1957
A man seeks answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.
96 min
CLEAR ALL
A calm mind and even temper can help make peace with life’s difficulties.
1
Palliative care specialist BJ Miller and Shoshana Berger explain how to bring more meaning and less suffering to the end of life.
Amy talks to best-selling author and podcast host, Nora McInerny, about how toxic positivity causes more pain. She shares how to embrace uncomfortable feelings rather than fight them so you can live a better life.
The fear of death and dying is quite common, and most people fear death to varying degrees. To what extent that fear occurs and what it pertains to specifically varies from one person to another.
At the end of our lives, what do we most wish for? For many, it’s simply comfort, respect, love. BJ Miller is a palliative care physician who thinks deeply about how to create a dignified, graceful end of life for his patients.
Affliction is often that thing which prepares an ordinary person for some sort of an extraordinary destiny.
Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say ‘My tooth is aching’ than to say ‘My heart is broken.’
4
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should.
The biggest mistake we can make, according to the Buddha, is to discount or minimize our suffering. Why? Because it is the fiery gate through which we must pass to engage the spiritual path.
As Buddhist teaching says, suffering has the potential to deepen our compassion and understanding of the human condition. And in so doing, it can lead us to even greater faith, joy and well-being.