We have this strange conception in spiritual circles that if we are spiritual people, then we won’t feel grief, either because our personal spiritual practice insulates us from feelings of sadness or that, because of our faith, our deceased loved ones have gone to a better place. We are afraid that if we feel sadness and grief, it is because our practice or faith is not strong enough, and we hide our pain in an attempt to save spiritual face.

In this workshop, hospice chaplain and Buddhist minister Marshall White will explore how we can integrate grief into our spiritual practice. Our fear of death and our sadness at the loss of our loved ones goes much deeper than most of us are willing to admit. Marshall will address this sadness and help us to understand that it can actually connect us closer to our spirituallity and the rest of humanity if we can learn to embrace it.

Join Marshall in discussion and group meditation as he addresses grief, vunerability and hope. He will bring stories and teachings about grief and loss from a number of different spiritual traditions.

Marshal “Oh Ji” White is a Dharma Teacher at the Kwan Um School of Zen and an interfaith Chaplain at a San Francisco Bay Area Hospice where he actively works with dying people and their loved ones. Marshall has a Masters of Divinity from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and is a 3rd degree Black Belt in the martial art Aikido. He lives in San Francisco with his family.