Contemplative Caregiving: Finding Healing, Compassion, and Spiritual Growth through End-of-Life Care

(Paperback)

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Blending personal insights from twenty-five years of hospice volunteering with contemplative social science research, this thoughtful and engaging book offers practical lessons about the transformative possibilities of compassionate end-of-life caregiving. Integrating two decades of hospice care and social science research, this heartfelt book offers practical lessons on the transformative possibilities of end-of-life caregiving. Contemplative Caregivingis an indispensable guide for end-of-life caregivers and for anyone seeking to transform experiences of caregiving and grief. Rather than leading to burnout and despair, caring for those who are suffering and dying can enrich our lives with meaning and further our own spiritual growth and resilience. Whether you are caring for a loved one with cancer or dementia, grieving a sudden traumatic loss, or even serving time in prison,Contemplative Caregivingoffers encouragement for showing up to the fullness of life in whatever those circumstances may be. Healing, compassion, and spiritual growth are available to us all, in this lifetime, right now. Baugher's unique style of integrating social scientific research on caregiving and grief with teachings from Buddhist, contemplative Christian, and other wisdom traditions illuminates how we each can transform experiences of loss and suffering into a path of compassion.Contemplative Caregivingweaves together powerful stories from interviews with diverse hospice caregivers-Vietnam veterans, nurses, housewives, Catholic nuns, those convicted of murder-with the author's own journey toward wholeness in the face of grief and traumatic loss, including the murder of his own mother. Through rich storytelling, teachings on compassion, and skillful contemplative exercises, Baugher invites you to join him in exploring the healing power of contemplative caregiving.

Reviews

We often imagine that when we care for another, we are the giver and the one we care for is the receiver. But in this important, extensive, and deep exploration of the experience of hospice volunteers, Baugher describes givers who feel like receiversof gratitude, patience, and wisdom drawn from a deep connection to another human being at an ultimate moment. Having lost his mother as an eighteen-year-old, at the hands of a murderer, yet later bonding with fellow hospice volunteers who are themselves imprisoned for murder, Baugher pioneers for us the very outer frontiers of human empathy. A very important frontier, a very important book.Arlie Hochschild, author of Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, a finalist for the National Book Award

An inspiring and compassionate story of how to transform personal suffering into the ground of mutually beneficial service. It is possible to keep our heart open in hell. This book illuminates the way.Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully

Our families, hospitals, prisons, and whole society can benefit from the vision of compassion offered by John Baugher. This is truly a book for the heart.Thupten Jinpa, principal translator to the Dalai Lama and author of A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives

A dazzling study of human vulnerability and connection, Contemplative Caregiving is wide-ranging in scope, profound in its intimacy. Based on interviews with diverse hospice caregiversVietnam veterans, nurses, housewives, Catholic nuns, convicted murderersBaugher conjures the transformative potential of care in an array of moving and unexpected insights.Yasmin Gunaratnam, author of Death and the Migrant and Researching Race and Ethnicity

Contemplative Caregiving is an invitation from author John Baugher to discover with him the transformative potential of love. In both living and dying, Baugher guides us exceedingly well.Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Love

Theres a lot more to the spiritual path than silent meditation, and Contemplative Caregiving shows us how transformative end-of-life hospice work (and other types of compassionate care) can be. I was moved by the personal stories, many of them by prison inmate volunteers, who have a lot to teach the rest of us. A book not just to read but to cherish and share.David Loy, author of Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis

Contemplative Caregiving provides the medicine of what is needed: an awake heart-mind, receptivity, and community. Through sharing his personal work, rich storytelling, and historical context, John brings us on a journey to our true homebeing in intimate relationship with ourselves and others through service.Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, cofounder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, author of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up, and editor of Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End-of-Life Care

As someone who transformed my own hell through a deep dive into hospice and contemplative caregiving, I am extremely inspired and moved by Baughers bookContemplative Caregiving. Who better to tell the story of so many transformed by giving and receiving compassionate care at the end of life, including prison inmates, than a man who has so deeply transformed his own unspeakable pain by bringing dignity to the suffering of others. This is a book about life and death, courage and compassion, and the transformative power of love.Fleet Maull, PhD, author ofRadical Responsibility andDharma in Hell

Atrenchant and groundbreaking book inviting readers to taste the real, profound, unscripted, and liberating effects experienced by someone generating and enacting compassion for another person.This book can speak to all of us, whoever we are, about ourselves, sounding an infinitely bright and uplifting note in the otherwise mounting overture of despair and confusion in our world today.Patrick Gaffney, editor of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and Talent for Humanity

Contemplative Caregivingis that rare book that deftly combines empirically grounded social science with an unapologetic vision to recognize and celebrate the dying and the people who care for them. Through the lives and experiences of a diverse sample of hospice volunteersincluding prisonerswe come to see the truly transformative power of listening to and caring for people at the end of life.Clare Stacey, PhD, author ofThe Caring Self

This book gives the reader an insiders view of the ups and downs, the joys and challenges, the promises and perils of end-of-life caregiving. Here is an invitation to a spiritual practice that can be powerfully transformative and life-giving, not only for those who receive the gift of a caregivers compassionate presence but also for the caregivers themselves. In contemplatively caring for those who are dying, one may find therein the seeds of peace, hope, a quiet joy, and heartfelt gratitude for this gift of being human, in all it entails.Ruben L. F. Habito, guiding teacher at Maria Kannon Zen Center, Dallas, Texas, and author ofLiving Zen, Loving God andHealing Breath

In this courageous book, John Baugher connects with the timeless wisdom of spiritual traditions both East and West. Picking up the mantle from Dame Cicely Saunders, Thich Nhat Hahn, and other visionaries,Contemplative Caregiving weaves together story and teaching with practical exercises to empower us to extend compassion to ourselves and all others without exception. An invitation to hope and healing in these troubled times.Matthew Lee, PhD, director of empirical research, Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, and author ofThe Heart of Religion

In this beautiful and moving book, we learn what it means to see caregiving as a path of redemption and transformation rather than a source of stress and burnout. The journeys described here are messy, rich, painful, and transcendent.Contemplative Caregivingis an absorbing read and an indispensable guide to all of us who live in this mortal world.Leslie J. Blackhall, MD, MTS, section head, palliative care, Tussi and John Kluge Chair, University of Virginia School of Medicine

Awork of courage and deep vulnerability that can inspire leaders in any field in moving beyond models of heroic action toward authentic, relational encounters with self and others. I invite all who pick up this book to see their own lifes journey reflected in its pages and to draw on the creative spaces within themselves to further a more compassionate twenty-firstcentury.liane Ubalijoro, PhD, board member, International Leadership Association; professor of practice, McGill University

InContemplative Caregiving, Baugher bears witness to how deep listening and acceptance can transform suffering into compassion for ourselves and others, now and at the end of life. Insightful and practical, this book is essential reading for those preparing for chaplaincy and ministry.Cheryl A. Giles, Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer on Pastoral Care and Counseling; faculty, Buddhist Ministry Initiative, Harvard Divinity School; and co-editor ofThe Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work

While this elegant work will be of particular value to hospice volunteers, Baughers wisdom will resonate with anyone who finds themselves caring for someone at the end-of-life.Publishers Weekly

Baugher removes the drudgery from caregiving to offer readers greater goals on which to focus. Recommended for all caregivers and anyone about to enter that space.Library Journal

Author Bio

JOHN ERIC BAUGHER, PhD, has been a contemplative educator, social science researcher, and end-of-life caregiver for more than two decades. He is the co-editor of Leading with Spirit, Presence, and Authenticity and Creative Social Change- Leadership for a Healthy World. Dr. Baugher consults and offers workshops internationally on spiritual care, grief and transformation, and contemplative learning. To learn more, please visit johnericbaugher.com.