Announcement from Frank Ostaseski
Jan. 1, 2026
The Metta Institute® no longer offers training or educational programs. We may collaborate with other organizations from time to time.
I will continue to teach periodically on Zoom, at Buddhist centers, and at other venues internationally. You can learn more and stay in contact through my personal website: frankostaseski.com. Please note that Metta Institute® will not be responding to emails or correspondence.
I am grateful to have served as director and guiding teacher for Metta Institute® for more than 20 years. Now it’s time for me to retire from managing a non-profit organization.
We offer a deep bow of respect to our board of directors, core faculty, guest teachers, and hundreds of our students. They have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to selfless service and dedication to restoring a life-affirming and transformative relationship with dying.
We remain ever grateful to the many individuals, corporations, and foundations that supported our work over the years.
I am honored and humbled by our collective accomplishments. I trust that our efforts have been of some small service to our world.
May we be happy. May we be well. May we be safe. May we be peaceful and live with ease.
Frank Ostaseski
Founder, Director, Guiding Teacher
Metta Institute®
About Metta Institute
Inspired by the Buddhist tradition, Metta Institute® was established to provide public education and professional training in mindful and compassionate end-of-life care. Through our End of Life Practitioner Program, we trained hundreds of healthcare clinicians and caregivers, creating a national network of educators, advocates, and guides for those facing life-threatening illness and for the individuals and systems that serve them.
METTA is an ancient Pali (Buddhist) term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, benevolence. It is a strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others. We chose it as our name because it expresses the essential human quality that is most beneficial in the lives of those who are dying and their caregivers.
Metta Institute Core Faculty
Angeles Arrien PhD
(deceased 2014) author, Basque-American cultural anthropologist, Associate Professor, California Institute for Integral Studies.
Ram Dass
(deceased, 2019) author, internationally renowned spiritual teacher. Harvard psychologist and psychedelic pioneer.
Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Author, Zen priest, Founder of Everyday Zen Foundation, former Abbot San Francisco Zen Center, co-founder of Makor Or.
Charles Garfield, PhD
author, founder of Shanti Project, Clinical Professor, UCSF Medical School, Board Member Jung Institute, Visiting Scholar, Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
Rabbi Alan Lew
(deceased 2009) author, Spiritual Leader, Congregation Beth Shalom, co-founder of Makor Or the world’s first Synagogue based Jewish meditation center.
Frank Ostaseski
author, Founder, Director, Guiding Teacher Metta Institute, Founding Director Zen Hospice Project, first buddhist hospice in America.
Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
author, co-founder Cancer Help Program, Commonweal Center, Clinical Professor Emeritus, University of California at San Francisco Medical School and Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Ohio. Creator Healer’s Art course.
Ange Stephens, MA, MFT
integral psychotherapist and coach, specializing in illness, death, dying and grief. Former director, Cancer Support Community. Co-Director Metta Institute End of Life Practitioner Program
Frances Vaughan, PhD
(deceased 2017) author, pioneering transpersonal psychotherapist, faculty member Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and of the University of California. President, Association of Transpersonal Psychology, board member of the International Transpersonal Association.
