Prepare for Death.
Serve with Compassion.

We all will face death, yet our culture offers little support or knowledge about what happens during the process of dying—or how to prepare for a blessed and auspicious death.

This ministerial training helps students prepare for their own death and learn to guide others through dying, death, and the interim state according to the wisdom teachings of Vajrayana Buddhism.

This six-month death doula ministry training specializes in preparing you for your own death, as well as guiding others through dying, death, and the interim state. Rooted in Vajrayana Buddhism and offered as an interfaith ministry, the program shares carefully preserved teachings and practices for death and dying that have been passed down through many generations.

The most important factor in facing our own death, and in helping others during their transition, is the cultivation of bodhichitta, the awakened mind of compassion. This course emphasizes specific prayers, meditations, and practices that strengthen compassion, spiritual confidence, and the capacity to serve those who are passing away.

The state of our world may bring many deaths in the coming years, and there could be no greater service of compassion than helping those who are dying, their families, and all beings—humans and animals—during the dying process.

Although this program is based on the wisdom teachings of the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition, it is designed as an interfaith ministry to help and support all beings during the dying process.

Students may also take the training primarily to prepare for their own death through daily spiritual practice, prayer, meditation, and offering or purification practices.

As predicted by masters of the past, in this time of degeneration of the dharma (Sanskrit for “the nature of reality”), there are many in-authentic teachings and paths that may not serve well at the crucial moment of death.

Being connected with a genuine lineage of realized practitioners who have maintained meditative awareness through the passage of death and beyond offers the strongest foundation for your own preparation and for compassionate service
to others.

The power of this lineage has been documented countless times over hundreds of years, as yogis remain sitting in meditation after passing. They remain in a state called tukdam, in which the body is biologically dead but consciousness continues.

Tuk means “Buddha-mind,” and dam means “one with.” So tukdam means absorption in the Buddha-mind. Tukdam starts when death occurs and remains for some time—for a few days, up to a week or two after biological death.