Dates: Sundays May 29, and June 5, 12, 19
Time: 7 - 8:10 pm EST (4 - 5:10 pm California Time, 1 - 2:10am London Time, 2 - 3:10 am Amsterdam Time)
Admission: $100

PLEASE NOTE: All meetings will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time.

Death Meditation is an ongoing practice familiarizing the participant, regardless of religious or spiritual background, with the universal physical and mental activity we all go through while dying.

This meditation is guided and participant focused. Each workshop focuses on the entire process, but also explores different aspects of the psycho-physical personal dying event.

In eastern esoteric spiritual traditions, life is ultimately seen as an occasion to practice and prepare one for death. Being born in a body provides the opportunity to advance the soul towards the ultimate liberation known as Nirvana, because each moment is perceived as an opportunity to practice transcending identification (the cause of suffering) with the illusory world we reside in.

The instructor’s 20+ years of meditation, combined with ongoing End of Life Doula training, merges Eastern experiential knowledge on death and dying with a keen sensitivity to The West’s lack of understanding due to the commercialization of death in the late 19th century.

Each workshop is 1 hour and 10 minutes. They begin with a 20 minute explanation of the meditation and its purpose. The remaining 50 minutes will consist of guided meditation and a short Q&A at the end. This class will equip students with the skills and tools necessary to continue this practice independently when class ends.

• Workshop 1: Personal Death: Getting Acquainted

• Workshop 2: The Anatomy of Death

• Workshop 3: Focusing Attention Now at Death and Beyond

• Workshop 4: Directing One’s Death

Bryan Melillo has studied meditation in the Jñana and Bhakti yoga tradition for the last 24 years. Having experienced a classically identifiable Kundalini experience in 1997 his path eventually led to Tiruvannamalai, India, where he’s been with the same teacher since 2001. Here, he began learning (and eventually teaching) a variety of breathing (pranayama) and mantra techniques. His exposure to many esoteric practices opened him to insights around the great eastern traditions on the death and dying process. Upon completing an End of Life Doula certification training Bryan’s aim is to integrate eastern understandings of death with the growing western end of life care, death with dignity movement. Bryan has an active art studio and is an assistant professor at NYC’s Parsons School of Design.

Image: Praying skeleton, ink and watercolour, 1830/1835?, after W. Cheselden, ca. 1733.