What truly matters when we face the end of life? After decades of sitting at the bedside of hundreds of dying people, Frank Ostaseski has distilled the deepest human concerns into two essential questions: Am I loved? Have I loved well?

This week on Insights at the Edge, Tami welcomes Frank Ostaseski—co-founder of America’s first Buddhist hospice, the Zen Hospice Project, founder of the Metta Institute, and author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully. Frank brings extraordinary wisdom from his pioneering work in compassionate end-of-life care, along with profound personal insights from his own encounters with heart surgery, strokes, and the transformative vulnerability of being “on the other side of the sheets.”

Join Tami and Frank to explore:

• The two essential questions that arise when facing death—and what they reveal about living fully now
• Why emotional flexibility is the true condition for healing and transformation
• How to meet our own fear and pain without abandoning ourselves or others
• The practice of “allowing” as a path to both wisdom and compassion
• What happens in the dying process: surrender, reconstitution, and coming home
• Why Frank is allergic to the notion of a “good death”
• The indestructible love that emerges when we keep our hearts open through pain
• How to practice dying by paying attention to everyday endings

This conversation is for anyone grappling with loss, change, or the fundamental questions of existence—offering not prescriptive answers, but the profound medicine of honest presence and the recognition that our vulnerability itself is one of our most beautiful human qualities.

For more with Frank Ostaseski:

Year to Live Course (Spirit Rock Meditation Center)

Spirit of Service (Upaya Zen Center)

Awareness in Action: The Role of Love (Upaya Zen Center, Frank Ostaseski & Sharon Salzberg)

This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.