Be
Well, as the only nonprofit funeral home in and I've been told very likely the only nonprofit funeral home in America, I would say we're transforming what the funeral home is.
You know, the funeral home in general has a lousy reputation. Understandably so, it shouldn't be a money transaction to help people when somebody dies.
You go to the funeral home, maybe you've done this, and maybe you're grieving and you're in shock, and it's a really lousy state to make a business decision.
And most funeral homes, the funeral directors, the funeral arrangers work on commissions. And I know, and encouraged, and maybe more than encouraged, motivated to upsell.
And of course, it's easy to upsell with people who are grieving and want to do right by grandma, especially if there will be a public viewing and of course you want to spend the 15 grand on some elaborate box, etc.
We're not selling anything at our nonprofit funeral home. Of course we have to legally have a price list.
We abide by the price list as best we can because we're a business also, paying rent, etc. And people.
But we'll work with anybody if they, whether they have money or not. But more importantly than that, people understand and experience that we're not selling them anything that we're here to serve them and show up for them and hold them.
And basically we fall in love with the people we work with and they feel held in a way maybe they have never been held before and feel safe to the degree that they don't have to apologize for what they're going through. We've changed the atmosphere of the whole thing in not putting out any energetic of selling anything.
And I think it's transformational to what a funeral home is, which really is about sacred service. It's not about selling a sacred service and needs to be returned to a community work.
In the recognition that this is something we as a community do together, we take care of our dying and our dead.
That's a big piece of what we do and that's a lot of what the education component is about. That's huge.
That piece itself. so to your question, we'd like to do that with a cemetery, with a burial ground. And as you know, there is a movement towards more green natural burial.
We only do green burial. In fact, I make a very simple pine box, beautiful caskets. But there's a cemetery that will let us bury someone in a shroud or cardboard box.
We're the only funeral home in Hawaii, burying the whole bodies in the ocean. Quite beautiful, actually, to be on a boat for an hour with the body wrapped in a shroud on board.
It's quite beautiful. So we'd like to do that on land. And we have a vision of combining a burial ground with a playground and a community gathering place and a pet cemetery.
And an art studio where kids could come and make, let's say a tile, with their dog's name on it to be added to the altar at the pet cemetery.
So to bring what do I say, I say we're life and death, a neat and healthy community life. So it's not something over there that maybe people go to and maybe people don't go to.
You know, most people want to be cremated because mainly because it's way less costly, but also we in the West have lost the connection to what it means to go sit by the side of the bones of our people.
In America, on the average, you move every five years. So most of us don't go back to visit those places and maybe don't know where they are.
And we, so we've lost the understanding of the value of having a place to go sit with your bones of your people.
You know, it's funny as a Sufi, you know, we talk about that, which doesn't die, you know, the soul and the ever-living.
And I went on a pilgrimage and maybe you did too Wakil. I went on a pilgrimage to India with a bunch of Sufis and every day we'd go visit another tomb and sit by the tomb.
And you think, what's up with that? That's the one.
And there's something to it.
Wakil
Yes.
Bodhi Be
Something to it. So we'd like to transform a community's relationship with their dead Because the common notion is that they're gone.
I don't experience that as being true. I think that came through the church a long time ago and we might be the only culture Not just America, but Western the Western mind that is spread everywhere that the dead are gone. Or the dead of the light and they don't need us those kind of notions I don't subscribe to those those stories In fact when I really sit with tuning to my friends and the people who've gone before me and you know one of the places I think we go Is that we go sit around the fire with our friends and our and our people who have died and we tell stories and tell jokes and we look down here and see who who's suffering who's having a challenging time and we all pray for those people for that person and when I really sit with that I feel those people praying for us. God knows we need a lot of prayers right now Thank you, I don't know how I ended it up over there...
Annalouiza
Yeah, that's wonderful though, I love it. I do love it.
Bodhi Be
Yeah Yeah But I would love to speak about my training that's coming up because I love your help in getting that word out there.
It is a seven-week training online So you can be anywhere and we meet for two hours to two times a week and that's a threefold training. One doing the work of preparing for death. Because first I started out training people to care for dying people and I started teaching people how to do the work, all the work of preparing for death because it's one of the most enlivening and practices there is.
And then I realized that people who are caring for dying people really need to do their own work. So the training is about preparing, doing the work of preparing for death, or at least the understanding of the work that needs to be done.
And then how to care for dying people, the spiritual care, the emotional psychological care, which turns out to be way more important in some ways than what the rest of it, where your passwords are, although those are important, where you keep your money, those are also important.
And so then the other piece is how to show up for dying people.
And be useful to dying people. And the third piece is how to show up for what's dying in the world, how to build willingness and capacity.
It should not be completely overrun by the immensity of what's happening.
Wakil
Yeah, yeah.
Bodhi Be
So that training starts in January. If you go to our website, Doorway Into Light.org, to the education page, you can learn more about that.
Wakil
Yeah, we'll put a link in our podcast notes.
Bodhi Be
Thank you. And as you said, some of what I'm doing is continuing the work that Ram Dass was so engaged in, in terms of just dying.
Some of my work is, what he used to term the three hearts. You know, as you know, one of the leading causes in this country of death is congestive heart failure.
And that's not, that's not, I don't think that's a physical thing. I mean, it’s an emotional cycle.
Wakil
We deeply appreciate you and all your work. And you know, my beloved friend.
Annalouiza
Yeah, thank you.
We like to end each episode with a poem. Here is this week's poem by Mark Nepo
Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of wonder and grief.
The light spraying through the lace of the fern is as
delicate as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze makes the
birds move from branch to branch as this ache makes
me look for those I’ve lost in the next room, in the next
song, in the laugh of the next stranger.
In the very center, under it all, what we have
that no one can take away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.
Mark Nepo- Adrift