Bodhi Be: A Doorway Into Light
In this episode, Hari interviews Reverend Bodhi Be from the Sufi lineage of Samuel Lewis and Hazrat Inayat Khan. Bodhi is the founder and executive director of Doorway Into Light, a nonprofit that provides conscious and compassionate care for the dying, their families, and the grieving on Maui.
Recorded in October 2020, Hari and Bodhi explore the spiritual power of “I am going to die, and I don't know when,” Bodhi's friendship with Ram Dass, the environmental, spiritual, and social impact of outsourcing death to businesses and experts, and how to reclaim death back into the home, family, and community as an act of “village building.”
The Sacred Community Podcast is an inter-spiritual hub of the universal teachings, “Love, Service, Remembrance, and Truth.” Home to Sacred Community Project interviews, live workshop recordings, dharma talks, and meditations, each episode is carefully curated to ensure its alignment with SCP values.
SCP works to lower the barriers of access to contemplative and devotional practices through free, donation-based, and affordable offerings, spiritual support, and prison outreach. Learn more and make a tax-deductible donation at: https://sacredcommunityproject.org
About Reverend Bodhi Be
Warrior of the heart, protector of the sacred
Reverend Bodhi Be is an ordained interfaith minister and teacher in the Sufi lineage of Samuel Lewis and Hazrat Inayat Khan. He is the founder and executive director of Doorway Into Light, a nonprofit organization on Maui, which provides conscious and compassionate care for the dying, their families, and the grieving. They have been offering community presentations and trainings since 2006 in the fields of awakened living and dying and the care of the dying.
Since 2012, Doorway Into Light operates Hawaii’s only nonprofit certified green funeral home. It also operates a storefront on Maui, The Death Store, an educational resource center and store providing education, support, and counsel on a donation basis.
A Maui resident for 45 years, Bodhi and his wife have raised five children and are now helping to raise three grandchildren. An organic, off-the-grid homesteader in Hawaii for 26 years, he grows tropical fruit with his family.
Bodhi is a funeral director providing before, and after-death care; an end-of-life and bereavement counselor and educator; a hospice volunteer; a teacher and trainer of death doulas; a speaker and workshop leader and a ceremonial guide. He hosts a weekly streaming radio show, Death Tracks, on a Maui station.
Bodhi guides memorials and funerals and leads grief rituals. He has facilitated grief support groups for teenagers at a local high school. He has trained hundreds of doctors, nurses, hospice staff, social workers, ministers, chaplains, therapists, artists and lay people in the spiritual, psychological, emotional and logistical care of the dying and the care of the dead, and for four years has taken dozens through a certification program to be death doulas. Bodhi has written a column called “Ask the Death Professor” for a local Maui magazine. He is a notary public, a coffin maker, and a Reiki practitioner. Bodhi and his wife Leilah have been leading spiritual retreats in Hawaii and around the world.
Bodhi is currently teaching courses through the Esalen Institute of Big Sur. Entitled “We’re All Gonna Die,” the course encompasses cultivating a healthy relationship with our own approaching death, doing the work of preparing for death, learning skills for caring for a dying person(s) and for showing up for what’s dying in the world.
For many years Bodhi collaborated with Ram Dass—a neighbor, mentor, and friend—who served on Doorway Into Light’s Board of Directors. Bodhi is continuing the work that Ram Dass helped birth in the fields of conscious dying in America.
Doorway Into Light is currently raising funds to develop a new model of land stewardship that includes a natural green burial ground, sanctuary, park, ceremony hall, and community gathering place.
A new book about Bodhi is out now and available:
bookshop.org - amazon.com
Websites: doorwayintolight.org - ipuka.org
Facebook: @thedeathstore
Instagram: @thedeathstoremaui