This page features resources relating to Buddhist chaplaincy and ministry in the categories of spiritual care, ritual, training retreats, engaged compassion, engaged zen, clinical pastoral education, and publications.
Death Doula: End of Life Services & Transition Rituals
Our culture makes it difficult to slow down and to grieve. It becomes easy to bypass feelings around impermanence and change. Not attending to our feelings and emotions results in their accumulation and the added suffering effects on our mental health, physical well-being, and spiritual resilience. Ritual is a way to honor and acknowledge transitions in life and death. It can be difficult to take space and time do this, yet it’s so important. It can also be challenging to create a container for yourself and your family to do this.
I can help facilitate your process around death, dying, and change. I can work with you and your loved ones to develop a space in your home, at the hospital, or wherever you choose, for a ritual that suits your needs and cultivates the sense of presence necessary for grieving, resilience and healing. This type of service can be a gift you give to yourself, a gift that your loved one, or friend, gives to you.
This is a way to honor and acknowledge transitions in life and death. Services range from pre-planning, end-of-life education, support throughout the dying process, death rituals, memorials, and home celebrations. This type of service can be a gift you give yourself or a gift you can give to a loved one or friend.
Here is a List of Memorial, Funeral, Bedside Ritual, or Transition Services.
(prices are general rates—contact me for a specific price based on your Buddhist or Interfaith needs)
- House/Apartment Blessing: $150
- Funerals & Memorials: $300—$500
- Bedside Rituals & Services for families, couples, and individuals: $300
- Animal Memorials: $200
- Pet Transitioning Rituals: $150
- End of Life Counseling: (1-9 sessions) $250 per hour. Includes:
- 3—6 50-min sessions (weekly or bi-weekly) + follow-up session
- Buddhist resource/practice list to for concentration, awareness, & integration
- contemplative/reflexive exercises and journaling
Engaged Compassion, Engaged Zen
Taught @ Harvard School of Divinity, University of the West, & Breadloaf Mountain Zen Center
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
What is Buddhist ministry? How does your Buddhist practice engage with the world? How do you maintain work-life balance? How has Buddhism shaped and responded to social and cultural change? This course is an adventure into sharing spiritual practice within meditation, study, contemplation, ritual, and daily activities. Together we explore aspects of learning, stewardship, perspective taking, conflict-resolution, stretching your window of tolerance, and having fun!
Participants learn about the history and context of engaged Buddhism within a few traditions, study teachings of compassionate action in Buddhist scriptures and contemporary texts, and experience engaged Zen through a weekly class, contemplative practices, and a temple visit. We consider how meditation and embodied ethics relate to taking action, flexibility, interdependence, justice, and global change. The aim of this course is to create a container for participants to experience being a compassionate presence in the world. It can be taught as an in-person intensive retreat of a 10-12-week zoom course.
Training Retreats
All workshops include:
- Working with power and cultural dynamics
- A Buddhist resources to develop concentration, awareness & integration practices
- A 6-month follow-up session
- Contemplative/reflexive exercises and journaling
*Workshops can be specifically focused based on your needs, e.g., Council Training, creating a contemplative classroom, cultivating presence, contemplative facilitator training, public dharma speaking, engaged compassion, the wisdom of grief, Buddhist spiritual care/counseling, opening to end-of-life, etc. Contact me for a price quote based on your needs.
- Small Group Retreats or Council Training (a small group or team of 3-15 individuals)
- 3-6 day in person retreat: a collaboration from one educational organization, company, dharma community, or team who wants to experience and cultivate a sense of presence, deep listening, teamwork, aliveness, and connection within their vocation, livelihood, and work together. Participants will develop new ways to lead, facilitate, navigate conflict, and open to the unknown grounded in Buddhist practices and frameworks.
- Small Group Multiweek Training: a multiweek collaboration in person and via zoom that is tailored to the needs of your group, team, or community. Trainings can be weekly or biweekly for five to eight sessions. Participants will learn to integrate methods of Buddhist pedagogies, practices, and frameworks to become better leaders, facilitators, and coworkers.
- Large Group Retreats or Council Training:
This can be an initial 1–4 day workshop in person followed by multiweek zoom sessions that are tailored to the needs of your community or profession. The schedule can also be tailored to your group’s needs. This workshop is for a large group of 15—50 individuals from one department, company, educational institution, or organization to cultivate their sense of presence, listening, communication, aliveness, and connection. Participants will learn to integrate methods of Buddhist pedagogies, practices, and frameworks to be better leaders, facilitators, and coworkers.
Resources
Buddhist Chaplaincy Endorsement Guidelines
Click the button below to open PDF for Buddhist Chaplains Seeking Endorsement, as well as for Sanghas to be Endorsing Bodies (link to video of endorsement workshop here)
Resource List
University of the West
Sweetwater Zen Center
Zen Center of Los Angeles
International Buddhist Chaplaincy Foundation
Chaplaincy Innovation Lab
Buddhist Chaplaincy Department
Zen Peacemaker Order
Buddhist Healthy Boundaries
Center for Lay Chaplaincy
Buddhist Chaplaincy @ Chaplaincy Innovation Lab
Jitsujo’s Substack
Publications
Gauthier, Jitsujo T. “American Buddhist Chaplaincy Supervision.” In Gleig, Ann, and Scott A. Mitchell, eds. The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism. Oxford University Press, 2024.
Gauthier, Jitsujo T. “Buddhist Chaplaincy in the US.” In Arai, Paula, and Kevin Trainor, eds. The Oxford handbook of Buddhist practice. Oxford University Press, 2022.
Gauthier, T. Jitsujo. “Formation and Supervision in Buddhist Chaplaincy.” Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry. 37 (2017): 185-201. http://journals.sfu.ca/rpfs/index.php/rpfs/article/viewFile/477/461
Gauthier, Tina Jitsujo. “Hope in the Midst of Suffering: a Buddhist Perspective.” Journal of Pastoral Theology. 26.2 (2016): 133-137.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10649867.2016.1244412
Gauthier, Tina Jitsujo. “’I am a Woman’: Finding Freedom and Seeing Clearly.” Sakyadita USA & American Buddhist Women. 12 (2016): http://americanbuddhistwomen.com/tina-jitsujo-gauthier.html
Gauthier, Tina, Rika M. L. Meyer, Dagmar Grefe, and Jeffrey I. Gold. “An On-the-Job Mindfulness-Based Intervention for Pediatric ICU Nurses: a Pilot.” Journal of Pediatric Nursing. 30.2 (2015): 402-409.
Gauthier, Tina Jitsujo. “ “Sickness and Hospitalization Visitation,” In Michon, Nathan J, and Daniel C. Fisher. A Thousand Hands: A Guidebook to Caring for Your Buddhist Community, 2016.
Gauthier, Tina S. An On-the-Job Mindfulness-Based Intervention for Pediatric ICU Nurses. Ph. D. Dissertation Manuscript, University of the West, 2013.
Meditation to Help Reduce Stress. 2013 https://www.chla.org/blog/hospital-programs/meditation-help-reduce-stress
Gauthier, T.S., “The Legacy of Master Yuan-wu’s Blue Cliff Record: Through the Eyes of Western Scholarship.” “茶禅一味” Chan Master Yuanwu Keqin Conference Publication. Zhao Jue Temple (昭覺寺) Chengdu, Sichuan China, 2010.
Jitsujo 