Rodney Smith was a hospice

Hospice

Hospice is a type of care and a philosophy of care which focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's symptoms.In the United States and Canada:*Gentiva Health Services, national provider of hospice and home health services...

 caregiver for a number of years, and is currently an author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and the guiding teacher of the Seattle Insight Meditation Society, an organization he founded in 1993. Smith was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan

Kalamazoo, Michigan

The area on which the modern city stands was once home to Native Americans of the Hopewell culture, who migrated into the area sometime before the first millennium. Evidence of their early residency remains in the form of a small mound in downtown's Bronson Park. The Hopewell civilization began to...

 and drafted

Conscription in the United States

Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...

 during the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, serving in Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 as a medic

Medic

Medic is a general term for a person involved in medicine, especially emergency or first-response medicine, such as an emergency medical technician, paramedic, or a military member trained in battlefield medicine. Also the term is used toward a Nurse in pre-hospital care and/or emergency...

. He returned home and became a social worker, when one evening he attended a lecture by Ram Dass

Ram Dass

Ram Dass is an American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now. He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem...

 in Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

 that made him inspect his life more deeply—becoming a vegetarian and doing meditation

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

. In 1976 he joined the Insight Meditation Society

Insight Meditation Society

The Insight Meditation Society is a non-profit organization for study of Buddhism located in Barre, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1975, by Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Joseph Goldstein, and is rooted in the Theravada tradition. IMS meditation practices are based on the teachings of the...

 (IMS) in Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 as a long term yogi and later joined staff and performed menial jobs as a cook

Cook (profession)

A cook is a person who prepares food for consumption. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Canada this profession requires government approval ....

 and janitor

Janitor

A janitor or custodian is a professional who takes care of buildings, such as hospitals and schools. Janitors are responsible primarily for cleaning, and often some maintenance and security...

. While at IMS he developed a desire to go deeper into his vipassana

Vipassana

Vipassanā or vipaśyanā in the Buddhist tradition means insight into the true nature of reality. A regular practitioner of Vipassana is known as a Vipassi . Vipassana is one of the world's most ancient techniques of meditation, the inception of which is attributed to Gautama Buddha...

 practice, and in 1979 met the Burmese Theravada

Theravada

Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...

 monk Mahasi Sayadaw

Mahasi Sayadaw

The Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw U Sobhana was a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk and meditation master who had a significant impact on the teaching of Vipassana meditation in the West and throughout Asia...

. He chose to return with Sayadaw to Burma and was there ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk—studying in Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 as a monk for an additional four years. He then decided to return to lay life

Laity

In religious organizations, the laity comprises all people who are not in the clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who is not ordained legitimate clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order .In the past in Christian cultures, the...

, sensing that the monastic life was not his particular calling. While in Thailand he read the book "Who Dies?" by Stephen Levine

Stephen Levine (author)

Stephen Levine is an American poet, author and teacher best known for his work on death and dying. He is one of a generation of pioneering teachers who, along with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg, have made the teachings of Theravada Buddhism more widely available to students...

 and decided he would like to work with the dying. He returned to IMS and met up again with Ram Dass, who helped him get to work at a hospice

Hospice

Hospice is a type of care and a philosophy of care which focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's symptoms.In the United States and Canada:*Gentiva Health Services, national provider of hospice and home health services...

 located in Houston, Texas

Houston, Texas

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...

. He served in hospice settings for 17 years, and in 1993 he founded the Seattle Insight Meditation Society—where he is now a full time Dharma teacher. He is the author of Lesson from the Dying and Stepping out of Self-Deception (Shambhala 2010).