In this unique Wednesday Night Dharma Talk before the upcoming Love and Death program, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski engage in an open dialogue on Life, Death, and Freedom. Departing from scripted teachings, the evening unfolds through participant questions that touch the raw edges of grief, love, and mortality. Roshi Joan frames grief as “unmediated access to truth,” while Frank emphasizes that questions of love—“Am I loved? Did I love?”—belong in daily practice, not reserved for the deathbed. Together they highlight freedom as found not in escape, but in authenticity, presence, and compassion that responds to each moment’s conditions. With honesty, vulnerability, and wisdom drawn from decades in death and dying work, Roshi Joan and Frank model how to face impermanence and suffering as a path to deepening true intimacy.

This dialogue was marked by poignant and deeply personal questions and reflections from participants, including: a recently bereaved partner questioning the meaning of freedom, Buddhist perspectives on assisted suicide, the relationship between love and death, the interplay of freedom with life and death, estrangement, addiction, suicide, and social oppression. Roshi and Frank bring warmth and care to each question, inspiring practice and contemplation of our own love and loss in life.