Live Without Regrets: Buddhist Strategies for Facing Aging, Illness, and Loss | Sister Dang Nghiem

We live as if we'll live forever, then die as if we've never lived. A Zen nun and MD on the daily practices that break that pattern.

Sister Dang Nghiem, MD, has a new book called Live Beautifully, Die Beautifully: Field Notes from the Edge of Impermanence. Sister D was born in 1968 in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, the daughter of a Vietnamese mother and an American soldier. She lost her mother at the age of twelve and immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen with her brother. Living in various foster homes, she learned English and went on to earn a medical degree from the University of California – San Francisco. After suffering further tragedy and loss, she quit her practice as a doctor to travel to Plum Village monastery in France, founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, where she was ordained a nun in 2000.

Sister D is the author of a memoir, Healing: A Woman's Journey from Doctor to Nun (2010); Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing and Spirit (2015); Flowers in the Dark: Reclaiming Your Power to Heal from Trauma with Mindfulness (2021); and The River In Me: Verses of Transformation, Collected Poems (2024).

In this episode we talk about:

• The Buddha's Five Daily Remembrances, and why you'd want to practice them
• Why our denial of aging and death causes far more suffering than aging or death
• How thanking your changing body can turn dread into gratitude
• Thich Nhat Hanh's wisdom of "the non-toothache moment" and hidden everyday happiness
• Treating despair and negative self-talk as small deaths we can release
• Why it's natural to fear death, and how to fear it less
• Why grief has no finish line, and the cost of rushing through it

Related Episodes:

• Buddhist Strategies for Reducing Everyday Addictions
• Your Negative, Ruminating Mind: Here's Your Way Out
• This Episode Will Make You Stronger

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