On Death and Dying

A discourse led by Ven. Sangye Khadro, a Buddhist teacher and practitioner aimed at helping individuals to live consciously through life’s transitions.

The Foundation in association with the India Habitat Center, New Delhi organizes an annual two-day workshop on “Peaceful Living, Peaceful Dying”, which encompasses perspectives on death, the truth of impermanence, meditating on death, preparing for death and helping those with terminal conditions.

Ven. Sangye Khandro, a Buddhist teacher and practitioner, facilitates this workshop aimed at helping individuals to live consciously through life’s transitions.

In her own words, “Each of us will have to go through the experience of dying one day. Before that happens, we will probably experience the deaths of loved ones and friends. This workshop will explore ways to prepare oneself to death, to be able to die with a peaceful and positive state of mind, and how to be of benefit to others when they’re dying.”

Facilitated by Joan Halifax Roshi, a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist and author, who has worked in the area of death and dying for over 40 years and is the director of the project “Being with Dying”.

Facilitated by Joan Halifax, this workshop explored the ways in which participants could make the experience of dying more gentle, peaceful, and how being conscious of the cycle of life and death can have far reaching consequences on how we live and our fundamental values and world view.

Joan Halifax Roshi provides insights into what it may mean for the caregivers to look after their patients.

Along with Dr. Susan Bauer-Wu, an Associate Professor of Nursing and a distinguished cancer scholar at Emory University, Joan Halifax Roshi co-facilitated a workshop on ‘Caring for the Dying and Terminally Ill Patients’ organized by the Foundation.

This workshop was organized in collaboration with CanSupport Organization in New Delhi to help terminally ill patients and their caregivers to live more meaningfully and to face the future. CanSupport, founded by Harmala Gupta, a cancer survivor, sends its team of doctors’ nurses and counselors to homes in and around New Delhi to provide the care and support needed by cancer patients and their families.

The Foundation collaborated with CanSupport and organized a workshop on ‘Seeking Meaning from Life in the Face of Death’ at the India International Center, New Delhi. The workshop focused on holistic healing and care, and spirituality issues faced by terminally ill patients at the end of life.

A community of experts, healers, scholars and thinkers were invited to hold a series of conversations on Death and Dying, organized by the Foundation, to delve into the questions of the transcendental meaning of life and death and prepare on how to cope with fear and the suffering of death.

List of the distinguished scholars included:

• Anup Kumar
• C.V. Gopinath
• Dr. Makarand Paranjape
• Dr. Renuka Singh
• Dr. Robinson
• Father Daly S.J.
• Maulana Waheeduddin Khan
• Naresh Mathur
• Prof. Ausar Ali
• Prof. Hari Shanker Prasad
• Prof. Rana P.B. Singh
• Prof. Vachaspati Upadhyaya
• Sister Agnes Panikulam
• Swami Jitatmananda
• Swami Veda Bharati
• Ven. Tai Situ Rinpoche