Facing Death and Finding Hope, Christine Longaker
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death, Joan Halifax, Roshi
Who Dies? An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying, Stephen and Ondrea Levine
"To let go of the last moment and open to the next is to die consciously moment to moment. When we take death within, life becomes clear and workable. One of the remarkable things about confronting death is the depth at which it gets our attention. If you could fully experience even a moment of being in its totality, you would discover what you have always been looking for. We don't pay attention to most things, but death catches our eye. In a sense all of this talk about death is really a ploy. Because what we think of as death only occurs to the body. It threatens our seeming existence only to the degree that we imagine and pretend it does. It makes us pay attention. Focusing on death is a way of becoming fully alive. Because wherever the attention is, wherever awareness is, that is where our experience of life arises. The more attention, the more alive we feel. Perhaps that is why so many who are dying also say that they have never felt so alive. When we take death within we stop reinforcing our denial, our judging, our anger, or continuing our bargaining. We don't push our depression away. We ask ourselves in truth, `Who dies?' and surrender our resistance and knowing because we see that it blocks our understanding." Who Dies? shows us how to participate fully in life as the perfect preparation for whatever may come next, be it sorrow or joy, loss or gain, death or a new wonderment at life. The author has worked extensively with Ram Dass and Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and has written several books on meditation.Living in the Light of Death: The Art of Being Truly Alive, Larry Rosenberg
This book presents the Buddhist approach to facing the inevitable facts of growing older, getting sick, and dying. These touch realities are not given much attention by many people until midlife, when they become harder to avoid. Using a Buddhist text known as the Five Subjects for Frequent Recollection, Larry Rosenberg shows how intimacy with the realities of aging can actually be used as a means to liberation. When we become intimate with these inevitable aspects of life, he writes, we also become intimate with ourselves, with others, with the world--indeed with all things.A Year to Live: How to Live This Year As If It Were Your Last, by Stephen Levine
Stephen teaches us how to live each moment as if it were all that was left. He decided to live this way himself for a whole year, and now he shares with us how such immediacy radically changes our world-view, forces us to examine our priorities, and prepares us to die without regrets.Lessons from the Dying, Rodney Smith
Rodney Smith makes a meaningful offering to all of us interested in freedom. Drawing on an unusually rich array of experience, Rodney clearly elucidates the wisdom drawn from both his years as a Buddhist practitioner and monk and his long involvement in the hospice movement. Each of these deep wellsprings of his life enriches the other and finds expression in this helpful and inspiring book.Dying Well: Peace and Possibilities at the End of Life, Ira Byock, MD
No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life, Thich Nhat Hanh [review]
"Our biggest fear," says poet and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, "is that we will become nothing when we die. If we think that we cease to exist when we die, we have not looked very deeply at ourselves." It is possible to live every day without being afraid of what happens when we die. Through a close examination of who we are, how we exist, and how we live, we can conquer our fear to live a freer and happier life. Through stories and lucid teachings, Thich Nhat Hanh brings peace of mind to a difficult subject, and shows is how to live a happier life, free of fear.The Zen of Living and Dying: A Practical Spiritual Guide, Philip Kapleau
TIBETAN Tradition
Mind Beyond Death, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
An indispensable guidebook through the journey of life and death, Mind Beyond Death weaves a synthesis of wisdom remarkable in its scope. With warm informality and profound understanding of the Western mind, The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche makes the mysterious Tibetan teachings on the bardos--the intervals of life, death, and beyond--completely available to the modern reader.Good Life, Good Death: Tibetan Wisdom on Reincarnation, Nawang Gehlek Rinpoche
Drawing on a breathtaking range of material, Mind Beyond Death shows us how the bardos can be used to conquer death. Working with the bardos means taking hold of life and learning how to live with fearless abandon. Exploring all six bardos--not just the three bardos of death--Mind Beyond Death demonstrates that the secret to a good journey through and beyond death lies in how we live.
Walking skillfully through the bardos of dream, meditation, and daily life, The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche takes us deep into the mysterious death intervals, introducing us to their dazzling mindscape. This tour de force gives us the knowledge to transform death, the greatest obstacle, into the most powerful opportunity for enlightenment. With both nuts-and-bolts meditation techniques and brilliant illumination, Mind Beyond Death offers a clear map and a sturdy vehicle that will safely transport the reader through the challenging transitions of this life and the perilous bardos beyond death.
Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? How do we get there? Many have asked these questions, and many have attempted to answer them. But there is another question Good Life, Good Death asks us to contemplate: how does the idea of life after death affect how we live our lives? Gehlek Rimpoche tells stories of the mystical Tibet he lived in, as well as the contemporary America he is now a citizen of, and shares the wisdom of the great masters. He asks us to open our minds and see if we can entertain a bigger picture of life after life, even for a moment. He makes the connection between powerful emotions such as anger, obsession, jealousy and pride, and our past as well as our future.Living, Dreaming, Dying: Practical Wisdom from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Rob Nairn
A Western perspective on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, using everyday language, shows us how to understand life as well as the processes of dying. How do we face our fears? Practical exercises guide us toward expanded states and gives a valuable primer on using sleep and lucid dreaming as preparations for death.
Dying with Confidence, Anyen Rinpoche (featured in the Tricycle magazine book club)
"Everyone dies, but no one is dead," goes the Tibetan saying. It is with these words that "Advice on Dying" takes flight. Using a seventeenth- century poem written by a prominent scholar-practitioner, His Holiness the Dalai Lama draws from a wide range of traditions and beliefs to explore the stages we all go through when we die, which are the very same stages we experience in fife when we go to sleep, faint, or reach orgasm (Shakespeare's "little death").
The stages are described so vividly that we can imagine the process of traveling deeper into the mind, on the ultimate journey of transformation. In this way, His Holiness shows us how to prepare for that time and, in doing so, how to enrich our time on earth, die without fear or upset, and influence the stage between this life and the next so that we may gain the best possible incarnation. As always, the ultimate goal is to advance along the path to enlightenment. "Advice on Dying" is an essential tool for attaining that eternal bliss.
Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with The Dalai Lama, Francisco J. Varela, Ph.D
An exploration of consciousness with The Dalai Lama. This book is the account of a historic dialogue between leading Western scientists and one of the foremost representatives of Buddhism today, the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Revolving around the three key moments of consciousness of sleep, dreams, and death-what internationally acclaimed neuroscientist Francisco Varela calls the ego's shadow zones-the conversations recorded here took place at the fourth Mind and Life Conference in Dharamsala, India. With contributions from acclaimed voices such as philosopher Charles Taylor, psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall, psychologist Jayne Gackenbach, cultural ecologist Joan Halifax, and neuroscientist Jerome Engel, the book is both engrossing and highly readable.The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Robert Thurman
Liberation Through Understanding in the Between. The so-called "Tibetan Book of the Dead" has been renowned for centuries as a classic of Buddhist wisdom and religious thought. More recently, it has become highly influential in the Western world for its psychological insights into the processes of death and dying - and what they can teach us about the ways we live our lives. It has also been found to be helpful in the grieving process by people who have recently lost their loved ones.Sacred Passage: How to Provide Fearless, Compassionate Care for the Dying, Margaret Coberly
A nurse draws on a teachings of Tibetan Buddhism and on thirty years of personal experience to offer practical advice on the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of caring for the dying.Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality, Judith Lief
Readers learn:
- How the terminally ill can experience emotional and spiritual healing even when they can't be cured
- Techniques for promoting a peaceful environment for the dying and their loved ones
- Useful resources from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition on facing death with honesty, courage, and compassion
- What to expect during the dying process and how to meet changing needs
- How to appreciate the special opportunities for inner growth that become available as death approaches.
This book guides us in exploring our relationship to our own mortality and also working with the dying. Judith Lief offers practical exercises for deepening awareness and appreciation of change; practices for cultivating kindness; as well as contemplation slogans and caregiver guidelines, drawn from the Buddhist tradition, to help us discover ways of living more openheartedly and with less fear.Wholesome Fear: Transforming Your Anxiety about Impermanence & Death, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Kathleen McDonald
The subject of death makes a lot of people uneasy. Most of us just don't know much about death -- especially how to handle it and how to prepare for it -- and we may feel anxious and afraid whenever we start to contemplate either the death of a loved one or our own death. But as Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the founder and spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, tells us in this powerful and moving little book, our anxiety can be a "wholesome fear" -- one that ultimately enriches and nourishes our life by leaving us no choice to but to face difficult truths and live more authentically because of them. Truly, we can use the challenges that surround death and dying as spurs to take up the practices right now that will lead to peace and compassion and joy -- ultimately, to a good life, and, when the time inevitably comes, a good death.
No comments:
Post a Comment