Rosemary and I were in town, 18 years ago, waiting to make a phone call, and another fellow was using the international phone at the time. He was a young fellow, about 30 and he was very agitated. He was speaking in French, so we couldn't understand virtually anything he said, but he was super-agitated. The minute he was done, he hung up and collapsed on the floor, right in front of us. We tried to take care of him.
The first thing I said to him was, "Try to be aware of your breathing", "Try to be aware of your body". I tried to get him into the body. Whatever his thoughts were, I wanted him out of them - they were too much. I tried to take him straight into his body. As, it turned out he was telling his family back home that his best friend had just drowned over on Koh Tao. They were snorkeling together. The friend stayed underwater too long and drowned. So that's what he was explaining on the phone. I got him to a state where he calmed down and was able to tell us. He had another friend with him, who happened to be a nurse. She came rushing over, so we were able to leave him with his friend, we felt that was okay
What I did to help him with his shock was to ground him in his body. Body awareness. Now I had no idea whether he was a meditator or not, it made no difference to me at all, I wanted to get him out of his thoughts, and into reality of his body, and it worked.
So, if I walked in with the father and he sees his two kids and wife dead, he'll go into shock. It's not in any way at all, as it says on the back here, "indulging their grief", if we comfort them. It's not indulging them at all "to act as a shoulder for them to cry on." It's quite okay. They need that. They need somebody to support them at that time. They can't do it on their on, so they need help. They need somebody to lean on, and if we stay calm, we can be that shoulder for them.
Later, maybe weeks, months, maybe years later, they need to develop some strength as to how they're going to work with their situation. and the memories. It's gong to be very painful for that young French man, for ever. He's swimming around with his buddy, he surfaces and his buddy doesn't. So those memories are going to be very painful for him: taking the body out of the water; taking it from Koh Tao over to here. That stuff he has to work with, we don't want to worry about that when he's collapsed on the floor.
Same with this man coming in and finding his wife and his kids dead. Don't worry about what he has to work with, and the strengths he needs. Help him to stay more grounded and calm in the present moment, the best you can.