Restoring Dignity at the End of Life with Sunita Puri

Restoring Dignity at the End of Life with Sunita Puri

Author: Tricycle: The Buddhist Review December 20, 2023 Duration: 1:05:58
Sunita Puri is a writer, a palliative medicine physician, and an associate professor at the UMass Chan Medical School. In her memoir, That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, she explores her journey of helping patients and families redefine what it means to live and die well in the face of serious illness. In her article in Tricycle’s Winter 2023 issue, “A Gift,” she explores how she has learned to navigate love and loss through the lens of impermanence. In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, and co-host Sharon Salzberg sit down with Puri to discuss the importance of unlearning our assumptions around death, how language can shape people’s experience of illness, her journey of learning to regard death with reverence instead of fear, and how working with dying patients influences how she lives her daily life.

In a world full of noise, Tricycle Talks offers a different kind of conversation. This podcast from the team at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review sits down with insightful teachers, authors, and practitioners to explore how ancient wisdom meets modern complexity. Host James Shaheen, the magazine's editor-in-chief, guides these discussions with a curious and grounded presence, often joined by co-host Sharon Salzberg for the "Life As It Is" series, which focuses on integrating practice into daily routines. What you'll hear isn't abstract theory, but tangible reflections on navigating life's big questions-from dealing with anxiety and loss to cultivating compassion and clarity in a distracted age. Each episode feels like a thoughtful dialogue, peeling back layers on meditation, ethics, and what it means to live an examined life. It’s a natural extension of the award-winning work Tricycle is known for, translating the depth of Buddhist thought into accessible, personal audio. Listening to this podcast provides a pause, a moment to reflect alongside voices who have dedicated their lives to the path, offering practical insights that resonate long after the conversation ends.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Tricycle Talks
Podcast Episodes
Transmuting Generational Grief with Jungwon Kim [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:00
In the face of global crises and catastrophes, how can we work with our anger effectively? And how can we channel our grief and rage without becoming consumed by it? These questions are at the core of Jungwon Kim’s pract…
Pulitzer Prize Finalist Arthur Sze on Translating Loss and Renewal [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:36
Unlike many contemporary American poets, Arthur Sze did not attend a traditional MFA program to learn to write poetry. Instead, he turned to translation to hone his craft. His latest collection, The Silk Dragon II: Trans…
Awakening to What We Already Are with Gaylon Ferguson [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:09
Gaylon Ferguson is an acharya, or senior teacher, in the Shambhala International Buddhist community and a faculty member in Religious Studies at Naropa University. In his new book, Welcoming Beginner's Mind: Zen and Tibe…
A Call for the Full Ordination of Women with Karma Lekshe Tsomo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:34
Karma Lekshe Tsomo came to Buddhism because of a typo: years ago, her family name had been mistakenly changed from Zinn to Zenn. When her classmates started teasing her about being a Zen Buddhist, she took to the library…
Living Between Worlds with Amy Yee [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:04
In March 2008, journalist Amy Yee was assigned to cover a press conference in Dharamsala following the Chinese government’s crackdown on protests throughout Tibet. After an unexpected personal encounter with the Dalai La…
A Guide for When Things Don't Go Your Way with Haemin Sunim [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:36
Haemin Sunim is a Korean Zen monk based in Seoul, where he founded the School of Broken Hearts and the Dharma Illumination Zen Center. In his new book, When Things Don't Go Your Way: Zen Wisdom for Difficult Times, he of…
What Makes a Good Life with Seth Segall [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:58
What does it mean to live an ethical life? And how can cultivating wisdom and virtue support us in navigating the crises of today’s world? These questions are at the center of Zen priest and psychologist Seth Segall’s ne…
The Zen Way of Recovery with Laura Burges [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:37
Laura Burges is a lay-entrusted teacher in the Soto Zen tradition, and she has been leading retreats on recovery at the San Francisco Zen Center for over twenty years. In her new book, The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illumin…
Revisiting Radical Acceptance with Tara Brach [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:36
It can be so easy to feel like we’re not enough or that we’re somehow insufficient. According to meditation teacher Tara Brach, this feeling of unworthiness is fundamentally a disease of separation, as it alienates us fr…
How the First Buddhist Women Became Free [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:39
After the Buddha’s enlightenment, his aunt and adoptive mother, Mahapajapati Gotami, asks him to ordain women and welcome them into his new monastic community. The Buddha declines to fulfill her request. But Mahapajapati…