Boon

Boon Ngoei sent us his story today: “In 1993 I lost my partner through a AIDS related illness. It was a deeply traumatic personal experience in my life, that moment when I felt his body go cold on me as I held him close to me. The undertakers soon after came and put him in a black bag and took him away. The family was happy to have a private funeral and sweep the whole experience under the carpet. There was no graceful closure for his family, for me, for his friends. I suffered the agony of experiencing how we, our society, doctors, nurses, family and friends, including myself, were so inept and fearful. There was no dignity in his death.

Soon after I came across this enchanting book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying half way around the world as I was trying to escape from my grief. It hit me like a bolt of lightning! There IS a dignified way to help the dying, dead and the loved ones left behind. This book gave me the tools to grieve, to finished unfinished business, to prepare for my own mortality, but most importantly to be able to help my parents and friends die peacefully and meaningfully in the years after. I have since learned the death of loved ones doesn’t have to be a complete and tragic lost. In their death they present to us their final gift of love, the quest to seek the meaning behind death and loss. In his death my partner has given me the most precious gift I have ever received from him,The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, the meeting of a true authentic spiritual master in Sogyal Rinpoche, and the awakening of my spiritual journey and meaningful life. Thank you.

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