What About Death!?

In today's episode of What About Death!? , Tsultrim speaks with artist and video game developer Gabby DaRienzo. Gabby's work, including the games A Mortician's Tale and Seasonala Cemetery , explore the intersection between death, grief, and video games. Gabby shares what the process of creating a game is like, and how her personal experiences with death and grief shaped their development.   Follow...

In today's episode of What About Death!? , Tsultrim speaks with Aaron Watkin, a Sunshine Coast-based mortician. Aaron explains how he first started working in the death industry, and what motivates him to continue in this space. He also talks about the details of his role, from what his average day as a mortician looks like to how he handles misconceptions and stereotypes. What About Death!? is ho...

In today's episode of What About Death!? , Tsultrim speaks with Leah Cotterell and Narelle McCoy. Together they form a unique musical duo, drawing on a combination of academic research, personal experience, and cultural traditions. Their performances, described as both heartwarming and surprisingly hilarious, include the captivating titles 'Whistling Past the Graveyard' and 'Confessions of a Funer...

On today's episode of What About Death!? , Tsultrim continues her conversation with Australian author, screenwriter, and journalist Benjamin Law. They continue talking about Ben's most recent stageplay, an adaptation of Cory Taylor's memoir Dying. Ben also talks about the importance of culture in understanding death and dying and how his own Chinese heritage influenced his understand of life, deat...

In the first episode of What About Death!? Season 3, Tsultrim speaks with Australian author, screenwriter, and journalist Benjamin Law. They discuss how Ben adapted his good friend Cory Taylor’s critically acclaimed book, Dying: A Memoir, into a stage play . Ben takes us through the process of bringing the book to the stage, how audiences reacted, and why he thinks it is important to discuss death...

We're delighted to welcome you back for Season 3 of Karuna's What About Death!? podcast.  Hosted by Venerable Tsultrim, this season continues to gently challenge fear and stigma surrounding death, dying, grief and loss. Grounded in the understanding that life and death are not opposites but part of one continuing journey, Season 3 invites listeners to explore the circle of life through thoughtful...

In this episode, Tsultrim speaks with Linda Ward, a Pagan Elder and member of Pagan Hearth Incorporated in Queensland, Australia. Linda explains what Celtic Paganism is and how its belief in the cycle of birth, growth, death and rebirth can bring comfort at the time of death.  Linda tells how their view of death is part of a continuous cycle of life and is not something that ends in oblivion and t...

In today’s episode, Tsultrim speaks with Simon Lowe, the creator of a fabulous card game called “Carked It!”.  Simon developed this, at times, very funny card game as a way of connecting people and opening the door to friends, family and even strangers, to talking about life, death and beyond in a light-hearted, fun, and positive way. As we all know, death is certain, but the manner and time of ou...

Today's episode is a continuation of Tsultrim's conversation with Dr. Pema on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, how we can apply some of its techniques to our daily lives as a way of living our best life and how it can help us to prepare for when death comes.  Pema tells us more about impermanence, rebirth and the type of meditation encouraged by Padmasambhava, the author of this profound and ancient...

On today’s episode Tsultrim is pleased to welcome Dr. Pema Düddul back to the podcast to talk about his recently released book “Luminous Awareness – A Guidebook to Natural Awakening in Life and Death”. This book is a guide to understanding the profound work called The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol) which was taught by Padmasambhava many hundreds of years ago in Tibet. It guides us through...

On today's episode of What About Death!? , Tsultrim speaks with Dr Libby Sallnow, a palliative care consultant and researcher from London in the UK. Dr Sallnow has been a leader in developing social and public health approaches to death, dying and loss for over two decades and she was recently the first author of the Lancet Commission "The Value of Death: Bringing Death Back into Life." This fasci...

In today’s episode of What About Death!?, Tsultrim speaks with Dr Pema Düddul, a Director at Pristine Awareness: Foundation for Buddhist Practice and an internationally recognised Buddhist teacher in the Tibetan tradition. Pema is also recently retired from his position as the Associate Professor of Writing, Editing and Publishing at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba. Pema has a w...

In today’s episode, Tsultrim speaks with Dr Mary-Frances O’Connor, author of the fascinating book “The Grieving Brain – The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss”. Dr O’Connor is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona where she directs The Grief, Loss and Social Stress (GLASS) Lab, investigating the effects of grief on the brain and the body.  Dr O’Connor...

In today’s episode, Tsultrim speaks with UK-based writer, journalist and broadcaster Hayley Campbell about her new book “All the Living and the Dead”. This compelling and heartfelt book explores the death industry and those who work in it, as Hayley strives to answer her own questions about death and better understand society's attitudes towards the topic. Her research leads her to share conversat...

In today’s episode of What about Death!? , Tsultrim speaks with Australian Clinical Psychologist Rachel Menzies. Rachel has extensively researched how the fear of death affects mental illness.  She tells us about the causes and contributing factors to experiencing death anxiety and what treatments and strategies can help to reduce that fear. Rachel is the director of the Menzies Anxiety Centre in...

In this episode of What About Death!? , Tsultrim speaks with internationally acclaimed and best selling author, Markus Zusak about his hugely successful novel The Book Thief which has been translated into more than 40 languages, and spent 500 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. Markus explains how “Death” became one of the main characters of this beautiful book and how he created and deve...

In the first episode of Season 2, Tsultrim speaks with Markus Zusak, the award-winning Australian author of the internationally best-selling novel " The Book Thief". Famously narrated by death, " The Book Thief" explores themes of death, grief, community and love against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied Germany during World War II. Tsultrim discusses the way Markus constructed his characters, especia...

What About Death!? returns for a new season of discussing the many and varied experiences and perceptions of dying and death. Join us fortnightly from Monday, March 20 as our host Tsultrim, an Australian nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, shares the answers to the questions you wanted to know about death... but were afraid to ask! What About Death!? is brought to you by karuna.org.au and hoste...

In this episode Bindi Irwin, world renowned conservationist, television personality, Wildlife Warrior, and daughter of Steve and Terri Irwin of the world famous, Australian Zoo shares her experience following the death of her father when she was just 8 years old. Bindi tells us how her life experience growing up so closely to wildlife both at the zoo and in the wild has given her a remarkable unde...

In today's episode, Tsultrim speaks with Dr Tess Moeke-Maxwell a Research Fellow at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and a founding member of the Te Arai Palliative Care and End of Life Research Group. Through her personal and professional experience as a Maori woman, Tess explains her perspective on end of life care, the importance of spirit, culture and family in the death process and h...

The death of the natural environment and its inhabitants are unprecedented and in the main caused by humans. Dr. Kevorkian shares how we as human beings can value our natural world rather than see it as another commodity to be exploited. She explains how we can develop a recognition and understanding of the importance of our interdependence of nature and how this education will further harmony and...

In this episode of What About Death, Tsultrim speaks with Dr Kriss Kevorkian, a Climate Thanatologist from Washington State in the USA. In part one, of this two part series, Dr. Kevorkian explains environmental and ecological grief and why we humans often experience grief reactions to the death of ecosystems and the extinction of animal and plant species. She also explains her research of the Sout...

In this episode, I speak with Emeritus Professor, Roly Sussex who has been the presenter of ABC Brisbane's long running program "A Word in Your Ear." He has studied and researched language for many decades and today he shares his significant insights into our use of language and how it relates to our perception of death. Roly explains how language and the visual representations we create of death...

In this episode of What About Death, Tsultrim speaks with Dr Joanne Cacciatore, a tenured Professor at Arizona State University in the USA and author of the best selling book, "Bearing the Unbearable - Love, Loss and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief." Dr Cacciatore is also the founder of the MISS Foundation and the Selah Carefarm, and she recently appeared on the Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry docu...

In this episode of What About Death, Tsultrim speaks with Dr Joanne Cacciatore, a tenured Professor at Arizona State University in the USA and author of the best selling book, "Bearing the Unbearable - Love, Loss and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief." Dr Cacciatore is also the founder of the MISS Foundation and the Selah Carefarm, and she recently appeared on the Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry docu...