Being with Dying: Contemplative Practices and Teachings
About this book
On his deathbed Plato was asked to summarize his life's work. He replied, "Practice dying." In the 2,000 years since Plato offered this wise admonition, we have developed many practices associated with living. But what of the practices associated with dying? Being with Dying is a response to this an approach to death that is kind, open, and dignified and that allows us to explore the meaning of death in the experience of our own lives and through the lives of others.Founded by Joan Halifax, Being with Dying began as a project to help health-care professionals and their patients learn to see death and know life in terms of compassion and awakening. Distilled from this influential program, the Being with Dying audio learning course combines Eastern and Western psychology, philosophy, and contemplative practices from many spiritual traditions. This innovative, hands-on approach has taught medical professionals, social workers, clergy, community activists, and spiritual seekers an elegant path for taking the fear out of the dying experience. In gently caring for the dying, we also learn to more wisely care for the living - and for life itself.Often in our culture, life is equated with success and death with failure. Being with Dying honestly examines death and dying not in terms of medical success or failure - but as a possibility for awakening. Join Joan Halifax and learn key practices for creating a calm, mindful, sacred space where life and death are brought into the full light of awareness.