Monk Gangxiao: ECT Therapy for Difficult Diseases — Chapter 4: The Conclusion of Near-Death Experiences

Chapter 4: The Conclusion of Near-Death Experiences

Suffering as Cure. Near-death experiences are the subjective accounts given, under the shadow of death, by people who suffered severe trauma or illness and unexpectedly recovered, and by people caught in potentially devastating situations who sensed they were about to die yet narrowly escaped. In 1982, a Swiss researcher, drawing on reports from mountaineers who had fallen, first offered a phenomenological description of the near-death experience. Later, numerous scholars took up the topic and found that near-death experiences share a striking consistency and universality; they all contain a good deal of paranormal content, and they tend to transform the individual in positive ways. The literature lists as many as thirty such features. We will focus on the three most commonly reported and the three most relevant to our argument.

1. Intense positive emotions. When sensing that death is at hand, rather than feeling any fear, a person feels especially calm and comforted — 77% and 64% of those who recounted a near-death experience reported these states, respectively. This widespread calm and comfort generally carries no particular cognitive content. Its function is to shelter one from the panic of being at death's door, serving as a kind of defense and safeguard. To counter the crisis at hand, the person substitutes pleasant fantasies and recollections. Once that inner struggle passes, a passive acceptance of death remains, but the inner world has settled into quiet. From a biological standpoint, a person's mental state in a perilous situation reflects his capacity to survive. Calm and physical ease help someone in extremis preserve himself; by contrast, agitation, panic, or the grief of dying rapidly drains the body's reserves and hastens the end. In this sense, the positive emotions of a near-death experience serve an adaptive function.

2. Life review or panoramic recollection. As life draws to its close, the past is reviewed — a film or television sequence flashing rapidly, scene after scene appearing in the mind. About 22–27% of those who report this experience describe its content as mostly pleasant, free of self-recrimination. It is a retreat from the terror of the present. The reappearance of the past can give a sense of timelessness, helping one evade the confrontation with death. The dying person's remembrance of former events can also re-evaluate the past, dissolve old conflicts, and revise his outlook, easing the death-threat, conserving energy, reducing expenditure, and turning peril into safety. In some, the joyful recollection and emotional response may also reflect the quiet satisfaction of feeling that a hard-fought life is drawing to a close.

3. Sudden awakening. The first two points leaned toward abstract argument; here we can give a concrete example. Artists do have an extraordinary intuition, and their works sometimes penetrate to certain mysteries of the world. In Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it is recorded that after Guan Yu was killed, his unquiet spirit drifted to Mount Yuquan in Dangyang County, Jingmen. On the mountain there dwelt an old monk, Master Pujing, who daily sat in meditation and cultivated the Way. One moonlit, clear-wind night, after the third watch, Guan Yu's spirit arrived and cried aloud in the air, "Give me back my head!" The monk recognized him and said, "Where is Guan Yu?" Guan Yu's heroic soul was at once awakened; he rode the wind down before the hermitage. Master Pujing said: "What was wrong before is no longer wrong today; let us say no more of it. Future fruits and former causes — neither side is in error. Now, General, you were slain by Lü Meng and cried out, 'Give me back my head!' But what of Yan Liang, Wen Chou, the five passes and six generals — to whom shall their heads be reclaimed?" Guan Yu was thus greatly enlightened, bowed his head, took refuge [in the Dharma], and departed. Thereafter he would often manifest his holiness on Mount Yuquan, protecting the people.

It is said that when a human head is severed the brain does not die immediately, but we should not speculate on how long Guan Yu went without a head before meeting Master Pujing and being awakened. It is simply Luo Guanzhong's conjecture that Guan Yu, at the threshold of death, was at first deeply unsettled and angry, but then recalled that though his own head had been taken by Lü Meng, he too had killed the famed Hebei generals Yan Liang and Wen Chou, and had passed five passes slaying six generals. With that, his mind settled into calm, his wrath dissolved, and his grief and indignation faded. Luo Guanzhong used two terms: instant awakening (顿悟) and sudden enlightenment (恍然大悟). In truth, perhaps because the time spent near death was brief, it could only be an instant awakening or a sudden enlightenment. Guan Yu died, but reportedly became a deity, often appearing on Mount Yuquan to protect the people. Had Guan Yu "by some fluke" not died, this near-death experience would have impelled him to become even more magnanimous and benevolent, his outlook on life transformed, and he would have become a noble person, a pure person, a person who had risen above base interests, a person beneficial to society.

Indeed, once a person has died and come back to life, what is there still to be dissatisfied about? What small thing is left to get hung up on or quarrel over? Are you dissatisfied with life? Are you low in spirits? Do you find your health poor, your family circumstances poor, your work environment poor? Nothing at all is worth fretting over — cherish life, love life, live each day well! There is an old Chinese saying: after seeing the Five Sacred Mountains, no other mountain is worth seeing; after returning from Huangshan, even the Sacred Mountains seem unremarkable; once you have seen the great ocean, ordinary water fails to delight; beyond Mount Wu, no cloud is worthy of being called a cloud. They all mean the same thing. After undergoing greater tribulation, one stops entangling oneself in petty sufferings and difficulties, including minor disasters and illnesses. The old Red Army soldiers who marched the Long March of twenty-five thousand li, by contrast, did not struggle for fame and gain; they accepted whatever came, and many lived very long lives. Take Shuai Mengqi — she endured great disasters: kerosene was poured down her throat, she was made to sit on the "tiger bench," and her leg bones were broken. Presumably this was something like a near-death experience. Later, when given high office, she earnestly fulfilled the work assigned to her, with great care; when not given office, she did not mind, and took it upon herself to raise the children of her fallen comrades, doing so with all her heart. The number of orphans she cared for was truly considerable, including Li Peng, who later served as Premier of China for more than a decade. At Shuai Mengqi's hundredth birthday celebration, Li Peng did not go as Premier but as a son, to see her. He kissed Shuai Mengqi and called her "Mama!" The scene on television was deeply moving. In life and in status, Shuai Mengqi never asked for anything extra; her character won universal praise, her noble spirit shone brightly; she lived to over a hundred, and even took office again in her eighties.

On this basis, Feng Zhiying and Liu Jianxun of the Tianjin Municipal Mental Disease Prevention and Treatment Hospital proposed that the mechanism by which near-death experience leads to positive personality change might offer a basis and a hypothesis for certain analogous psychotherapies aimed at influencing personality. Using near-death experience could strengthen a patient's sense of life's value and attachment to it, and could reduce or eliminate suicidal thoughts in those who had tried to take their own lives. For individuals who show clear changes in personality and attitude, the psychodynamic speculation around near-death experience also suggests it may help resolve certain specific conflicts.

From the time the two scholars advanced the above proposal in 1986 to the present, there has been almost no progress in the clinical application of near-death experience in psychology. But then, could a doctor really push a patient off a cliff so that he might taste death and undergo a near-death experience? Yet in ancient times some people did precisely this. The Luoyang Daily of November 13, 1998 reported that more than three thousand years ago, ancient Greek monks treated patients with depression by, among other methods, suddenly pushing them off a 200-meter cliff into the sea and then fishing them out; reportedly the method was effective at the time.

In principle, this is something we can accept; in practice, it is not easy. First, it is too inhumane and violates ethical principles; second, it is unsafe — what if a slip of the hand means the patient cannot be saved?

Moreover, to obtain a near-death experience, the patient must be brought extremely, extremely close to death, because a person's dying process generally passes through several stages: ① Denial. Refusing to acknowledge that one is about to leave the world. ② Anger. Why has misfortune descended upon me? Resentment toward relatives and doctors alike, blaming everyone and everything. ③ Bargaining. Holding onto fantasies and the hope of a lucky break, attempting to prolong life. ④ Depression. With the body's decline, depressive mood arises. ⑤ Acceptance. The end is near, beyond remedy; this reality is accepted, and one waits for death in calmness. The positive emotional experience arises only in the final stage of acceptance; if one cannot bring the patient extremely, extremely close to death, he may instead feel anger and depression, aggravating the original condition.

Now, we may compare near-death experience with Morita therapy.

Near-death experience has a person undergo a life-and-death ordeal, promotes positive personality change, makes him broad-minded, no longer petty, and instills love of life and a sense of its value.

Morita therapy does not ask the patient to undergo so severe an ordeal, but instead has him lie still in bed. After the third or fourth day, when the patient can bear it no longer and inwardly grows restless, this too is a psychological ordeal. As noted earlier, the deprivation of liberty — such as being placed in solitary confinement — has always been a form of punishment; it is milder in degree than a near-death experience, and more humane. When lying still becomes unbearable, one naturally stops dwelling on small discomforts in one part of the body or another. The discomfort of bed rest takes the place of sensitivity to minor ailments, and the discomfort of bed rest is something the doctor can control. Then, the patient is gradually allowed to resume activity; the lying-still period ends, producing a sense of relief — and from there, in a graduated progression from light work to return to society, recovery follows. Dr. Morita himself stated that the aim is to change the patient's attitude toward life.

The two differ in degree but are the same in substance: both employ an ordeal to bring about a change in one's attitude toward life, so that one no longer fusses over minor ailments (which may be no more than illness-sensation, with not even a trace of organic disease from a biological standpoint).

In sum, the conclusion of both is: suffering can cure disease.

Of course, in Morita therapy the patient's psychological changes likewise pass through several stages. Setting aside the three phases of light work, heavy work, and social practice, the lying-still period alone also divides into three stages: ① During the first day or two, the patient still attends to his illness-sensation, or even attends to it more intensely — here is discomfort, there is discomfort; ② Then, on the third or fourth day, lying still itself becomes unbearably tedious, and the patient has no leisure to attend to his "illness," severing his focus on illness-sensation; ③ Boredom. After the tedium passes, the patient finds lying still boring, wants to get up and move, to work — it even becomes a yearning. At this point his neurotic illness stands a chance of healing: the focus on bodily discomfort has been replaced by focus on the outside world, on life and work. If handled poorly, it will not work — just as a near-death experience that falls short cannot promote positive personality change.