First Monday of every month from 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. EDT
About the Sessions
Donations are welcome!
Confidentiality Statement: We value confidentiality and sharing. This group will not be recorded. We respect your privacy.
During these support group sessions, there will be a short opening talk, a 15-minute meditation practice session (no previous mediation experience is necessary), and an open forum to discuss personal experiences with old age, sickness, death, grief, or bereavement. Sessions may include Tonglen for those who have died and, if time allows, a question and answer period.
Chaplain Alley’s dharma talk will include reading a verse or quote for individual or group contemplation. The list of books she will use is included below.
Please join us. All are welcome!
Texts Used During Sessions
Note: You do not have to purchase these texts.
Mind Beyond Death by Dzogchen Ponlop
Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality by Judith L. Lief
How We Live is How We Die by Pema Chödrön
Living is Dying: How to Prepare for Death, Dying & Beyond by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative Care & End-of-Life Care edited by Koshin Paley Ellison and Matt Weingast, Forward by HH the Karmapa
Preparing to Die: Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition by Andrew Holeck
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion & Fearlessness in the Presence of Death by Joan Halifax
The Tibetan Book of the Dead translated with commentary by Francesca Fremantle and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche
Peaceful Mind – Compassionate Heart by Khen Rinpoche Lobzang Tsetan, edited & with a preface by Dana Sawyer
About the Teacher
Alley Smith, Ordained Shambhala Buddhist Chaplain, is a Buddhist Minister of Religion, “Upadhyaya” and “Upasika” Chaplain at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the Resident Chaplain at Maine Veterans’ Home in Scarborough, Maine for 5.5 years and currently serves as a Visiting Chaplain at MVH. Alley is a US military war veteran. Alley specializes in end of life care, mortuary affairs, decedent care, and as a funeral clergy. She has been a student of Shambhala Buddhism and Zen since 1999.