Death and Rebirth: Finding Peace and Perspective in this Ultimate Transition

October 25 – 31, 2015

Led by Venerable Amy Miller.

In many cultures, death often presents an anxious situation ridden with fear, loss, and grief. Our inability to understand and control the unknown has us pushing away the fact that we are one day going to die. Our denial, avoidance, and escapism manifests in a variety of unhealthy coping mechanisms that prevent us from seeing things as they truly are.

This retreat/workshop explores a more expansive view of this natural transition and incorporates meditation, discussion, group exercises, and movement. Through facing the confusion and fear that arise with the topic or experience of death, participants can penetrate the pain and better understand how to work with the dying process in themselves and others. This dynamic process can then be one faced with peace, dignity and no regrets.

The traditional approach and teaching of Tibetan Buddhism will be included along with practical applications of how to prepare ourselves for death and how to take care of others, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. This course is also extremely helpful for caregivers of the aging and hospice volunteers and workers.

Ven. Amy trained extensively as an emotional support counselor in the hospice community in San Francisco, California in the 1980s during the height of the AIDS epidemic and is currently engaged in this work throughout the world.

Discovering Buddhism: Death and Rebirth (Module 5)

This course fulfills part of the DB program on Death and Rebirth. If you are already attending the DB program in your FPMT centre at home (or online), are staying longer in the area and are interested in completing this module (inlcuding all the required reading etc) please let us know when registering for this course.

Discovering Buddhism Required Reading

  • Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun (pp. 50-59)
  • Pabongka Rinpoche. Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, 1997 gold edition (Boston: Wisdom, 1991), (pp. 332-361) or 2006 blue edition (New York: Mahayana Sutra and Tantra Press), (pp. 294-321).
  • Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
  • Discovering Buddhism Required Reading, “Death and Rebirth”

Suggested Reading

  • Advice and Practices for Death and Dying for the Benefit of Self and Others (FPMT’s main handbook)
  • Spiritual Friends: Meditations by Monks and Nuns of the International Mahayana Institute
  • Bokar Rinpoche. Death and the Art of Dying in Tibetan Buddhsm. San Francisco, ClearPoint Press, 1993.
  • Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche: Mind Beyond Death
  • Lama Zopa Rinpoche: Practicing the 5 Powers Near the Time of Death, FPMT
  • Lama Zopa Rinopche and Ven. Sangye Khadro: Wholesome Fear, Boston, Wisdom Publications, 2009
  • Tulku Thondup: Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth, Boston and London, Shambala, 2005
  • Lati Rinpochay and Jeffrey Hopkins. Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth. Ithaca, NY, Snow Lion, 1985
  • Sogyal Rinpoche. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. San Francisco, HarperCollins, 1992.
  • Tsong-Kha-Pa, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment Volume 1, Chapter 9, Ithaca, NY, Snow Lion, 2000 (pp 143-160).
  • Visuddhacara. Loving and Dying. Penang, Malaysian Buddhist Meditation Centre, 1993.
  • Kapleau, Philip, ed. The Wheel of Death. New York, Harper & Row, 1971.
  • Mullin, Glen H. Death and Dying: The Tibetan Tradition. London, Arkana, 1986.
  • Thurman, Robert A.F., trans. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. New York, Bantam Books, 1994.
  • Mackenzie, Vickie: Reincarnation, the Boy Lama

Care For The Dying

  • Toni Bernhard, How to Be Sick, Boston, Wisdom Publications, 2010
  • Ven. Sangye Khadro: Preparing for Death and Helping the Dying
  • Buckman, Dr. Robert, I Don’t Know What to Say: How to Help and Support Someone Who is Dying. London, Papermac, 1988.
  • Callanan, Maggie and Patricia Kelley. Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs and Communications of the Dying. New York, Bantam, 1992.
  • Didion, Joan: The Year of Magical Thinking
  • Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death and Dying. New York, Collier, 1970.
  • _______. To Live Until We Say Goodbye. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1978.
  • Levine, Stephen. Who Dies? An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1982.
  • Longaker, Christine. Facing Death and Finding Hope. London, Century, 1997.
  • Stoddard, Sandol. The Hospice Movement: A Better Way to Care for the Dying. New York, Random House, 1991.

For more information about Intermediate Courses, including a typical schedule and how to register, please see our Intermediate Course Page.