Saturday, March 14, 2009
Contemplative Care Training: Being with Death
with Koshin Paley Ellison and Robert Chodo Campbell
Co-Founders of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care

I am of the nature to grow old.
There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature of ill-health.
There is no way to escape having ill-health.
I am of the nature to die.
There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change.
There is no way to escape being separated from them.

— Guatama Buddha

This is the second of three daylong training retreats on Contemplative Care.

As in many spiritual traditions, in Buddhist practice we contemplate impermanence on a regular basis. What does this mean in our daily life?

In this daylong workshop we will be looking at, both our personal experience of death and the impersonal aspects of death. James Farrell (1830-1920) wrote, Keeping death out of mind cuts people off from an important fact of physical, mental and spiritual existence. If knowing that we will die is part of what makes us human, then forgetting that we will die threatens our humanity. Using the practices of deep listening, metta, death meditation, Sandplay, writing and group discussions we will listen deeply to ourselves and to others. This workshop is open to everyone, and will be especially valuable to all those working in the care giving professions or facing the death of a loved one.

Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. He serves as the Director of Training for the Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy Programs. Koshin is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Buddhist Studies. He is a co-founder of the Buddhist Psychotherapy Collective. Koshin is currently a Jungian Analyst Candidate at the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association. He has served as a chaplain at Cabrini Medical Center & Hospice and he is now a Chaplain Supervisor for the Department of Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center. Since 2002, he has led the weekly meditation practice at Beth Israel’s Continuum Center for Health & Healing. Koshin began Zen practice over twenty years ago, and he is a senior student and Soto Zen Buddhist Priest under Roshi Enkyo O’Hara, at the Village Zendo. He teaches workshops on meditation, contemplative care, and addiction and spirituality in a variety of settings from public school classrooms to corporations.

Robert Chodo Campbell, HHC, is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. He serves on the Core Faculty for the Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Programs. Chodo is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Buddhist Studies. He is Co-Director of Contemplative Care Services for the Department of Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center. Chodo brings his life experience and his Zen and psychoanalytic study to his teachings in the areas of: anxiety and depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and contemplative approaches to care. He began formal Zen training in 1994 and currently he is a Soto Zen Buddhist Priest, at Village Zendo. He gives plenary addresses, workshops and retreats in a variety of settings from corporations to national healthcare conferences.