Joanne Cacciatore

Bearing the Unbearable

A timeless book, destined to become a classic.

Foreword INDIES Award-Winner — Gold Medal for Self-Help

When a loved one dies, the pain of loss can feel unbearable—especially in the case of a traumatizing death that leaves us shouting, “NO!” with every fiber of our body. The process of grieving can feel wild and nonlinear—and often lasts for much longer than other people, the nonbereaved, tell us it should.

Organized into fifty-two short chapters, Bearing the Unbearable is a companion for life’s most difficult times, revealing how grief can open our hearts to connection, compassion, and the very essence of our shared humanity. Dr. Joanne Cacciatore—bereavement educator, researcher, Zen priest, and leading counselor in the field—accompanies us along the heartbreaking path of love, loss, and grief. Through moving stories of her encounters with grief over decades of supporting individuals, families, and communities—as well as her own experience with loss—Cacciatore opens a space to process, integrate, and deeply honor our grief.

Not just for the bereaved, Bearing the Unbearable will be required reading for grief counselors, therapists and social workers, clergy of all varieties, educators, academics, and medical professionals. Organized into accessible and stand-alone chapters, this book is also perfect for being read aloud in support groups.

Now available as an online course from the Wisdom Academy.

A MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR

 

PRAISE FOR THIS BOOK

“Simultaneously heartwrenching and uplifting. Cacciatore offers practical guidance on coping with profound and life-changing grief. This book is destined to be a classic, simply the best book I have ever read on the process of grief.”—Ira Israel, The Huffington Post
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“In this poignant, heartrending and heart-lifting book, Joanne Cacciatore teaches how loss is transformed to peace, devastating grief to active and practical love. Beautifully, beautifully written, Bearing the Unbearable is for all those who have grieved, will grieve, or support others through bereavement.”—Gabor Maté, MD, author of When The Body Says No: Exploring The Stress-Disease Connection and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
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“Bearing the Unbearable is a compelling critique of our ‘compassion-deficient’ and happiness-addicted culture that creates a pathological relationship to our feelings in general and grief in particular. Dr. Cacciatore elucidates the cost of pathologizing grief and neglecting and invalidating the emotional experience of people who have suffered horrendous loss—the way such approaches make the grief-stricken doubt themselves and feel alienated and isolated, all of which precludes healing. This book is a plea for therapeutic approaches to trauma and grief that unflinchingly respect the full spectrum of feelings that human beings experience thus providing an emotional home for our agony.”—Jeffrey B. Rubin, PhD, author of Meditative Psychotherapy and Psychotherapy & Buddhism

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“There are sentences in this luminous book that took my breath away. With penetrating insight and tender warmth, Dr. Jo meets the broken-hearted where we live: in an utterly transformed and transformational space.  This is the secret potion I have been yearning for, offered from a brimming cup.”—Mirabai Starr, translator of Dark Night of the Soul: John of the Cross and author of Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation
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“Bearing the Unbearable is a truly remarkable book. Its author, Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, who herself suffered the heartbreak of losing a child more than 20 years ago, has devoted her entire professional life to work with traumatic bereavement, and her book brims over with the rich emotional wisdom she has acquired in the course of this work. Her aim in her work and in her book is not to exile, diminish, or ‘cure’ us of grief. For ‘when we love deeply,’ she contends wisely, ‘we also mourn deeply, for extraordinary grief is an expression of extraordinary love.’ Her aim, on the contrary, is to give us a home for grief, to help us to be with and surrender to it, to dwell in unbearable sorrow, whether it be our own or another person’s. Loving and grieving are inseparable and constitutive aspects of our humanity, and one cannot emerge from a close reading of Bearing the Unbearable without feeling more deeply human. I strongly recommend it both to those who work with the traumatically bereaved and those who suffer from such bereavement themselves.”—Robert D. Stolorow, PhD., Founding Faculty Member at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, author of Trauma and Human Existence 
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“Joanne Cacciatore’s amazing and emotionally demanding new book, Bearing the Unbearable, is an experience more than a book. In recounting many many cases from her extraordinary therapy practice devoted to helping people who are undergoing severe grief mostly after the death of a child, the book offers the reader an experience that, like grief itself, is painful but for which one will be deeply grateful afterward…With the courage and wisdom of the author to support the reader through its many many vivid and memorable examples, Bearing the Unbearable takes us on a journey through some of the purest and most piercing distillations of grief, yielding details and distinctions that increase understanding of processes that are usually invisible…Cacciatore reminds us that some terribly painful things are also terribly normal and human. Her mapping of the terrain of grief reveals the absurdity (and offensiveness, even with the best of intentions) of formulating ‘diagnostic criteria’ for pathological grief that claim to be universally applicable yet fail to take into account even the most basic context and nature of the loss…Cicero, a Roman Stoic…tells the story of Anaxagoras, who, upon being told of the death of his son, said simply and tearlessly, “I knew that I had borne a mortal.” …the book does persuasively and importantly challenge the idea that the goal of helping people grieving extreme loss is to throw grief off and divest oneself of it or protect oneself as did Anaxagoras, not only because in many cases that is impossible, but because it is the wrong path to healing.”—Jerome Wakefield, PhD, Professor NYU School of Medicine, author of The Loss of Sadness
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“Bearing the Unbearable: How difficult this is in a culture that denies and distances itself from the well of sorrow. This book is a wise guide, intimate and tender, fierce and wise, reminding us what it means to fully love. Cacciatore invites the dead to come close by and help us to live again, even in the face of the unbearable. She knows the territory of loss and has returned with essential guidance for a people who no longer remember how to navigate the sacred terrain of grief. This is a holy book, riddled with insight and compassion. It will bless all of us in our times of sorrow.”—Francis Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief
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“This book represents an approach to grief that moves beyond platitudes and cliche. It offers a way to truly grow through grief that is not a moving beyond but is more of an organic decaying and recycling of the soul. It offers hope for those who feel like their loss has disconnected themselves forever from humanity and the circle of life. There is something for everyone in this garden that will restore and rejuvenate. I would highly recommend this book!”—Doug Bremner, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Emory University and author of The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg and You Can’t Just Snap Out of It

 

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Bearing the Unbearable

Dr. Joanne Cacciatore is an acclaimed bereavement counselor and bereaved mother herself. In this course, she reveals how grief can open our hearts to connection, compassion, and the very essence of our shared humanity. Over the course of these ten lessons we learn what grief is and how we can identify its effects within ourselves. Dr. Cacciatore guides us through the Selah model of grief, which emphasizes not overcoming grief but rather creating space for it in our lives in a threefold way: by being with our grief, surrendering to it, and finally, doing with our grief—or transfiguring it into compassionate action in the world. Dr. Cacciatore opens a space to process, integrate, and deeply honor our grief, with her lessons augmented by guided meditations and yoga exercises by co-teacher and fellow counselor Karla Helbert. Through this course, you’ll not only learn how to care for yourself in your grief but also how, by staying with the pain, we can make the world a beautiful place for the ones we have loved and lost.

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Joanne Cacciatore: Bearing the Unbearable

In this episode we meet Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, Zen priest and leader in the field of traumatic grief. We explore with Joanne her path to Buddhism and her work with the bereaved. She tells us how encounters with animals like her rescue horse, Chemakoh, have helped her open both to her grief and to compassion. Joanne shares with us her own transformative experience of grieving for her young daughter and how this set her on the path to work with other bereaved families. She helps us deconstruct the myth that it is a failure to grieve, and guides us to look at ways that we can relieve unnecessary suffering around the experience of loss and the fear of our own or others’ emotions. In this way, she explains, grief can be a transformative experience that expands the heart rather than contracts it.

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Tibetan Yoga

While yoga has been popularized in the West as a practice for physical health and well-being, the ancient practices of Tibetan yoga have often remained secretive.

Now, in this groundbreaking new Wisdom Academy course, Dr. Alejandro Chaoul explains the history of the trul khor, or magical movements, guides you through each yogic posture and movement, and teaches you to work with your body and breath to expand your meditation practice and cultivate well-being in your day-to-day life. Dr. Chaoul has spent the last thirty years studying, translating, and practicing the trul khor. Now with the blessing of contemporary masters—including the late His Holiness Lungtok Tenpai Nyima Rinpoche, His Eminence Yongdzin Lopon Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche, and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche—he is sharing these precious and rare teachings with you, in a format that allows them to be accessible to a modern audience.

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How to Be Sick: Your Pocket Companion

New release—coming in May!

You won’t be alone when you have this pocket-sized treasure of transformative practices, written by beloved bestselling author Toni Bernhard.

In 2001, Toni got sick and never recovered. As she faced the confusion, frustration, and despair of a life that was suddenly severely limited, Toni had to learn how to be sick.

In this easy-to-use, easy-to-carry book, Toni shares practices from her bestselling classic How to Be Sick and also offers new suggestions and strategies for coping with a life impacted by chronic pain and illness. Because the book is organized by specific challenges, you can immediately find practices that can help when they’re needed most.

With this book in hand, you will discover the experiential wisdom that has helped Toni live a life of equanimity, compassion, and joy, despite her physical and energetic restrictions—and, sometimes, because of them. In the pages of this loyal companion, you’ll find help, solace, and inspiration, no matter what life challenge you’re facing.

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Creating a Life of Integrity

Creating a Life of Integrity is our personal trainer for strengthening our integrity muscles.

When we don’t speak or act from our own sense of integrity, we feel lousy. Find out how you can live with more integrity—and subsequently more joy—as you follow these lively conversations between Joseph Goldstein, a founder of the modern mindfulness movement, and Gail Stark, a businesswoman and his student and friend of twenty-five years.

As Joseph and Gail unpack the components of integrity—generosity, virtue, renunciation, wisdom, courage, patience, truthfulness, resoluteness, loving-kindness, and equanimity—we discover each is a step on a path that transports us to an empowered place of clarity, commitment, and, consequently, more joy. As we strengthen and weave these qualities into our daily lives they become our trusted first response in a world that needs our integrity now.

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Dharma Matters

Jan Willis was among the first Westerners to encounter exiled Tibetan teachers abroad in the late sixties, instantly finding her spiritual and academic home. TIME Magazine named her one of six “spiritual innovators for the new millennium,” both for her considerable academic accomplishments and for her cultural relevance. Her writing engages head-on with issues current to Buddhist practitioners in America, including dual-faith practitioners and those from marginalized groups.

This collection of eighteen scholarly and popular essays spans a lifetime of reflection and teaching by Willis. Grouped in four sections—Women and Buddhism, Buddhism and Race, Tantric Buddhism and Saints’ Lives, and Buddhist-Christian Reflections—the essays provide timeless wisdom for all who are interested in contemporary Buddhism and its interface with ancient tradition.

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Inspiring Forgiveness

Sometimes forgiveness can feel unfathomable, unreachable, or even just plain wrong. Inspiring Forgiveness throws wide open the doors of possibility within the human heart with the wise words of philosophers, writers, poets, and great thinkers from across centuries and continents. Each offering can serve as a guidepost along the path to bringing greater forgiveness into our lives. This book also tells the stories of real-world people—from the Dalai Lama to Congressman John Lewis and more—whose lives were changed forever by forgiveness, including for themselves. Just bearing witness to these experiences can itself be transformative.

One wise teacher quoted in this book, Pema Chödrön, offers a simple practice for cultivating forgiveness: “First we acknowledge what we feel—shame, revenge, embarrassment, remorse. Then we forgive ourselves for being human. Each moment is an opportunity to make a fresh start.” This book is a collection of those moments.

Inspiring Forgiveness consists of twelve true stories of people who have endured great pain at the hands of others and have found a way to open themselves to forgiveness in its many forms. Each story is followed by extraordinary poems that speak to forgiveness, and the book contains a collection of over 100 inspiring quotations.

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The Rice Seedling Sutra

One of Tibet’s great scholars presents the Buddha’s profound teachings on the laws of karma and dependent arising.

In the Rice Seedling Sutra, the Buddha unpacks the law of cause and effect. He notes how in the natural world, a seed becomes a sprout, which produces a flower, which bears fruit. A seed has no intention to sprout; when the right conditions are assembled the fruit arises. Similarly, when our senses encounter an object, a sense consciousness arises naturally, without our intending it. This, says the Buddha, is also how karma works and how actions performed out of ignorance create suffering, whether we want it or not. And this same law of causality also governs enlightenment—when the right conditions are assembled, awakening is assured.

In many sutras like this one, the Buddha explains that to understand his Dharma is to understand dependent arising. Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe explores dependent arising, and the corollary teaching of emptiness, through this sutra and others. Commenting on the works of Indian masters such as Śāntarakṣita, he shows how belief in a creator god is incompatible with dependent arising, and by illuminating the teachings of Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti, he shows how we do—and do not—exist.

Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe was among the last generation of scholars to be trained in Tibet before the Chinese occupation. He has been teaching Westerners for decades, having worked with top scholars in the United States, and he is especially familiar with this sutra, having translated the commentary by Kamalaśīla into Hindi. Here his deep familiarity, combined with his extensive command of the Buddhist scriptures, allows him to present the Buddha’s words in a rich and authoritative context.

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The Vajra Rosary Tantra

The Vajra Rosary Tantra (Śrī Vajramālā Vyākhyā Tantra) is one of the most significant and detailed tantras attributed to the Buddha, in his emanation as Vajradhara. It instructs a practitioner how to overcome the 108 energies and their related instinctual conceptions that circulate in the subtle body and mind and drive continued rebirth in cyclic existence, in order to attain the freedom of enlightenment. One of the explanatory tantras of the Buddhist Esoteric Community (Guhyasamāja) Tantra, its unexcelled yoga tantric system is among the most advanced systems described in Tibetan Buddhist literature. It mainly focuses on the final stage of Buddhist tantric practice, the perfection stage by means of which a person is said actually to become a buddha.

There is no more authoritative endorsement than that of the great Tibetan renaissance scholar, Lama Tsong Khapa, who strongly recommended the Vajra Rosary Tantra as follows: “Nāgārjuna, in condensing the perfection stage into the five stages, follows this tantra; he also follows it regarding the creation stage three samadhis, four yogas, thirty-two deities, and so forth. . . . It explains the many stages of creation and dissolution of the body in terms of the channel structure, wind energy movement, and enlightenment-spirit substance as a factor in the decisive ascertainment of the internal and external life-energy controls for bringing forth the four voids and the magic body, depending on . . . the hidden discipline of desire and of the vajra recitation . . . and the limitless ways for the dawning of realization. . . . It seems that such excellent elucidation is rarely seen.”

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What, Why, How

Everything you ever wanted to know but never had a chance to ask about meditation and Buddhist spiritual practice, from one of the greatest mindfulness teachers of our time.

How can I fit meditation into my busy life?
How should I understand karma and rebirth?
Is enlightenment even possible for me?

Sound familiar? If you’ve ever meditated or studied Buddhism, you may have found yourself asking these questions—and many more! Here’s the good news: there are answers, and you’ll find them all in this book. Imagine that you could sit down with one of Buddhism’s most accomplished and plainspoken teachers—and imagine that he patiently agreed to answer any question you had about meditation, living mindfully, and key Buddhist concepts—even the myriad brilliant questions you’ve never thought to ask! What, Why, How condenses into one volume a half-century of Bhante G.’s wise answers to common questions about the Buddha’s core teachings on meditation and spiritual practice. With his kind and clear guidance, you’ll gain simple yet powerful insights and practices to end unhealthy patterns and habits so that you can transform your experience of the world—from your own mind to your relationships, your job, and beyond.

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Luminous Melodies

Presented here for the first time in English is a collection of dohās, or songs of realization, carefully and thoughtfully selected and translated from the large compendium the Indian Texts of the Mahāmudrā of Definitive Meaning, which was compiled by the Seventh Karmapa and drawn primarily from the Tengyur.

Beautiful, profound, and often outrageous, these verses were frequently composed spontaneously and thus have a moving sense of freedom, openness, and bliss. They range from summaries of the entire path of Mahāmudrā to pithy four-liners that point directly to the buddha within us. The authors include famous masters such as Saraha and Nāropā, ḍākinīs, kings, and also courtesans and cobblers—showing that realization is accessible to all of us, right here in our lives.

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Bearing the Unbearable

Dr. Joanne Cacciatore is an acclaimed bereavement counselor and bereaved mother herself. In this course, she reveals how grief can open our hearts to connection, compassion, and the very essence of our shared humanity. Over the course of these ten lessons we learn what grief is and how we can identify its effects within ourselves. Dr. Cacciatore guides us through the Selah model of grief, which emphasizes not overcoming grief but rather creating space for it in our lives in a threefold way: by being with our grief, surrendering to it, and finally, doing with our grief—or transfiguring it into compassionate action in the world. Dr. Cacciatore opens a space to process, integrate, and deeply honor our grief, with her lessons augmented by guided meditations and yoga exercises by co-teacher and fellow counselor Karla Helbert. Through this course, you’ll not only learn how to care for yourself in your grief but also how, by staying with the pain, we can make the world a beautiful place for the ones we have loved and lost.

• Enroll

The Zen of R2-D2

Did you ever wonder why R2-D2 is

• always calm and cool under pressure,
• the key to the rebellion’s survival, and
• the one who never fails to save the day?

Could it be because he’s secretly a Zen master?

Discover your inner R2—and the truth about who you really are! 

This delightful and illuminating romp unfolds in the form of a fictional dialogue between the author—a die-hard Star Wars devotee with a deep connection to Zen—and two cosplayers dressed as C-3PO and R2-D2 who insist on being called by their character names. Along the way, you’ll come to see what everyone’s favorite astromech can teach us about peace, happiness, and life’s true meaning.

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Buddhist Suttas for Recitation

Bring the Buddha’s teachings more deeply into your life. 

Buddhist Suttas for Recitation provides everything you need to begin and maintain a practice of contemplative recitation and reflection. These practices will deepen your connection to the Buddha, strengthen your faith in the Path, and nurture your intellectual understanding of the Dhamma.

This unique volume includes carefully chosen discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon—presented in inspiring and accessible English with accompanying Pali—that convey the essence of the Dhamma. The introductory material explains the relationship between meditation and devotional practice, offers instructions on setting up a home altar, and gives advice on how to use these texts to enhance your spiritual development.

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Start Here, Start Now

The paperback version of this book is currently out of stock.
A master of mindfulness, who has taught thousands to meditate, Bhante G. will show you exactly how to start your own practice and make it a part of your daily life. The book includes practical advice on

• what to do with the body and mind in meditation;
• how to work with distraction;
• how to deal with physical discomfort in meditation;
• how to overcome drowsiness, boredom, and inability to concentrate;
  how to work with fear and agitation, judgments, and self-criticism;
• how to avoid trying too hard, expecting too much, or getting discouraged;
• 11 common misconceptions and 10 tips for effective practice; and
• how to get the most out of your practice.

You can start meditating today and, with Bhante G.’s guidance, discover more peace, presence, and joy in everyday life.

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The Death of You

If you might someday die, 

 if you know someone who will . . .

 

Join Miguel Chen for a wild ride where we get real about death—and even have a few laughs at its expense. In plainspoken, kind, and encouraging language, Miguel will show you how to transform your relationship with death—and in doing so, get to know your life in a whole new way. Today is the perfect day to start. Don’t wait . . . you’re not gonna live forever.

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Sera Monastery

The definitive history of Sera Monastery, one of the great monastic universities of Tibet, from its founding to the present. 

Founded in 1419, Sera Monastery was one of the three densas, the great seats of learning of the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. With over 9,000 monks in residence in 1959, it was the second largest monastery in the world. Throughout its history, Sera has produced some of Tibet’s most important saints, scholars, and political leaders.

The scholars José Cabezón and Penpa Dorjee begin Sera Monastery with the history of monasticism from the time of the Buddha through its early development in Tibet and then tell the 600-year story of Sera from its founding to the present. They recount how the monastery grew and evolved during the centuries, how it has fared under Chinese rule, and how it was transplanted in the Tibetan refugee camps of South India. We are introduced to some of Sera’s most important lamas and hermits, as well as its curriculum, yearly calendar, the daily life of scholar monks, and the role Sera monks played in the political history of Tibet.

Former Sera monks themselves, Cabezón and Dorjee demonstrate their firsthand knowledge of the monastery, its traditions, and daily life on every page. Scrupulously researched over decades, Sera Monastery is the most comprehensive history of a Tibetan monastery ever written in a Western language.

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Creativity, Spirituality, and Making a Buck

“How do I make a living doing what I love?”
“Am I a sellout as an artist if I want to be successful?”
“How do I integrate my spiritual principles with the art of running a business? And actually, um, how do I run a business?”

Are you struggling to reconcile your calling with your need to make a living wage? Are you wondering what to do once your art starts selling, or how to achieve success in your field, or what it even means to be successful?

In Creativity, Spirituality, and Making a Buck, David Nichtern—a beloved Buddhist teacher and successful musician, composer, and producer who has worked with the likes of Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Jerry Garcia, and Lana Del Rey—offers his lived, learned experience as an entrepreneur, musician, and Buddhist teacher to first help you figure out what “success” means to you and then show you how to get there. If you’re trying to align your spiritual, creative, and financial pursuits and discover what it means to truly live well, this book is for you.

“Everybody has a hungry heart. We are hungry for so many different kinds of food. The table is set and the meal is laid out for us…but how do we put that food into our mouths and TASTE IT? In this book, David Nichtern guides us with wisdom, joy, and humor to make our whole lives a tasty meal to be enjoyed and shared with others.”—Krishna Das, author of Chants of a Lifetime and Grammy-nominated kirtan artist

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Sculpting the Buddha Within

Sculpting the Buddha Within is the first major biography of Shinjo Ito, the founder of the Shinnyo-en tradition of Buddhism and one of the twentieth century’s most innovative spiritual teachers. Ito was schooled in Shingon, the millennium-old esoteric Buddhism of Japan, and used that as the basis for developing a unique lay practice grounded in the principles and concepts of the Mahayana version of the Nirvana Sutra.

Ito’s wish was to help his practitioners see their own potential for goodness so that they, too, would be inspired to work diligently to shape and give form to their inner buddha. Rather than encouraging his followers to believe in a fixed system of practice or beliefs, Ito taught how to live life in accordance with one’s buddha nature—and the gratitude, creativity, and happiness latent within it.

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Mind Seeing Mind

The hardback version of this book is currently out of stock. Check back soon.

A definitive study of one of the most important practice lineages in Tibetan Buddhism, with translations of its key texts.

Mahāmudrā, the “great seal,” refers to the ultimate nature of mind and reality, to a meditative practice for realizing that ultimate reality, and to the final fruition of buddhahood. It is especially prominent in the Kagyü tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, so it sometimes comes as a surprise that mahāmudrā has played an important role in the Geluk school, where it is part of a special transmission received in a vision by the tradition’s founder, Tsongkhapa. Mahāmudrā is a significant component of Geluk ritual and meditative life, widely studied and taught by contemporary masters such as the Dalai Lama.

Roger Jackson’s Mind Seeing Mind offers us both a definitive scholarly study of the history, texts, and doctrines of Geluk mahāmudrā and masterful translations of its seminal texts. It provides a skillful survey of the Indian sources of the teaching, illuminates the place of mahāmudrā among Tibetan Buddhist schools, and details the history and major textual sources of Geluk mahāmudrā. Jackson also addresses critical questions, such as the relation between Geluk and Kagyü mahāmudrā, and places mahāmudrā in the context of contemporary religious studies. The translation portion of Mind Seeing Mind includes ten texts on mahāmudrā history, ritual, and practice.

Mind Seeing Mind adds considerably to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist spirituality and shows how mahāmudrā came to be woven throughout the fabric of the Geluk tradition.

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