Since I swear health and in a joint work with the organization at the end of life We talked with Dr. Enric Benito about the humanization of the end-of-life process. On the taboos that exist, what is a good death, palliative care and other topics, which make the accompaniment of those moments so significant in the lives of all people and their loved ones.
This is a series of Dialogues in which we want to divulge a vision of the process of dying full of humanity and meaning.
Enric Benito is a Doctor of Medicine, Specialist in Oncology and Honorary Member of the Spanish Society for Palliative Care (SECPAL). His experience and his teachings constitute a true reference for the world of palliative care, for the accompaniment and humanization of the process of dying well.
In this fourth meeting, now closing this cycle of dialogues, we ask Enric Benito to summarize for us what was discussed in the previous interviews where the process of dying, accompaniment, compassion, presence… and other topics that constitute a new and hopeful look at the inevitable fact of death.
Henry Benito: Our daily life is oriented towards survival and we do not consider these more radical issues: we are focused on a superficial level and the most obvious thing is, that this life is limited, that we have a time, we do not contemplate it.
But suddenly something happens to us in life that forces us to stop karl jasper ( doctor and philosopher) I call it “limit situations”. It can be an illness, a loss, suffering, the death of others or our own.
We are vulnerable to these situations that confront us with reality and we cannot avoid them. It is like a wall against which we hit ourselves and causes us suffering.
In my experience, what I have learned is to see what lies beyond that wall. And I see that the suffering is produced by me when I hit myself against it. But I can accept that wall and go beyond it, see what lies beyond. By accepting instead of rejecting that reality that I cannot change, suddenly, in a way incomprehensible to the mind, that limit can be transcended. You access another level of reality. It is true that for this transformation to take place, a complex process is needed. But the remarkable thing is that it can be done, that we can all do it.
Rehuno: Enric, what you mention about limits and what transcends would have to do with what you mention in your talks on “spirituality”? And if so, how do we access that knowledge or how do we approach that experience?
Henry Benito: We all, even if we don’t know it, have much more capacity and depth than we think. In these extreme moments, levels of our own consciousness can be accessed, which give us more light and understanding.
Spirituality is humanity in its fullness, in depth, and as a consequence of encountering what sustains me, there is a return that would be universal brotherhood.
Accessing deeper levels of my consciousness I realize what sustains me. You know that it is immortal, that it has no name, no age, no gender… and seeing this you understand others and feel compassion for their suffering.
You come into contact with a joy, with a peace and it makes you supportive of the suffering because you want the other to also discover who he or she is, who we are, because he or she has forgotten. We are awareness and joy and awareness is never threatened. It is the ego that conflicts with reality. In the context of my reality it is the ego that comes into conflict. But my spirit searches for meaning, I accept and let go and I prepare to glimpse a reality that although I don’t like it, I accept and transform it. Because he let go, and when I let go I take away my energy.
It is about enlightening the spirit, about flourishing as a human being.
A crisis, if accepted, takes you to another level of reality. You have to explore another reality and “help” always arrives to find it. Life, when it breaks us, gives us the opportunity to discover a depth that is in everyone, full of meaning and fullness.
Rehuno Salud: So, dying can be, from this perspective, a “School of Life” contrary to what is often interpreted and an entry into another dimension of reality?
Henry Benito: In all the traditions of wisdom you can find this expression: “He who dies before dying does not die when he dies.” This means that I identify myself with this character and I say: I am Enric, I am a doctor, I am a grandfather, I live in Mallorca… No, these are all ephemeral, temporary circumstances that will end one day. If I have identified myself with this, the day I am going to die, all this will end, and this person will be very scared. Because I identified with it and I didn’t find out, because I had the bad luck of not having problems in my life… I was such a superficial person that I never understood why I’m here, don’t ask me about the meaning of life.
When that moment arrives, it feels like children when recess is over: you have to go back to class and if you haven’t understood what this was about, you are very helpless. The important thing is to understand that I am not the character that my wrapper is. I am that process that I have undergone, through my breakups, my fractures, my crises, through difficult moments, through introspection and meditation practices, contemplative prayer… whatever you want to call it… There is a path for the development of the levels of spirituality by which one comes to know the essential nature.
On the frontispiece of the Temple of Athens, the Temple of Apollo, it said: «Know yourself and below it continued: And you will know the gods and the nature of the Universe». Because you, me, everyone, what we are made of is of the same nature as everything. Reality is really only one. There is only one thing that has many forms. When you discover this in yourself, you can abandon that character, because he already died in life. Dr. Benito has already died, what you see is a character that uses the conscience that sustains him to give you some information.
The day this body turns off, have a party, but don’t cry because:
“Dying is just dying. Dying is over.
Dying is a fugitive bonfire.
It is to cross a door to the drift
and find what you were looking for so much”.
poem of Barefoot Martin
But you can find that before… Because “the kingdom of heaven” is a state of consciousness.
Accompany in the process of dying
In the first level of accompaniment, it is about learning to lose fear and approach each time with less fear. You realize that he died peacefully, he died well, and you lose your fear.
At the second level, it would be “I am going to try to approach them without fear to understand what happens to them when they leave”.
We must accept that the body is a tool, that we are here for a while and dismantle the character that is not our essential being.
This is learned by accompanying, because if it is done without fear and from the opening of consciousness, it is observed that dying is a process of transformation.
Fear comes from identification with the body, and if you discover that you are a being that is traveling in this time and space, you discover infinite peace and you are no longer afraid. When you are yourself, it comes naturally to you to accept, share, forgive, love…
Wisdom is an essential part of who we are, it is not in books, my grandmother had wisdom and she did not know how to read, because it was connected to the essence of her being. In the accompaniment of the dying process, I have learned to dismantle a character that has intellectual weight (Medical Oncologist) and reach my essential being.
Peace, harmony, joy, happiness can be the fruit of having transcended a limit situation such as the process of dying.
Rehuno Salud: Millions of thanks, after these four meetings we came out wiser. Hopefully we can bring these teachings of yours to experience, to daily life and personal experience. We close this cycle, but I would like it to be with your words.
Henry Benito: The gratitude is mutual, I would not be able to reach the people who are going to arrive if it were not for the organization that we have set up. If we work in harmony without protagonism or interest, it makes a lot of sense to me. And I will end with a sentence:
“I, this little me, am a hole in the flute of the universe through which the breath of God passes… Listen to the music”
Sufi mystic poem Hafiz.
Previous interviews
- The process of dying is beautifully organized
- The therapeutic power of presence
- Courage and compassion in the dying process
Dialogues with Enric Benito -Interview 4-: Extreme situations and spiritual growth