Practicing with death

Here is a bit from Vivienne's recent note to her students, for the full letter there is a link below the excerpts.  Haola Vivienne.

This summer I got a call from my brother letting me know that my mother -- already blind and crippled --  wasn't doing well.  She lived alone as a hermit in the foothills of the Pyrennes in a one-room house she'd built of stone.
...  It was perhaps the most amazing experience of my life. ... Something opened up between us, and our time together became moment-to-moment precious.  I wrote in my journal, "Caring for my mother is the best thing that's ever happened to me.  Life has become meditation, a crash-course in being present."
... I did little formal practice.  I did informal practice all day long.  Constantly organizing the chi field, chanting the organ sounds and the essence mantra as I washed up and cleaned up and went shopping.  I practiced with the intention of "opening my heart as big as infinity, dissolving all karma between us."
... Every afternoon I'd organize the qi field with my mother  ...  I kept postponing my flight home.  ...   Every day, my prayer was,  "May it all turn out for everyone's highest good."
... Two weeks after I'd arrived, my mother was having a good day.  She wanted me to visit a church nearby ... I stood at the pulpit and sang the 8 verses in Chinese at the top of my lungs, organizing the chi field.  It felt so good, I did it three times.  ...  I lit a long white candle for my mother and placed it in front of the madonna and I prayed as I never have before.  "May my mother have a quick and easy passage and may I be present."

Three days later, my mother died.  It was quick, easy and I was with her.  ... I could feel my mother leaving.  ... And I began silently singing the 8 verses, feeling the expansion of  our physical bodies into our energy bodies, expanding into openness, into spaciousness, feeling the expansion continuing all the way out into the universe, into infinity, all old conditioning, all karma dissolving, all contractions of the heart and mind melting into the bright light, connecting with all existence, feeling the freedom, true liberation, as we expanded into Oneness. While I sang, I watched my mother's breathing slowing as we progressed further and further out.  On the last line, "Zhou Shen Rong Rong", she breathed out her final breath.

The room filled with her consciousness.     The room became a cathedral filled with peace beyond all understanding.   A profound silence. I sat holding my mother's hand for an hour or so, my mind completely still.  And then the thought arose. "She's gone."

I immediately heard, "You silly goose, where do you think I've gone?  I'm everywhere." My mother hadn't called me "silly goose" since I was a young girl.

A while later, I heard, "Don't do what I did -- live in the head.  It IS about the heart.  Only it needs to be embodied.  It has to be lived."  I felt the energy of my heart moving down into my dantien, filling my womb.  A delicious feeling.  ...
Love, Vivienne

For the full text of this beautiful experience: LINK