Resources - Mindfulness for EOL

  • Evidence-based 5 Minute Mindfulness Meditation Scripts

    Below you will find three, 5-minute evidence-based mindfulness meditations scripts designed to support people receive palliative care.

    These scripts were found to have a significant impact after just one session by 1) reducing distress, 2) reducing suffering, 3) reducing signs of physical distress, and/or 4) improving spiritual wellbeing.

Download Scripts

Resources - Advance Care Planning

  • planning AHEAD

    planning AHEAD - by University of Wisconsin–Madison.

    A helpful workbook including End-Of-Life Planning Checklist, Resources for Support, Starting the Conversation, Checklist Following a Death, Contacts List, Security Codes and Digital Accounts, and Important Document Locations. Content is American so does not all apply to Canadian provincial laws but provides a framework for being prepared for the end-of-life.

  • The FIVE Steps of Advance Care Planning

    The FIVE Steps of Advance Care Planning by Advance Care Planning (ACP) Ontario.

    Comprehensive information about how and why to have ACP conversations to help people and their substitute-decision-maker (SDM) prepare for future healthcare decisions.

  • Person-Centred Decision-Making: Documenting Goals of Care Discussions

    Person-Centred Decision-Making: Documenting Goals of Care Discussions by Drs. Kaya, Steinberg, Incardona, Myers, Ailon, Chakraborty, Grossman, Perri, Wentlandt, You & Ms. Andreychuk.

    A form outlines how to have Goals of Care (GOC) discussions, which occur in the context of a serious illness and when there are treatment or care decisions that need to be made. The aim is to align available treatment and care options with the client’s goals and values.

Resources - Encountering mortality

  • Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest: 7 Keys for Navigating a Life-Changing Diagnosis

    In Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest, Dr. Seow and Dr. Winemaker have combined their decades of palliative care research and experience in caring for seriously ill patients. They have harnessed the advice of thousands of patients to create a roadmap that every patient and family will benefit from. In it, they share the 7 keys to unlock a better illness experience and reveal stories, tips and exercises to improve your journey right from diagnosis. These two compassionate experts empower you with practical tools to take charge of your life-changing diagnosis and navigate the health care system with confidence, knowledge, and calm.

  • The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully

    Life and death are a package deal. They cannot be pulled apart and we cannot truly live unless we are aware of death. The Five Invitations is an exhilarating meditation on the meaning of life and how maintaining an ever-present consciousness of death can bring us closer to our truest selves. As a renowned teacher of compassionate caregiving and the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, Frank Ostaseski has sat on the precipice of death with more than a thousand people. In The Five Invitations, he distills the lessons gleaned over the course of his career, offering an evocative and stirring guide that points to a radical path to transformation.

  • With The End In Mind: Dying, Death, And Wisdom In An Age Of Denial

    Weaving the details of her own experiences as a palliative care physician through stories of her patients, their families, and their distinctive lives, Dr. Mannix reacquaints us with the universal, but deeply personal, process of dying. With insightful meditations on life, death, and the space between them, With the End in Mind describes the possibility of meeting death gently, with forethought and preparation, and shows the unexpected beauty, dignity, and profound humanity of life coming to an end.

Resources - Grief

  • A year of reading dangerously with Dr. Karen Wyatt

    Dr. Karen Wyatt offers a yearly book list full of wisdom stories about how to navigate grief, loss, and mortality. See the complete 2026 list by accessing the link.

  • Grief and Bereavement Resource Repository

    The Canadian Hospice and Palliative Care Association offers a fulsome repository for grief and bereavement resources and services. Several are listed below with many more to be found on the website.

    My grief

    Bereaved Families of Ontario

    Canadian Mental Health Association

  • Grief Stories

    The Grief Stories podcast is hosted by health care experts who interview real people and other professionals about their stories of loss, the challenges of grief and what helps find hope and healing.

    Health care experts and guests write insightful blog posts about the experience of grief and supporting bereaved people after a loss.

Five Remembrances

(Buddhist subjects for contemplation intended to be memorized and recited every day as a constant reminder of our true nature)

  1. I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

  2. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape having ill health.

  3. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

  4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

  5. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Empty-handed I entered the

world

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going -

Two simple happenings

That got entangled.

Zen monk Kozan Ichikyo

Bury me when I die

beneath a wine barrel

in a tavern.

With luck

the cask will leak.

Moriya Sen’an