Preparing for the Inevitable: The Importance of Accepting Death and Loss

with Don Handrick

Three sessions

Friday, October 25, 2024
7:00pm–8:30pm PDT (Pacific Daylight Time)

Saturday, October 26
10:00am–1:00pm PDT

Sunday, October 27
10:00am–1:00pm PDT

in person and online

Program Category: Dharma Education — Introductory

We are using the Zoom video conferencing system for this event. Please register below to receive your online access information.

By registering for this event, you understand that the sessions may be recorded and published in the public domain (such as YouTube), and consent to this process.

Although the end of life eventually arrives for all of us, we usually remain oblivious to the reality of this fact for both ourselves and others, leaving us unskilled and unprepared when having to confront death. In this weekend course, we will examine the need to acknowledge mortality and work with the fear of death and the pain of loss in the context of our spiritual practice. We will also discuss how mindfulness of death and loss can be used in constructive ways to extract greater value from our lives. This course is suitable for anyone, Buddhist or not, who is interested in learning more about death and dying from a Buddhist perspective and preparing for and experiencing their own and others’ deaths with courage and serenity.

Don Handrick has been a full-time touring teacher for the FPMT since 2021, sharing the Dharma with centers and study groups in North America and other parts of the world, both in-person and online. From 2006 through 2020, he served as the resident teacher at Thubten Norbu Ling Center in Santa Fe, NM. During that time, he also taught regularly at Ksitigarbha Tibetan Buddhist Center in Taos, NM, and volunteered for the Liberation Prison Project, teaching Buddhism once a month at a prison in nearby Santa Rosa. Beginning in 2016, Don became a touring teacher for half of each year, visiting and teaching at other centers around the world. Since 2012 he has been an active member of the Interfaith Leadership Alliance of Santa Fe.

Don has received teachings from many esteemed lamas in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Ribur Rinpoche, Choden Rinpoche, and Khensur Jampa Tegchok. In 1998 he attended the FPMT's Masters Program of Buddhist Studies in Sutra and Tantra, a seven-year residential study program conducted at Lama Tzong Khapa Institute in Tuscany, Italy, and taught by Geshe Jampa Gyatso. He successfully completed all five subjects of this program in 2004, receiving an FPMT final certificate with high honors. In 2015, he had the honor of being selected to lead the renowned November Course, a one-month teaching and meditation retreat held annually at Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal.

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