Death and Dying as a Pathway to Generate Resilience and Cultivate Compass

This webinar presents how our attitudes toward death and dying have direct implications on how we die and care for others who are dying. Based on 18 months of living with and closely studying the Tibetan Buddhist community in southern India, Dr. Tenzin Namdul will show how death and dying is viewed as a potent cultural reference and source of moral motivation rather than a morbid, fearful course of life. For this community, death and dying is a pathway to investigate both inter- and intra-personal relationships and provides an opportunity to foster resilience and cultivate compassion toward oneself and others. Further, Dr. Namdul will explicate on the “Tibetan Buddhist Model” of death and dying and underlying factors that animate the mechanism and cultural utility of the model.
Dr. Namdul will conclude the webinar with a guided tonglen meditation, which is employed by Buddhist practitioners to empathize and develop profound compassion toward others as one goes through the stages of dying.
Learn more about the Tibetan Healing Initiative at z.umn.edu/CSH-THI