Upaya Zen Center

1404 Cerro Gordo Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Telephone: (505) 986-8518
Website: www.upaya.org
Attn: Roshi Joan Halifax

Description

The Foundation donated $10,000 in grant funds to Upaya's 2009 "Project on Being with Dying." This includes the professional training program in contemplative end-of-life care, the Metta Refuge Program, supporting those who have catastrophic illness; Compassionate Friends, who serve those who are dying; and the training of local and national professional and family caregivers, including training health care professionals as educators in Upaya's methods. Its programs include service and training for clinicians and training in various medical settings. The Foundation looks forward to renewing this grant in coming years and, subject to its economic capacities, expanding its commitment.

Results / Update

Annual Report for the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation - July 2011
Thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Lenz Foundation received in April 2009, the Upaya Zen Center and Institute has been able to make excellent progress toward our goal of bringing Buddhist-inspired contemplative end-of-life care (CEOLC) training and practice into mainstream medical, hospice, and palliative care.

Through your support and the support of others, we have made a significant impact on medical education by offering Buddhist perspectives and practices to alleviate the suffering of patients and clinicians.

We have integrated more neuroscience material into the curriculum, as appropriate for clinicians, and in the ongoing process of curriculum development in response to more and more clinicians from around the world choosing to do the training. Curriculum development is so important as we are in an ever-emerging field in medicine.

The new material in the curriculum is concentrated on the contribution made by neuroscience regarding research on stress and compassion, and the efficacy of contemplative practice for caregivers as well as dying people. It is also based on the newest content in the fields of communication, social psychology, ethics, and research on the deep dysfunctions in our global health care system.

The support of the Lenz Foundation has been a key element in our ability to meet the increasing need for our content. We look forward to our continued partnership with the Lenz Foundation to serve medical professionals in developing a compassionate approach to end-of-life care.

Zen Hospice Project and Upaya Zen Center was awarded a grant in the amount of $125,000 for a collaborative program to create a replicable model for professional education to implement more compassionate, contemplative and effective End-of-Life and Palliative care. The ultimate goal is to establish the outcomes and findings of the program into evidence-based medicine, advancing these contemplative practices into the mainstream aspects of healthcare to support the greatest need.