Watch this moving TED talk on how a Zen hospice is “redesigning” death

Featured in Lion’s Roar and a new New York Times Magazine profile, BJ Miller is changing how we think about death. Watch his fascinating TED Talk, “What Really Matters at the End of Life.”

In this TED Talk, BJ Miller, a palliative caregiver at the Zen Hospice Project, describes how he wants to see death “redesigned.” As SFGate has reported, Miller is not a Buddhist but “finds Buddhism beautifully inarguable,” and the work of ZHP is rooted in Buddhist principles. Notably, in this talk, Miller says that there is suffering in death which is inevitable, but that is what unites caregiver and care receiver. “This, we are finally realizing, is where healing happens. Compassion.”

Much of ZHP’s approach towards death is based on letting patients work with their emotions, “to usher in grief with warmth, rather than repugnance.” Furthermore, the hospice focuses on designing care that allows patients to have rich sensory experience, “to be rewarded for just being,” says Miller.

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