As Seigan Glassing walked down the sterile, white hospital corridor, he thought of a poem written by well-known Zen master Kozan Ichikyo shortly before his death. Empty handed I entered The world Barefoot I leave it My coming, my going — Two simple happenings That got entangled. Seigan paused outside one of the identical doors Read more
When Justin Middling slumped to the floor during a university lecture, his peers thought he was mucking around. The 33-year old was dying. By the time his friends realised he was not joking, by the time paramedics navigated the stairs to the lecture theatre and by the time they got him to hospital, he was Read more
Sam Parnia MD has a highly sought after medical speciality: resurrection. His patients can be dead for several hours before they are restored to their former selves, with decades of life ahead of them. Parnia is head of intensive care at the Stony Brook University Hospital in New York. If you’d had a cardiac arrest at Read more
I read with great interest, and I hope empathy, the story about Beverley Broadbent ending her life. I think I can appreciate her choice to end her life while still able to enjoy living. But it is not a choice that I intend to make. It is, nevertheless, a choice that confronts me. I was Read more
An unnamed Cardinal has told a Milan newspaper, the Corriere della Sera, Cardinals’ plan to ask the next pope to pledge in his inaugural address that he will serve until death. As Emeritus Pope Benedict begins his retirement, the Sunday Times reported some cardinals are beginning to have doubts about Benedict’s decision. The Sunday Times Read more
‘Why on earth do people use crosses to mark road deaths,’ asked my friend as we were setting the world to rights over a glass of vino. ‘It seems strange,’ she said, ‘it’s not as though they’d all be believers.’ Her question penetrated. I turned to talk to her but instead found myself looking back Read more
The first week of April 2005 was dominated by images of Pope John Paul II’s dead body vested in red, mitred and laid out among his people with bells and books and candles, blessed with water and incense, borne from one station to the next in what began to take shape as a final journey. Read more
Paul Holmes, who recently became Sir Paul Holmes, is arguably the best known media personality in New Zealand’s television history. He’s someone who has always had an edge about him that has meant he possibly hasn’t been the most loved New Zealand media personality, but he’s always been my favourite interviewer, which for many years Read more
The British Government has announced an independent review of an end-of-life protocol used in New Zealand hospitals, following allegations that it is being used as a means of euthanasia for the terminally ill. The inquiry will focus on the Liverpool Care Pathway, designed to ease the suffering of patients in their last hours or days Read more
A bioethics conference will focus on spiritual practices about dying, including whether the body is a temple — or a prison. Back when my father’s life was coming to an end at an excruciatingly slow pace, my brother and I vowed not to die like that, with so much compromise and indignity. But hanging on Read more