Living Fully, Dying Well: Reflecting on Death to Find Your Life's Meaning (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Ira Byock (Author), Tina L. Staley (Editor), Tessa Bielecki (Editor), Joan Halifax (Contributor), Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (Contributor), Marilyn M. Schlitz (Contributor), Mirabai Starr (Contributor)
Key Phrases: realized self, life review, own issues around death, Reb Zalman, Nova Scotia, Joan Halifax (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Most of us try to avoid thinking about death until the moment it stares us in the face. But as Tina L. Staley and Edward W. Bastian have discovered, when we engage with our inevitable mortality at this moment, we open the door to fearlessness, joy, and the complete experience of being alive. In Living Fully, Dying Fully, these two healers present a guide for bringing an open mind and heart to the final challenge we all must face. Integrating scientific and spiritual perspectives from around the world, this collection of teachings includes: Life review exercises to access the liberating deathbed revelation at any stage of your life; Practices for easing the suffering of a terminal illness; Essential teachings about gratitude, the key practice for living life fully at any age. Featuring the wisdom of Joan Halifax, Dr. Ira Byock, Tessa Bielecki, Dr. Marilyn Schlitz, and more, Living Fully, Dying Fully is an illuminating, informative and even exciting guide to consciously embracing our mortality. Readers will discover that when we prepare to cross the final threshold with honesty and courage, we enrich every day we live in this world.

About the Author

Edward W. Bastian, Ph.D., was executive producer for six award-winning BBC and PBS programs about religion and three films about Tibetan Buddhism for the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was a teacher and program director at the Smithsonian Institution. He is president of the Spiritual Paths Foundation, which presents interspiritual programming and educational materials.

Tina L. Staley, LCSW, MSW, is director of Pathfinders at Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center. She co-founded the Pathfinder program in Aspen, Colorado, for empowering cancer patients and their families to rediscover their inner strengths and take back their lives.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 374 pages
• Publisher: Sounds True, Incorporated; 1 edition (June 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591797012
• ISBN-13: 978-1591797012
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #90,123 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important, Enlightening, Comforting and Insightful, August 24, 2009

By	Julie S.C.Y, - See all my reviews

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Many people spend their entire lives ignoring or denying the reality of death. What makes this book valuable is that it has the courage to look at death full-on, from many different perpectives (some very practical, others very spiritual, and others impossible to categorize simply.)

Part I brings together three people who could be considered experts on death--Tina Staley who educates cancer patients and their families, Edward Bastien an American expert on Buddhist philosophy, and Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi. Their conversations offer the insights you might expect to overhear in personal conversations among three very intelligent, kind, and well-intentioned people.

The concern in part I is a balance between acknowledging the reality of death, coping with it when it touches us personally, and also remembering to embrace life fully. This later point is a running theme through the book--as the title suggests--and the authors do a good job (from the very beginning with Bastian's "bee story") of reminding us not only how to accept death, but how to embrace life.

Part II has interesting, thought-provoking exercises, meditations, and suggestions for living life fully regardless of what stage of it we find ourselves, or in what kind of health.

I found this book moving, thought-provoking, and helpful. More than that, every time I read through it, it reminded me to value life--in the moment--and not to take this amazing daily experience, this journey, for granted.

Highly Recommended. 5 Stars.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Accomplishes its purpose, but wish there a was a little more, November 24, 2009

By	Nanciejeanne "nanciejean" (Western PA USA) - See all my reviews

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Having experienced a life-threatening accident, I have my own little mental file on life and death. I understand that my file is very incomplete, and would like to organize and expand it, thus my interest in the book. The book offers different perspectives (not just Christian or Western) on living and dying. It is conversational in structure, with different "experts" offering viewpoints and responses to questions. Those folks did indeed seem quite experienced and knowledgeable about the topic...and they didn't speak as though they had all the answers...just their finely developed viewpoints...I liked this. The only thing I wish were more included would be more of a perspective from a non-religious sort. Not that the book was religious per se, but it was spiritual. Just seemed to be missing the "nothing happens after death" perspective. Maybe that isn't uplifting enough. I did find the parts about living fully very interesting. Life changing? Maybe...but not a hit-you-in-the-face type of change, but more like a gentle push from kind people.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars FACING DEATH FREES ONE TO LIVE, September 10, 2009

By	Robin Simmons (Palm Springs area, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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If you're thinking of suicide, or facing a terminal illness, or a loved one's passing, or perhaps you just realized that you are mortal and will eventually die, then this book is for you.

The idea is that since we're all pretty much in denial of death, if we will face the facts of life or, er, death, that we can paradoxically live more fully. This is a very thoughtful book. Not as much of a downer as it seems. I don't think I laughed out loud anywhere, but I did wonder what Woody Allen would do with this if he turned it into a move and then I realized ALL his films deal with the dilemma of being human and mortal. Every day we die. Thus we can choose to live boldly and bravely and freely -- as the myriad of experts try to explain in sometimes pedantic language that once in a while is elegant and poetic. But not nearly enough.

For me, there's a tad more philosophy of how to live in the children's rhyme, "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream." Face death, but choose life. It's a gift. And who knows, maybe there's more than meets the eye. When we die.