Grieving Mindfully

M. Kumar Sameet

Description

Grief is a personal journey, never the same for any two people and as unique as your life and your relationships. Although loss is an inevitable part of life, how you approach this fact can make the difference between meaningless pain and the manifestation of understanding and wisdom. This book describes a mindful approach to dealing with grief that can help you make that difference.

By walking this mindful path, you will discover that you are capable of transforming and healing the grief you carry and finding the spiritual and emotional resilience you need to move through this challenging time. These mindfulness practices, explained here in simple and practical language, will help you bear your time of grief. But they will do more than that, too. They will guide you to a life more fully lived, with more meaning. These simple practices will help you experience what richness comes from asking deeper questions about loss and about life.

Informations

• Publié par: New Harbinger Publications
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 0001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781572249851
• Langue: English

Extrait

grieving mindfully

A Compassionate and Spiritual Guide to Coping with Loss

grievingmindfully A Compassionate and Spiritual Guide to Coping with Loss

K U M A R

S A M E E T M . K U M A R , P H . D . Foreword by JEFFREY BRANTLEY, MD, author ofCalming Your Anxious Mind

“Grief and loss are dreaded experiences that many wish to either avoid or to rapidly solve. InGrieving Mindfully,Kumar offers the alternative of welcoming the experience as an opportunity to develop our human ity. This book offers a path to healthy grieving for people encountering losses of many kinds.” —Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte

“Kumar’s approach to dealing with grief and loss is creative and radi cally transformative. Drawing on his experience as a practicing psy chologist and his training in the Buddhist enlightenment tradition, he suggests that instead of hiding from our grief, trying to forget or get over it, we take a more demanding and rewarding path—walking straight through grief with mindful awareness, fearless observance, and profound compassion. His book has the potential to bring strength and healing to the millions who grieve and to revolutionize the approach of psychologists and counselors working with those in profound grief.” —Glenn H Mullin, Buddhist meditation teacher and author of Living in the Face of Death: The Tibetan Tradition

Publisher’s Note This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psycho logical, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Excerpt on page 24 and 34 © Sarah Harding and Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, 1996, 2002. Excerpted fromCreation and Completion: Essential Points of Tantric Meditationwith permission of Wisdom Publications, 199 Elm St., Somerville, MA 02144, U.S.A., www.wisdompubs.org.

Excerpt on page 60 fromThe Way of the Bodhisattvaby Shantideva, translated by the Padmakara Translation Group. © 1997 by the Padmakara Translation Group. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, www.shambhala.com.

Excerpt on page 19 © Shaykh Tosun Bayrak alJerrahi alHalveti, fromThe Name and the Named: The Divine Attributes of God,Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY.with permiassion of

Copyright © 2005 by Sameet Kumar New Harbinger Publications, Inc. 5674 Shattuck Avenue Oakland, CA 94609

Cover design by Amy Shoup Acquired by Tesilya Hanauer Edited by Karen O’Donnell Stein Text design by Tracy Marie Carlson

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data on file Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books All Rights Reserved

New Harbinger Publications’ Web site address: www.newharbinger.com

I would like to dedicate this book to all of my patients and clients over the years, who have taught me so much about grief, loss, suffering, and the positive potential of being human. It is a privilege to know so many people capable of such deep caring and love for each other. You all renew my faith in humanity each day. In this book, I have tried to communicate some of my own understanding of the Dharma, but in the end I am only a beginner, and the Dharma is vast. I beg the reader to overlook my errors. May this incomplete work, with all of its faults and shortcomings, be of assistance in easing the suffering of all beings everywhere. Sarve mangalam.

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Foreword

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

What Is Grief?

What Is Mindfulness?

The Spiral Staircase

The First Year

Closure and Transformation

The Transformative Search for Meaning in Grief

Grief and Depression

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xi

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Grieving Mindfully

Learning from Grief

Channeling Grief to Life

Grieving Mindfully, Living Mindfully

Bibliography

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Foreword

I am happy and honored to introduce Sameet Kumar and this book, Grieving Mindfully.In these pages, Sameet brings together a wealth of experience from the field of grief counseling and from his long standing and dedicated personal practice of mindfulness meditation. He writes in a comprehensive yet inviting way, with warmth, humor, and great compassion. Most of all, Sameet offers an encouraging sense of hope when facing our own grief and loss. For the hope, I am especially grateful. To be human is to be subject to the pain of loss and grief. The death of a loved one only heightens our remembrance of all the occa sions and sources of loss throughout our lives. Whether it is the loss of a pet in childhood, good friends moving away, or the occurrence of illness in our own body, there is a real and deeply felt sense of grief connected to so many experiences. Grief can be as unpredictable as it is intense. As a young psychi atry resident, I received a call from my mother informing me that her mother, my grandmother, had died from a sudden heart attack. Immediately on hearing the news, I noticed a numbing feeling