Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved

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“A valuable and amazing resource! This collection is a ‘must’ for those of us involved in chaplaincy care.”—Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Guiding Teacher, New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care

BUDDHIST CARE FOR THE DYING AND BEREAVED

Jonathan S. Watts Yoshiharu Tomatsu

Since its beginning, Buddhism has been intimately concerned with confronting and understanding death and dying. Indeed, the tradition emphasizes turning toward the realities of sickness, old age, and death—and using those very experiences to develop wisdom and liberating compassion. In recent decades, Buddhist chaplains and caregivers all over the world have been drawing on this tradition to contribute greatly to the development of modern palliative and hospice care in the secular world at large. Specifically Buddhist hospice programs have been further developing and applying traditional Buddhist practices of preparing for death, attending the dying, and comforting the bereaved.

Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved contains comprehensive overviews of the best of such initiatives, drawn from diverse Buddhist traditions, and written by practitioners who embody the best of contemporary Buddhist hospice care programs practiced all over the world today.

Contributors include Carl B. Becker, Moichiro Hayashi, Yozo Taniyama, Mari Sengoku, Phaisan Visalo, Beth Kanji Goldring, Caroline Prasada Brazier, Joan Jiko Halifax, and Julie Chijo Hanada.

book information
  • Paperback
  • 312 pages, 6.00 x 9.00 inches
  • $22.95
  • ISBN 9781614290520
  • ebook
  • 312 pages
  • $16.99
  • ISBN 9781614290636
about the author
Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved

Jonathan S. Watts graduated with a BA in religious studies from Princeton University in 1989 and an MA in human sciences from the Saybrook Institute in 2002. He has been a researcher at the Jodo Shu Research Institute in Tokyo since 1999 and the International Buddhist Exchange Center since 2005. He has also been an associate professor of Buddhist studies at Keio University, Tokyo, and has been on the executive board of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) since 2003. He has coauthored and edited Never Die Alone: Birth as Death in Pure Land Buddhism; Rethinking Karma: The Dharma of Social Justice; and This Precious Life: Buddhist Tsunami Relief, and Anti-Nuclear Activism in Post 3/11 Japan.

Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved

Rev. Yoshiharu Tomatsu became a fully ordained Buddhist priest in 1978. As a temple abbot, he has presided over thousands of funerals and memorial services while attending to spiritual needs of lay people. He received his masters of divinity at Taisho University, Tokyo, in 1979 and his master’s of theological studies at Harvard University Divinity School in 1991. Rev. Tomatsu has been the coordinator of Jodo Shu Research Institute Study Group on Bio-Ethics since 2000, an associate professor at Keio University School of Medicine since 2005, and the founder and director of Jodo Shu Research Institute Ojo and Death Project since 2005. Tomatsu is the co-editor, with Jonathan Watts, of Never Die Alone: Birth as Death in Pure Land Buddhism and Traversing the Pure Land Path: A Lifetime of Encounters with Honen Shonin.

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