Roy Remer
Zen Hospice Project
San Francisco, CA US
"It's a totally radical concept, and maybe really difficult for people to understand-but [it's helpful] to practice dying when you're healthy. This is who I was yesterday, that's gone. This is who I am today."
Career Roadmap
Roy's work combines: Non-Profit Organizations, Philosophy & Religion, and Helping People
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My path in life has been direct
1.
Says that we live in a death-denying culture, where no one wants to accept the reality of death until it "bashes them over the head."
2.
He realized that this denial was unhealthy, so he decided to "befriend" death, and become comfortably with his mortality.
3.
When his grandmother died, he was working for a small Buddhist publisher.
4.
Seeing that Roy was having trouble with her death, some of his co-workers introduced him to the Zen Hospice Project.
5.
Soon his volunteerism started to become more meaningful than his publishing work.
6.
Says it was hard to give up his career and his comfortable income, but he had to leave that smooth routine to leap into the unknown.
7.
He knew that if he followed the thing that was most nourishing for his soul, everything else would fall into place.
8.
A big part of his practice is honoring thresholds: when one experience ends, he honors who he was before that experience, and accepts what's next to come.