Summary

Zen teacher Halifax emphasizes that the process of dying is a rite of passage, and can be viewed as natural and not something to be denied. Here she offers stories as well as guided exercises and contemplations to help readers meditate on death without fear.

Author Biography

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 1994, she founded the Project on Being with Dying, which has trained hundreds of healthcare professionals in the contemplative care of dying people.

Foreword	p. xi
Introduction: Healing the Divide	p. xv
Uncharted Territory	p. 1
A Path of Discovery: The Lucky Dark	p. 3
Meditation: How Do You Want to Die?	p. 6
The Heart of Meditation: Language and Silence	p. 9
Meditation: Strong Back, Soft Front	p. 14
Overcoming the Porcupine Effect: Moving Past Fear into Tenderness	p. 17
Meditation: Mercy-Exchanging Self with Other	p. 23
The Wooden Puppet and Iron Man: Selfless Compassion, Radical Optimism	p. 25
Meditation: Contemplating Our Priorities	p. 33
At Home in the Infinite: Dwelling in the Boundless Abodes	p. 37
Meditation: Boundless Abodes for Living and Dying	p. 45
You Are Already Dying: Realizing Impermanence, Selflessness, and Freedom	p. 47
Meditation: The Nine Contemplations	p. 54
Giving No Fear	p. 61
Fictions that Hinder and Heal: Facing Truth and Finding Meaning	p. 63
Meditation: Bearing Witness to Two Truths	p. 67
The Two Arrows: I Am in Pain and I Am Not Suffering	p. 71
Meditation: Encountering Pain	p. 78
Giving No Fear: Transforming Poison into Medicine	p. 81
Meditation: Giving and Receiving through Tonglen	p. 88
Take Care of Your Life, Take Care of the "World: Seeing My Own Limits with Compassion	p. 93
Meditation: Boundless Caring	p. 99
The Jeweled Net: Communities of Care	p. 101
Meditation: The Circle of Truth	p. 107
Wounded Healers: The Shadow Side of Caregiving	p. 113
Meditation: Four Profound Reminders	p. 122
Making a Whole Cloth	p. 125
Doorways to Truth: From Fear to Liberation	p. 127
Meditation: Walking Meditation	p. 133
Embracing the Road: How We Remember, Assess, Express, and Find Meaning	p. 137
Meditation: Letting Go through the Breath	p. 142
Between Life, Between People: How We Forgive, Reconcile, Express Gratitude, and Love	p. 145
Meditation: Boundless Abodes for Transforming Relationships	p. 149
The Great Matter: There is Mo One Right Way	p. 151
Meditation: Encountering Death	p. 159
The Broken Pine Branch: Deaths of Acceptance and Liberation	p. 163
Meditation: Dissolution of the Elements after Death	p. 172
Gratitude for the Vessel: Care of the Body after Death	p. 179
Meditation: Charnel Ground Meditation	p. 185
River of Loss: The Plunge of Sorrow	p. 189
Meditation: Encountering Grief	p. 195
Afterword: Being One with Dying	p. 197
Acknowledgments	p. 203
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