“All the time I work with dying people, and only a few of them know they are dying.” 

On this episode of Being Well, Soto Zen teacher Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison joins Forrest and Rick to explore living, dying, and personal practice in the midst of our beautiful, challenging, messy lives.   

About our Guest: Sensei Koshin is an author, Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, and co-founder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. He began his formal Zen training in 1987 and completed six years of training at the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association. His most recent book is Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion.

Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

1:40: Koshin’s got game

3:20: The privilege of witnessing the dying process

11:25: Difficult emotions that come up when considering death 

16:00: Entanglement vs. spaciousness

28:30: Windows of acceptance, and the things we don’t want to accept

33:15: Compassionate presence

37:55: How Jungian training has influenced Koshin’s contemplative practice

42:35: What Koshin is still untangling, and the ground of being

48:30: Appreciating being alive

51:45: Recap

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