Developer Jonathan Rose and physician Prabhjot Singh each published books infused with systems thinking in 2016. Rose’s The Well-Tempered City: What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life offers a model for how to design our cities in ways that increase the equality, resilience, adaptability, and well-being of its residents. Singh’s Dying…
As part of our “Garrison Talks at the JCC” event series, Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, Sensei Robert Chodo Campbell, Rabbi David Ingber, and Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie had an intimate conversation about their experiences giving end-of-life care and the many lessons it has taught them. The evening centered around the new book, Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End-of-Life…
What happens to our bodies after we die? Most of us are either cremated or conventionally buried in a cemetery. Katrina Spade, the founder and director of the Urban Death Project, says that both of these options are wasteful and “ensure that the very last thing that most of us will do on this earth is poison it.” She has…
On November 3-6, 2016, the Garrison Institute and the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care (NYZCCC) are hosting the third Buddhist Contemplative Care Symposium. This groundbreaking gathering encourages leading researchers, physicians, nurses, social workers, spiritual care providers and patient advocates to learn the tools and gain the insight to provide the most effective palliative and end-of-life care possible. The…
Join us for the Fourth Biennial Contemplative Care Symposium, Building a Community of Care, on November 8-11. This is a collaborative event that champions theories of contemplative healthcare, put on by New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and The Garrison Institute. Click here for info and to register. Leading up to the symposium, NYZCCC cofounders Koshin Paley Ellison and Robert…
In the Mahåparnibbåna Sutta, there is an accounting of the monks’ response to the Buddha’s death. It seems a pretty good description of the spectrum of grief responses we might have to the loss of someone we love. … and those monks who had not yet overcome their passions wept and tore their hair, raising their arms, throwing themselves down…
The three goals of palliative care are the relief of physical, emotional, and spiritual distress. To accomplish this really well we need expert communication about what is happening and what to expect. We need skilled coordination across all the different settings that patients traverse in a serious illness. We actually now have a growing body of evidence that supports what…
Last week, during “Mindful Lawyering: A Meditation Retreat for Law Professionals and Students” at the Garrison Institute, we caught up with retreat leader, poet, and Zen Buddhist priest Norman Fischer. Earlier this week, Fischer participated in our event “Mindfulness and the Art of Aging,” as part of the “Garrison Talks at the JCC” series in Manhattan. We spoke about mindfulness,…