Inspiring teachings, personal stories, and meditations for those near death and their caregivers, by a respected Zen teacher who has worked with the dying for over 30 years.
A caregiver to the dying herself, Zen teacher Joan Halifax shares her experiences and wisdom from thirty years of being with people who are in the process of dying or are taking care of someone who is dying. Based on Buddhist principles, her teachings point out that we can open and contact our inner strength, and we can help others who are suffering to do the same. Her seasoned, realistic approach to caring for and being present with people in the last stages of life is encouraging because she has seen so much death and grief, yet she remains open-hearted and inspired.
Halifax observes that millions will have to deal with the loss of parents and loved ones and that we are largely unprepared emotionally for their deaths. She presents the notion that the process of dying is a rite of passage. Halifax offers stories from her personal experience as well as guided exercises and contemplations to help readers contemplate death without fear, develop a commitment to helping others, and transform suffering and resistance into courage. Topics and exercises include:
- Learning to see death as a rite of passage
- The guiding principles of bearing witness and how self-awareness can help us to relate more fully with others
- How to take care of ourselves when we're taking care of others
- Contemplation on the universality of death
- How to transform pain and fear with lovingkindness
- And much more
Coupled with a new foreword by Frank Ostaseski, a leader in the field of death and dying palliative care, the guidance and experiences represented in Being with Dying are invaluable in supporting and instilling peace as the journey of life unfolds and inevitably reaches not only an end, but also a new beginning.
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death, Joan Halifax, Shambhala Publications, Paperback, 232 pages, $19.95
Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Zen priest and anthropologist who has served on the faculty of Columbia University and the University of Miami School of Medicine. For the past thirty years she has worked with dying people and has lectured on the subject of death and dying at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, and many other academic institutions. In 1990, she founded Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist study and social action center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1994, she founded the Project on Being with Dying, which has trained hundreds of healthcare professionals in the contemplative care of dying people.
Foreword -- Introduction: Healing the Divide
Part 1. Uncharted Territory
1. A Path of Discovery: The Lucky Dark -- Meditation: How Do You Want to Die?
2. The Heart of Meditation: Language and Silence -- Meditation: Strong Back, Soft Front
3. Overcoming the Porcupine Effect: Moving Past Fear into Tenderness -- Meditation: Mercy-Exchanging Self with Other
4. The Wooden Puppet and Iron Man: Selfless Compassion, Radical Optimism -- Meditation: Contemplating Our Priorities
5. At Home in the Infinite: Dwelling in the Boundless Abodes -- Meditation: Boundless Abodes for Living and Dying
6. You Are Already Dying: Realizing Impermanence, Selflessness, and Freedom -- Meditation: The Nine Contemplations
Part 2. Giving No Fear
7. Fictions that Hinder and Heal: Facing Truth and Finding Meaning -- Meditation: Bearing Witness to Two Truths
8. The Two Arrows: I Am in Pain and I Am Not Suffering -- Meditation: Encountering Pain
9. Giving No Fear: Transforming Poison into Medicine -- Meditation: Giving and Receiving through Tonglen
10. Take Care of Your Life, Take Care of the World: Seeing My Own Limits with Compassion -- Meditation: Boundless Caring --
11. The Jeweled Net: Communities of Care -- Meditation: The Circle of Truth
12. Wounded Healers: The Shadow Side of Caregiving -- Meditation: Four Profound Reminders
Part 3. Making a Whole Cloth --
13. Doorways to Truth: From Fear to Liberation -- Meditation: Walking Meditation
14. Embracing the Road: How We Remember, Assess, Express, and Find Meaning -- Meditation: Letting Go through the Breath --
15. Between Life, Between People: How We Forgive, Reconcile, Express Gratitude, and Love -- Meditation: Boundless Abodes for Transforming Relationships
16. The Great Matter: There is Mo One Right Way -- Meditation: Encountering Death
17. The Broken Pine Branch: Deaths of Acceptance and Liberation -- Meditation: Dissolution of the Elements after Death
18. Gratitude for the Vessel: Care of the Body after Death -- Meditation: Charnel Ground Meditation
19. River of Loss: The Plunge of Sorrow -- Meditation: Encountering Grief -- Afterword: Being One with Dying -- Acknowledgments.
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