My friend Richard, a lay practitioner with a remarkable retreat resume over a very long period of time, has died of lung cancer, passing at home while attended by his family.

He was a deep and profound practitioner though generally quiet and very humble about his remarkable attainments and insights.

Not long ago, we did a video interview in which he talks about what is like to be dying while yet quite awake:

https://vimeo.com/441507202

All the constituents of being are impermanent. Work out your salvation with diligence. 

Momento Mori,

Daniel

Definitely inspiring video. It matches Daniel Siegel's studies on enlightenment. You have to practice LOTS and few people will get to the point where Being is the habit. Conditioned existence is very powerful.

I could probably speculate that many people deep down don't want it, but something else: Metta, Psychology, other religious goals, and Secular goals.

The ones who do advance a lot have a large desire and prioritize the practice.

I really enjoyed that and found it very inspirational.

Having watched a few interviews of this sort over the years....I thought it was great.   A really light touch that allowed him to talk about his experince...

thanks for sharing...

Sorry for your loss, Daniel. I hope Richard passed peacefully and that his family is able to weather his passing with grace & ease.

Thank you for sharing this video - it strikes me as the first interview I've seen where you are the person conducting the interview.

Thanks for sharing this video. What a lovely man. Very inspiring.

Did Richard contribute on Dharma Overground at all? If so, did he have any good threads others could share? 

Thanks Daniel,
That's a great conversation (with good oriented questions to induce the interesting stuff to come out).
A nice tribute to a life of (serious, dedicated) practice. I particularly appreciate the fact that he shares a path trodden without the maps, (A breath of fresh air, really)... And I'm sure this video will be inspiring to many.

Quite a bit of wisdom sifting through all this. Stuff that moved me :
“I was able to see more clearly the purification of the minds of the monks around me, I was able to experience the fact that there's no ill will, no judgment, it inspired this incredible longing for that, and that was important”.
“ Beware of the idea that you know something when entering a retreat, only when you let go of that any real progress can happen”
“This idea that you know something is an obstacle, because all the insights I ever had, I reduce to words, but the experience of them is non verbal. If you're out there with your own architecture in mind, you're not going to see reality, reality is not a function of language, and it's not a function of concepts. Concepts are useful tools, but they're lousy masters.”
“One is the incredible power of kindness and virtue. The joy of virtue and the absolute power of patience. Patience is another way to experience equanimity. True concentration is not going to happen if there is any agitation in the mind. Virtue is the draining away of that agitation.”

Well, the beginning was about the emergency department, I could relate to that, but I would venture that, although practice is certainly useful, many people experience that letting go into the experience in the midst of pain and exhaustion, it's programmed into us and facilitated when being taken care of (and stripped of any responsibility toward our life) by the medics...

love and metta to his dear ones
RIP Richard

smiling stone

"How do people without a practice do this?"

Lovely to watch this. Thanks for sharing.

What a beautiful interview. Thank you for this Daniel. I've been enjoying the tremendous number of podcasts and interviews you've been doing over quarantine (they've certainly added something to my practice as well as keeping me sane!), but this one is really something special.

I liked realization about current moment being the one that has the potential for absolute and total fulfillment the most.

Very nice life review.
Thank you for posting.

My condolences.

Just watched the video. Quite inspiring!

Thank you this was tremendously inspiring.  May Richard's friends & family feel love, healing, peace with his transition & may he continue his awakening activities ongoing.  

If you have any other arahant or anagami friends that would be willing to be recorded in similar interviews, I would request that these videos be made & published, for the benefit of all beings!  I think it is particularly helpful if they trained in 'traditional' contexts & were acknowledged by 'established' teachers, because it can help to actually change the culture by introducing more & more, this idea that awakening is real.

Eternal peace grant unto Richard, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him.

with all due application of the three characteristics to every apparently substantive term, lol.

Incredibly inspiring to hear from someone who's lived the way I aim to. 

Thanks Daniel.

Although it's odd to say given all the talk of death, that was a fun interview!   Thank you Daniel and Richard.

What a beautiful and inspiring conversation!

I had the pleasure of practicing with Richard at few of the TMC retreats. For two of the TMC retreats, I actually sat next to him. I also had the pleasure of meeting his wife.

The first time I met him in 2012 TMC retreat, I knew he was a advanced practitioner. The way he conducted himself, even in absolute silence, I knew Richard was very advanced in the practice. 

It is indeed a very inspiring video. It can take a while for your practice to bear fruit. But with patience and perseverence, it is definitely attainable.

That's grace, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you, Daniel for bringing that video to us.

https://vimeo.com/441507202?ref=fb-share&1&fbclid=IwAR06lvqxNFUbX4kEICqhO3jjB-gYvOTWzxgDISfbmcpCD8xwaG0FWhPtbOs

This conversation between two men who have known and loved each other for years, one of them facing his own imminent death with humor and his eyes wide open and still curious and engaged, is just so beautiful, at the human level, and any other level you want to look for. Richard's sense of comedy about his pulmonary episodes and mortality in general is awe-inspiring to me. He basically tells near-death episodes as funny stories. I think the one in the bathroom at the hospital is particularly cool, as it brings home the absurdity of some of the hospital covid-measures, resulting in a man with a terminal heart condition having to walk across the room alone to get a bag of underwear his wife was not allowed to deliver personally. Some flunky just dropped it inside the room! Then he went to pee, and collapsed from the oxygen demand, and somehow he makes it all hilarious, a shared joke, while they revive his dying ass body. It's easy to see why he was so beloved by so many.