Rediscover the mystery and wonder of life through gentle reflections on death and dying.

What can death teach the living? Former monk and hospice worker Rodney Smith teaches us that through intimately considering our own inevitable end we can reawaken to the sublime miracle of life we so often take for granted. A well of stories, personal anecdotes, and direct advice gleaned from years of working with the dying in their final moments, Lessons from the Dying helps us redefine our conception of what it means to truly live. Each chapter contains guided reflections and exercises that allow the reader to integrate the wisdom in its pages more fully into their lives. With a sense of compassion, Lessons from the Dying provides all the tools of mind one needs to rediscover, in this very moment, the mystery and wonder of a lifetime.

From the foreword by Joseph Goldstein: "Lessons from the Dying could also be called "lessons for the living" because of the courageous honesty revealed in so many of the stories told here. These accounts reflect back to us our own attitudes toward death and love, and they prompt us to examine the way we are living our lives right now. In the busyness of our lives we rarely take time to consider our mortality and the implications that it might have for the choices we make. Yet when we do cultivate this awareness it becomes a powerful force for wise discrimination."

Lessons from the Dying (2015 edition), Rodney Smith, Wisdom Publications, paperback, 232 pages, $16.95

Rodney Smith worked for over fourteen years in the field of hospice care as a hospice social worker, bereavement coordinator, program director, and executive director. He is the founding and guiding teacher of the Seattle Insight Meditation Society and a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society, Barre, Massachusetts. He is also the author of Stepping Out of Self-Deception: The Buddha's Liberating Teaching of No-Self. Smith spent eight years as a Buddhist monk in Asia, where he ordained with Mahasi Sayadaw in Burma and practiced several years with Ajahn Buddhadasa at Wat Suan Mokkh in Thailand. He lives in Seattle, WA.

CONTENTS: Lessons from the Dying
Foreword by Joseph Goldstein		xiii
Acknowledgments		xv
Introduction		1
	My Journey	2
	About the Reflections and Exercises	4
1:	Delighting in the Mystery	7
	The Intuitive Heart	11
	Appreciation and Joy	13
	Mystery and Joy	16
2:	Seeing Things as They Are	19
	Reflecting on Death	22
	Observing Resistance	29
3:	Risking Our Lives	31
	The Urgency to Change	33
	From Fear to Affection	37
	Habits and Change	42
4:	Acknowledging the Shadow	45
	Separating Life and Death	47
	The Meeting of Life and Death	50
	The Shadow	54
5:	Being Human	57
	Dying as a Human Being	60
	Addressing Our Fears	63
	Forgiveness	66
	Bearing Our Humanity	72
6:	Learning from Every Experience	75
	Using Life for Learning	77
	The Known and the Unknown	82
	Learning from Death	85
	Learning from the Unknown	88
7:	Listening from the Heart	91
	Projections	93
	Listening to the Dying	95
	True and Useful	98
	Intimacy	100
	Listening and Speaking	103
8:	Searching for Meaning	107
	Hope	110
	The Relativity of Meaning	115
	Finding Meaning	121
9:	Understanding Our Suffering	123
	Understanding Suffering	126
	In Conflict with Reality	130
	Befriending Pain	134
10:	Opening Our Hearts	137
	Finding Our Affection	139
	The Caring Heart	142
	Love and the Ego	147
	Love, Compassion, and Intimacy	150
11:	The Dying Mind	153
	Denial	155
	The Loss of Control	158
	Losing Our Sense of Self	161
	Trusting the Process	163
	Letting Go of Control	166
12:	Understanding Grief	169
	How We Grieve	171
	Why We Grieve	174
	Grief and Change	176
	Opening the Heart to Grief	178
13:	The Ending of Time	181
	Fractured Time	184
	Integrating into Time Present	187
	Understanding Your Relationship to Time	191
14:	The Deathless	193
	Living Our Death	195
	From Death to the Deathless	197
Further Reading		203
About the Author		207