Annual Conference
with Keynote Presenter ROSHI JOAN HALIFAX
NSW State Library, Macquarie Street, Sydney
Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Buddhist teacher, anthropologist, author, and social activist. She has worked with dying people since 1970. She is Founding Abbot and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center and Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She founded the Ojai Foundation, The Project on Being with Dying, the Upaya Prison Project, the National Network of Contemplative Prison Programs, and is a co-founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order. She has been a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress. Her various academic honors have included a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, appointment as an Honorary Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, Rockefeller Chair at California Institute of Integral Studies, and the Harold C. Wit Chair at Harvard Divinity School.
Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof); Shamanic Voices; Shaman: The Wounded Healer; The Fruitful Darkness; Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America and Being with Dying: Compassionate End-of-Life Care Training Guide (with Dossey and Rushton), and Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death. Among many sound recordings of her lectures, she has done a six CD series for Sounds True entitled Being with Dying. She is co-chair of the Lindisfarne Fellows, and is Board member and Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute. She is a board member of numerous other institutions as well.
She has practiced Buddhism since the 1965 and received Refuge Vows in 1976 from Zen Master Seung Sahn. In 1980, she was ordained as a Teacher in the Kwan Um Zen School. In 1990, she received the Lamp Transmission from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. In 1997, she was ordained as a Soto Priest by Bernard Glassman Roshi. In 1999, she received Dharma Transmission and Inka from Glassman Roshi. She has also studied with renowned Vajrayana teachers including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Venerable Khyentse Rinpoche, Venerable Chakdud Rinpoche, and others.
SATURDAY 15th SEPTEMBER 2012
Buddhism and Being with Dying – talk by Roshi Joan 1 hour15mins
Vejjasala Project – Place of Healing – talk by Ven. Tejadhammo 1 hour
When Death Enters the Room – a Buddhist Psychotherapist’s Perspective – talk by Dr. Liz Turnbull 1 hour
Compassion, Edge States, Contemplative Neuroscience in Being with Dying – workshop by Roshi Joan 1hr15min
SUNDAY 16th SEPTEMBER 2012
Spirituality and Contemplative Perspectives in Care of the Dying – workshop by Roshi Joan 1hr15mins
Bereavement Counselling for Clients and Relatives – Ms Megan Thorpe 1hour
Panel Discussion by all Presenters – Chaired by Dr Eng-Kong Tan 1hr30mins
PRESENTERS:
BHANTE TEJADHAMMO is a Training Committee member and course Presenter of AABCAP’s Buddhism and psychotherapy Professional Training course. He is the spiritual director for The Association of Engaged Buddhists and senior resident monk at Sangha Lodge. Ordained in the Theravadan tradition he has also studied and received teachings in Mahayana and Vajrayana. He has a background in Western Philosophy and Theology and is involved in inter-religious dialogue via AME (Australian Monastic Encounter). Bhante gives teachings and conducts retreats in Australia and works with people with life-threatening illness & prisoners in Sydney. Bhante and the Association of Engaged Buddhists are building a Vejjasala, a specialised Retreat centre for people dealing with serious illness, grief, loss and facing death & dying at Wingello, NSW. Vejjasala means “Place of Healing” in Pali and references the early vejjasala’s constructed at the time of Asoka which are themselves modelled on the Buddha’s own direct concern, care and teaching for the ill and dying.
DR. LIZ TURNBULL PhD (Sociology), AABCAP, EMDRAA, PACFA Reg.
Liz is an executive member and accredited supervisor of AABCAP’s Training Committee and Course Presenter. She is a psychotherapist in private practice in Bondi, Sydney. She was a Director of Somatics – Body Oriented Psychotherapy Training (2006 – 2010). Liz has trained in somatic psychotherapy, EMDR and Hakomi EDIS. Prior to becoming a psychotherapist she was an academic for a number of years engaged in an interdisciplinary approach to the areas of embodiment, subjectivity, and death and dying. Since 1985 Liz has been practising and meditating in the Dharma with experience in the Vajrayana, Zen, and the western insight traditions, and now teaches meditation. During her time as an academic Liz sought to bring Buddhism into her teaching and research and continues to seek ways of bringing Buddhism into the life and practice of psychotherapy.
MS. MEGAN THORPE MA, Grad. Dip. Ed. Studies (Health), Dip. Teach.,
Megan is an AABCAP Training Committee member, an accredited supervisor and course presenter. She trained in Core Process Psychotherapy, a Buddhist-based psycho-spiritual psychotherapy, at the Karuna Institute, in England. Megan is the manager of the Bereavement Counselling Service at Sacred Heart Hospice in Darlinghurst, Sydney. Prior to this, she worked as a Spiritual Care Counsellor for people in the last months of their lives, and managed a team of volunteer carers who offered support to palliative care patients and their families. Megan supervises the Chaplains in the Buddhist Council’s Chaplaincy programme and also the Pastoral Care Team at St Vincent’s Hospital. Megan is a faculty member on the two year Professional Training Course in Buddhism & Psychotherapy. Over the last 20 years she has had experience in a number of different Buddhist traditions, and since 2003 she has been practicing in the Theravadin tradition.
DR ENG-KONG TAN MBBS, MPM, FRANZCP
Dr. Tan is a medical doctor, consultant psychiatrist and analytic psychotherapist in private practice, providing individual and couples therapy, meditation, personal development and analytic groups. He is the Founder and Chairman of Metta Clinic, a group psychiatric and psychotherapy clinic in Sydney. He was a lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine, Medical Faculty, University of Malaya. He is a former Chair of the Section of Psychotherapy of the RANZCP and Chairman of Training to the PPAA. He has been a member of the Training Committees of NSWIPP and ANZAP. He is currently a trustee of the University Buddhist Education Foundation (UBEF). He is Foundation President of AABCAP and the Director of Training of its Buddhism and Psychotherapy Professional Training Course. In the last three decades, Dr. Tan has presented keynote addresses, seminars and workshops to Buddhist and psychotherapy organisations in Australia and overseas.
