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Art of Dying and Living: An Exploration of Life, Death, and the Afterlife Online Conference — February 24-27, 2022

with Dr. Eben Alexander, Sierra Campbell, Dr. Nida Chenagtsang, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Terri Daniel, Joan Halifax, Andrew Holecek, Lucy Kalanithi, Jussara Korngold, Simcha Raphael, Richard Martini, Dr. Gabor Maté, Frank Ostaseski, Mingyur Rinpoche, Therese Schroeder-Sheker, Robert Thurman, Alberto Villoldo, Henry Fersko-Weiss & Jessica Zitter

This is THUS | Menla’s new incarnation of a powerfully transformative event Tibet House US launched with the New York Open Center 20 years ago, which introduced thousands to the profound exploration of the realities of death and dying as the doorway to living ever more vibrantly in the precious moments of life.

Over these four days together online, renowned presenters will share visions and lead practices drawn from spiritual wisdom, scientific insight, and time-tested experiential methods of dealing with death and dying that immeasurably enrich the lives of those facing death, as well as those caring for the dying and facing bereavement.

To learn more about this online gathering and to register, please visit Menla’s website: 

Art of Dying and Living: An Exploration of Life, Death, and the Afterlife

 Four Days of Live Online Teachings with Access to Replays

If the presenter’s website is indicated, click on the photo to visit. 

Eben Alexander, MD, was an academic neurosurgeon for over 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston. He experienced a transcendental Near-Death-Experience (NDE) during a week-long coma from an inexplicable brain infection that completely transformed his worldview. A pioneering scientist and modern thought leader in the emerging science that acknowledges the primacy of consciousness in the universe, he is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Proof of Heaven, The Map of Heaven and Living in a Mindful Universe. To learn more about his work: www.ebenalexander.com
Sierra Campbell (she/hers) has served the dying and their loved ones for more than 20 years as a death doula, certified integrative health coach, and senior care expert. In 2016, she founded Nurture on a mission to redefine the world’s relationship with aging. Through thoughtful courses and long-term planning support, Nurture helps people plan their long-term care with joy and wellbeing. For more information, visit Sierra’s website: www.choosenurture.com.
Dr. Nida Chenagtsang is a traditional Tibetan physician and lineage holder of the Yuthog Nyingthig, the unique Vajrayana Buddhist spiritual healing tradition of Tibetan Medicine. He has published several books and articles on Tibetan medicine, meditation, and yoga, and his extensive research and revival of ancient Tibetan healing methods has earned him great acclaim in both East and West. In addition to his work as a physician, he trains students in Sowa Rigpa and the Yuthog Nyingthig tradition in over forty countries around the world.
DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 90 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. For the last thirty years, Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution and his latest book, Total Meditation (Harmony Books, September 22, 2020) helps to achieve new dimensions of stress-free living and joyful living. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”
Dr. Terri Daniel is an interfaith hospice chaplain, end-of-life educator, and grief counselor certified in death, dying and bereavement by the Association of Death Education and Counseling and in trauma support by the International Association of Trauma Professionals. She conducts workshops throughout the U.S. and teaches at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Terri is the founder of The Conference on Death, Grief and Belief, and the Ask Doctor Death podcast. She is also the author of four books on death, grief and the afterlife. Over the years Terri has helped hundreds of people learn to live, die and grieve more consciously. Her work is acclaimed by hospice professionals, spiritual seekers, therapists theologians, and academics worldwide. She has a BA in Religious Studies from Marylhurst University, an MA in Pastoral Care from Fordham University, and a Doctor of Ministry in Pastoral Care and Counseling from the San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D. is a pioneer in the field of end-of-life care. She has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions and medical centers around the world. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University, was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress, received an Honorary DSc from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. She is Founder and Head Teacher at Uupaya Zen Center. From 1972-1975, she worked with psychiatrist Stanislav Grof at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center with dying cancer patients. She has continued to work with dying people and their families, and to teach health care professionals and family caregivers the psycho- social, ethical and spiritual aspects of care of the dying. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying, and Founder of the Upaya Prison Project that develops programs on meditation for prisoners. She is also founder of the Nomads Clinic in Nepal. Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof); The Fruitful Darkness, A Journey Through Buddhist Practice; Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America; Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Wisdom in the Presence of Death; and Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.
Andrew Holecek has completed the traditional three-year Buddhist meditation retreat and offers seminars internationally on meditation, dream yoga, and the art of dying. Author of many books, including Preparing to Die: Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom From the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition, and Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep, Andrew's newest works are Dreams of Light: The Profound Daytime Practice of Lucid Dreaming and The Lucid Dreaming Workbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Mastering your Dream Life. His work has appeared in Parabola, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, Utne Reader, Buddhadharma, Light of Consciousness, and many other periodicals. Andrew’s work joins the knowledge of the West with the wisdom of the East in providing a full-spectrum approach to help us realize our human potential. He holds degrees in classical music, biology, and a doctorate in dental surgery. Andrew lives in Boulder, Colorado. Please visit: www.andrewholecek.com for more information.
Dr. Lucy Kalanithi is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and an advocate for culture change around healthcare value. She is the widow of Dr. Paul Kalanithi, author of the #1 New York Times-bestselling memoir When Breath Becomes Air, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and translated into more than 40 languages, and for which she wrote the epilogue. A graduate of the Yale School of Medicine, the University of California-San Francisco’s Internal Medicine Residency and Stanford’s Clinical Excellence Research Center, Dr. Kalanithi is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society and an honoree of Mass General Cancer Center’s “the one hundred.” Implementing novel healthcare delivery models in primary care, hospitals and health systems, she serves on leadership boards for TEDMED, the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care and the American College of Physicians. Dr. Kalanithi has appeared on stage at TEDMED, on NPR, PBS Newshour, and Yahoo News with Katie Couric, and in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Elle and The New York Times. Gravity, her award-winning podcast explores narratives of suffering. Dr. Kalanithi lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter, Cady, a first-grader. To learn more about her work, please visit: www.lucykalanithi.com.
Jussara Korngold is currently the General Secretary of the International Spiritist Council, an organization that comprises Spiritist Federations of 23 countries. She was the President of the United States Spiritist Federation for the past six years and is currently its Vice-President. Mrs. Korngold is also the founder and president of the Spiritist Group of New York and the Spiritist Alliance for Books She is fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. She is an international speaker, a published author, and a translator. Mrs. Korngold is the CEO of Dara Institute (Brazil Child Health) a not for profit organization that assists sick children and their families, who live under the poverty line. Due to her philanthropic work Mrs. Korngold was appointed by Vogue Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Brazilians in New York. Through her mediumship and ongoing interest in spiritual knowledge, she started very early to attend organizations dedicated to the study of Spiritism. Her mediumship led her to experience first hand communications with several spirits, who provided a clear picture of life after life. For more information about Spiritism visit www.spiritist.us
Reb Simcha Raphael, Ph.D. is Founding Director of the DA’AT Institute for Death Awareness, Advocacy and Training. He completed his doctorate at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and has served as Adjunct Professor of Religion at LaSalle University and Temple University, is on Faculty on the Art of Dying Institute of the New York Open Center, and works as a psychotherapist and spiritual director in Philadelphia. Ordained by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, he is a Fellow of the Rabbis Without Borders Network, and author of numerous publications including the groundbreaking Jewish Views of the Afterlife, and is co-editor of Jewish End-of-Life Care in a Virtual Age: Our Traditions Reimagined (2021). To learn more about his work: www.daatinstitute.net.
Richard Martini is a best selling author and an award winning writer/director. His 8 books about the afterlife have all been #1 in their genre on Kindle. (“Flipside” “It’s a Wonderful Afterlife” Part One and Two, “Hacking the Afterlife” “Architecture of the Afterlife” “Backstage Pass to the Flipside” 1, 2 and 3). He's written and/or directed eight theatrical features ("Limit Up," "Cannes Man" "You Can't Hurry Love") curated historical content for “Salt” (Angelina Jolie) "Amelia" (Hilary Swank) was “Associate to Phillip Noyce” on “Salt.” His documentaries include “Journey into Tibet with Robert Thurman”, “Talking to Bill Paxton” (Gaia) and “Flipside” Amazon Prime. “Sister Cities – Chicago/Casablanca” was made for the U.S. State Dept. His latest book is TUNING INTO THE AFTERLIFE: his most recent documentary is HACKING THE AFTERLIFE His documentary about the afterlife under hypnosis ("Flipside") was also a best seller (#1 in its kindle genre); his 8 books on the topic have all hit #1 in their genres. He’s had 10 appearances on “Coast to Coast with George Noory” and seven on the “Beyond Belief with George Noory” on Gaia. This first appearance was the 2nd highest rated show on the network. His three books with medium Jennifer Shaffer (“Backstage Pass to the Flipside”) have all been to #1 in their genre after his Coast to Coast appearances.
A retired physician Gabor Maté, after 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, has worked for over a decade in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. Best selling author of four books published in twenty-seven languages, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness. His book on addiction received the Hubert Evans Prize for literary non-fiction. For his ground-breaking medical work and writing he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian distinction, and the Civic Merit Award from his hometown, Vancouver. His books include In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction; When the Body Says No; Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection; Scattered: How ADD Originates and What You Can Do About It; and (with Gordon Neufeld) Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. Gabor’s next book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture is due in Autumn, 2022. To learn more, and to join his e-news, please visit www.drgabormate.com.
Frank Ostaseski is an internationally respected Buddhist teacher and visionary cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, and founder of the Metta Institute. He has lectured at Harvard Medical School, the Mayo Clinic, leading corporations like Google and Apple Inc., and teaches at major spiritual centers around the globe. Frank is the 2018 recipient of the prestigious Humanities Award from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He has accompanied over 1000 people through the dying process and trained thousands of healthcare clinicians and family caregivers around the world. His groundbreaking work has been featured on the Bill Moyers PBS series On Our Own Terms, highlighted on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and honored by H.H. the Dalai Lama. He is the author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.
In his approach to teaching meditation, Mingyur Rinpoche integrates traditional Buddhist practice and philosophy with the current scientific understanding of the mind and mental health – making the practice of mediation relevant and accessible to students around the world. Born in Nepal in 1975, Mingyur Rinpoche began to study meditation as a young boy with his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, himself a well-respected Buddhist teacher. He spent many years of his childhood in strict retreat and completed the traditional Buddhist training in philosophy and psychology. In addition to extensive training in the meditative and philosophical traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, Mingyur Rinpoche has also had a lifelong interest in Western science and psychology, which has led to many fruitful collaborations with neuroscientists and psychologists. Mingyur Rinpoche is the author of the best-selling book The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness, as well as Joyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom, Turning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism, and In Love with the World: A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying.
Musician, clinician, educator and Benedictine oblate, Therese Schroeder-Sheker has been blessed with a dual life in classical music and palliative medicine. She made her Carnegie Hall debut as a harpist and singer in 1980; composes and records for Celestial Harmonies, Windham Hill, Sony, Curve Blue and others; been the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships and grants; been featured in documentaries for ABC and NBC; delivered residencies, and plenaries at over sixty-five American and European universities; and publishes on women mystics, end-of-life palliative care, and music. She founded the palliative medical modality of music-thanatology and its premiere organization The Chalice of Repose Project, housed in Mount Angel, Oregon, where she teaches, works with the dying, gardens and writes. To learn more: www.chaliceofrepose.org
Robert Thurman is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University as well as Co-Founder and President of Tibet House US | Menla in service of HH Dalai Lama & the people of Tibet. A close friend of the Dalai Lama’s for over 50 years, he is a leading world-wide lecturer on Tibetan Buddhism, passionate activist for the plight of the Tibetan people, skilled translator of Buddhist texts, and inspiring writer of popular Buddhist books. His most recent book is Wisdom Is Bliss: Four Freindly Fun Facts That Can Change Your Life In partnership with Nena Thurman and dedicated contributors, he now focuses on making Tibet House US and its Menla Retreat & Spa a global center for the promotion, study and practice of Tibetan Buddhist healing arts and sciences of body, mind, and spirit, dedicated as a complement to the vast life work of its patron, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. To learn more: www.bobthurman.com.
Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., is a psychologist and medical anthropologist who has studied the shamanic healing practices of the Amazon and Andes for over 30 years. At San Francisco State University, he directed the Biological Self-Regulation Laboratory to study how the mind creates psychosomatic health and disease. He is the founder of the Four Winds Society, an organization dedicated to bridging ancient shamanic traditions with modern medicine and psychology. He is the author of more than 20 international bestsellers including Shaman, Healer, Sage, and Grow a New Body. He has been a visiting professor at San Francisco State University and Columbia University in New York.
Henry Fersko-Weiss, LCSW is the co-founder and Executive Director of the International End of Life Doula Association (INELDA), a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to training and certifying end-of-life doulas and building programs in hospices and other care settings. In 2003, he created the first hospice-based end-of-life doula program in the United States, at a large New York City hospice. Since then, he has served as a doula to hundreds of dying people and their loved ones and trained thousands of doulas. Fersko-Weiss’ work has been written about in many publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle. He has also been a presenter and keynote speaker at national and regional conferences in the healthcare, hospice, and funeral home industries. In March 2017, Conari Press published his book: Caring for the Dying, The Doula Approach to a Meaningful Death, which was selected by the Library Journal as one of the five best health and medicine books of 2017. The book was republished in August 2020 under a new title: Finding Peace at the End of Life: A Death Doula’s Guide for Families and Caregivers.
Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH, specializes in Critical Care and Palliative Care medicine, and practices at a public hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life. Her essays and articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and other publications. Her work is featured in the Oscar and Emmy-nominated documentary, Extremis, as well as her new film, Caregiver: A Love Story. She is a nationally recognized speaker on the topic of dying in America. Learn more about her work at jessicazitter.com.