Compassion through the dying process

Session one: Introduction

• Introduction to speakers and the program
• Instructions on breathing meditation and setting a motivation

Death and Dying: Introduction (download)

Compassion in living and dying

• Meaning of compassion in Buddhist view
• Looking at change through the process of dying and grieving
• Four components of dying process (physical component of change)

Death and Dying: Session 1-1 (download)

Psychological and spiritual changes

• Questioning and reviewing past life
• Examining and letting go of attachments

Death and Dying: Session 1-2 (download)

What happens at the time of death?

• The art of dying and the temptations
• Supporting and caring for the dying
• Being with what is

Death and Dying: Session 1-3 (download)

Questions and answers: Part 1

• How long is it recommended for body to stay before cremation or burial process?
• How do we know when a procedure is going to make the death more difficult or easier?
• Does morphine interfere with spiritual process?
• Is there a sense of bitterness on the part of the dying?

Death and Dying: Session 1 Q&A Part 1 (download)

Questions and answers: Part 2

• For caretakers, how to handle things during a dying process?
• What to do when family of the dying refused to acknowledge death and to discuss death process with the dying?
• Ethical dilemma about ventilator to sustain the dying

Death and Dying: Session 1 Q&A Part 2 (download)

Session two: Nature of death, impermanence and change

• The nature of death
• People’s notions of “good” diseases, “bad” diseases, “good” deaths, “bad” deaths
• Value of thinking about death and the significance of death for living a good life

Death and Dying: Session 2 (download)

Questions and answers: Part 1

• How to clean up unfinished business
• Compassion vs. co-dependence

Death and Dying: Session 2 Q&A Part 1 (download)

Questions and answers: Part 2

• Discussion on nursing practices when caring for the terminally ill and the dying
• In nursing profession–what constitutes compassion
• The right-to-die movement
• Wishes of the dying person–written vs. verbal agreement

Death and Dying: Session 2 Q&A Part 2 (download)

Session three: The nature of grief

• What does grief mean to us
• Working with our grief or with others in grief
• How to transform grief

Death and Dying: Session 3 (download)

Questions and answers

• Is grieving cyclical?
• Grieving from guilt

Death and Dying: Session 3 Q&A Part 1 (download)

How to explain death to children

• Explaining separation of body and consciousness
• Developmental level considerations

Death and Dying: Session 3 Q&A Part 2 (download)