First Monday of every month from 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. EST

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 a question and answer period.

Chaplain Alley’s dharma talk will include reading from Venerable Thich Nhat Han’s book, How to Live When a Loved One Dies.

Please join us. All are welcome!

Confidentiality Statement: We value confidentiality and sharing. This group will not be recorded. We respect your privacy.

Texts Used During Sessions

Required Text

How to Live When a Loved One Dies by Thich That Hahn

*Please purchase the book from your preferred vendor 

Other Recommended Texts On This Topic

Note: You do not have to purchase the texts below. 

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.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapsalley/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/chaplainalley