Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved

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.

Jonathan Watts: Jonathan Watts practiced in Thailand throughout the 1990s at the renowned Buddhadasa Bhikkhu’s Suan Mokkh temple under one of his principle disciples. A research fellow at Jodo Shu Research Institute in Tokyo since 1999, he has been studying death and dying issues since 2005. A a staff member of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists since 1990, he has been an executive board member since 1990. Watts has also been a research fellow at International Buddhist Exchange Center since 2006. Watts is the co-editor, with Yoshiharu Tomatsu, of Never Die Alone: Birth as Death in Pure Land Buddhism and Traversing the Pure Land Path: A Lifetime of Encounters with Honen Shonin.

Yoshiharu Tomatsu: 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 masters 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.