Unit 1 | Beginner's Mind at the End

Death is always solemn. It's always extraordinary, and it's always mysterious. It's also the most solitary act we ever undertake. No one goes with us. No one knows what we will experience there. No one stays to tell us.

A long practice of meditation and dharma study, and the self-awareness that Buddhist practice brings, is going to help. And the structure of your beliefs will help guide your experience. But we still do this alone, and we always enter it as a mystery.

Unit 2 | Approaching Your Own Death

The theme of this second unit is learning to face our own death in a very clear way. For many of us, this is somewhat hypothetical: Perhaps you haven't gotten that diagnosis yet, so it can be hard to move your awareness of inevitable death from an intellectual idea to a blunt reality. If you do face a timeline, I hope that this will bring some comfort as we go forward.

Unit 3 | Being with Others Who Are Dying

The theme of this unit is our experience of being with and caring for a person who is dying. To sit vigil by the deathbed is a very old custom, and it's a shared task in most cultures.

The goals for this unit are to understand the ways that people who are dying can communicate, and to understand the internal, psychological tasks of a caregiver.

Unit 4 | The Approaching of Death

Deep acceptance is our friend. Can we be at ease with what is happening? This question goes through every part of our practice. Can we be at ease with this moment, with these circumstances, with these conditions? When the Buddha became ill and he was already quite old, he sat down and then he lay down in front of everybody. He turned toward the assembly and said, "Come see."

In this unit, we will undertake an honest assessment of how we feel about being present at a person's death. We will also evaluate our beliefs about dignity, and learn a few of the signs and symptoms that tell us death is approaching.

Unit 5 | Care of the Body and Advance Planning

In Unit 5, we'll talk about the actual event of a person dying. What do we see when we are with a person as they die? What is that moment of death like? And, then, what do we do with the body when it is all over?

Then we'll explore practical approaches to planning for a death. Planning makes it easier not just for ourselves, but for all of those who survive.

Unit 6 | Mourning and Loss

Grief is one of the most intense and most complicated emotional states that we ever experience. It is uniquely private, different for everyone. Our goal for this unit is simple: to gain a basic understanding of the complex and changing nature of grief and the possibility of a deep presence and acceptance.