KAPAA — Death can be a difficult subject to handle.
Some people push the thought of mortality to the furthest corners of their mind rather than face the inevitability head on.
Spiritual healer and minister Bodhi Be teaches a different way to confront the subject. He prefers shining a light on it, pulling it to the forefront by addressing it as a way to cope with and move on from tragedy.
“When we live in the truth of our approaching death, meaning and purpose are revealed,” Be said. “Laziness and procrastination disappear. Wholehearted and sacred living become possible.”
The minister will deliver his seminar on spirituality and death March 13-14 at the Golden Lotus Studio in Kapaa. He said he hopes his message will help comfort people who have lost a loved one or those who fear dying.
“I feel that all three of those things — spirituality, sustainability and death — are very important subject matter that are all part of the same story,” Be said. “They’re never spoken about in one conversation, especially the death piece because we live in a very death-phobic culture, where even the word death people have aversion to, which is why people usually say that people passed on or left their body.”
Rod Fisher and wife Isabella co-own the Golden Lotus with their business partner Janet Grazes and are looking forward to having Be speak.
“He’s an amazing human being,” Isabelle said. “He’s totally dedicated to his past with helping the dead and dying and the community. His work is outstanding and needed everywhere.”
Isabelle has also been to Be’s seminars and has found the meetings to be beneficial.
“The more I feel I learn about death the more I grow on my spiritual path,” Isabelle said.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Rod Fisher said. “He’s extremely caring and giving of his time and he’s a compassionate human being.”
Ordained as a minister 30 years ago, Be is the executive director of the nonprofit organization “Doorway into Light, which engages in advocacy and educational programs on death and dying on Maui. He is a hospice volunteer and an end-of-life bereavement counselor in addition to the founder and president of the Death Store, which is Hawaii’s only nonprofit funeral home.
“I think that Albert Einstein once said there are two ways to live your life, one is that nothing is a miracle and the other is that everything is a miracle and I believe and feel that our approaching death has immense opportunity to inform meaning in our lives,” Be said.
The Friday, March 13 seminar runs from 7 to 9 p.m. at the studio, 4-941A Kuhio Highway in Kapaa. The Saturday, March 14 event is from 1 to 5 p.m and will feature a workshop. Tickets are $15 for the intro seminar and $25 for the 14th class for those who preregister or $35 at the door.
Info: 823-9810 or sending an email to goldenlotuskauai@gmail.com.
