Welcome to How to Prepare for Death and Dying.

Throughout this course, you'll find the text of each video beneath the talk. It isn't necessary to read these materials if you don’t wish to. They will be collected for download in each unit's workbook.

Welcome

I can put the gist of this entire course into one phrase of dharma.

We are all fragile. We are all vulnerable, and yet there is something eternal in all of us—something completely invulnerable. Facing death forces us to really consider this dual nature.

About the course

I have three goals for this course overall. 

• That we overcome our resistance to speaking plainly about our deaths
• That we speak honestly and bluntly about what is going to happen, what our concerns, fears, and hopes are around death
• That we gain knowledge, some practical knowledge, about how to prepare for dying and death, both our own and someone else's
  

I've worked with this material for many years as a Zen teacher and also as a registered nurse, with experience in oncology and palliative care. I'm also an end-of-life educator for nurses. 

But I think my best qualification is that I have lost people I love. I have looked deeply at that experience of love and loss, and all my own fears and worries around death.

In this course, we'll use a combination of methods: short talks, lectures, guided reflective meditations, and deep guided meditations, along with a few practical pieces of information to consider. At the end of each unit, there will be some easy homework and a way to take this material into your daily life.

For today, I simply want to touch on each of these goals, but we will return to this material over and over throughout the course. I hope that through these lessons, you will really deepen your understanding of how to look at and think about your own death, as well as the deaths of others.

Safety and vulnerability

Now, I want to acknowledge that this requires real vulnerability. Death is not easy to discuss. It's not easy to look at. I want you to feel safe as you work with this material, and that includes the ability to step out of the exercise if it becomes uncomfortable, and to approach this material at your own speed. But I also really encourage you to move into the discomfort a little bit. Examine the discomfort. Think about how you can learn from that.

I have been working with dying people for many years. I am a Buddhist teacher authorized in the Soto Zen tradition. I am also a registered nurse, certified as an end-of-life nursing education curriculum teacher. But I think there's no better experience than the personal engagement we have with this subject. And that experience has not cured me of denial or reactivity. That's important. It has helped, but the only cure for denial and reactivity is continued engagement. I am willing to look at my own resistance, and I hope to help you do this too.

There are frequent breaks throughout these units to allow you to consider the material at your own pace. I will sometimes ask you to answer a few questions, so keep a notebook and pen handy. And these questions that I ask are just for you. One quality of dying is intimacy. Confronting how we feel about dying, what we experience—this is an act of intimacy. So be as honest as you can. You can keep the material as private as you want. And notice any unanswered questions that come up as you think about it. 

It is always useful to notice where it is difficult to say out loud what you are feeling.

Finding support in relationship

I understand that we aren't in the same room, and this material may feel a little hypothetical. It is intimate even when we are alone, but I encourage you to find a friend, a trusted colleague, or a practitioner with whom to discuss this material. And I want to emphasize this is not spiritual counseling. I strongly encourage you to take any specific questions you have about your practice, and how your lineage engages with issues of death and dying, to a trusted teacher. I highly recommend conversations in your sangha (community) about this material.

The most important aspects of our teaching take place in relationship. I have found that engaging with this topic of mortality has had a deep and lasting impact on my life and my relationships.

I have found fearlessness and a willingness to be vulnerable, steadiness and stability, and a well of joy.

That may sound surprising, but our mortality allows us to find love and express love in the most honest possible way. And we do this with humor, both light humor and dark humor, and lots of laughter.

In a course like this, we can only draw a kind of stick figure around our innermost experience. So take this material with you into your daily life. I think you'll be surprised at how many different ways it will touch your days.