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I've worked in the prison system, on death row and maximum security. I did that work for six years. I've worked with some of the most difficult people in our society. Buddhism was accessible and helpful for these individuals.

Joan Halifax

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Joan Halifax
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: July 30
Activist
Anthropologist
Religious Writer
Hanover
New Hampshire
Joan Jiko Halifax
Difficult
Buddhism
Death
Six
Prison
Work
Worked
Years
Security
Accessible
People
System
Maximum
Society
Helpful
Individual
Individuals

More quotes by Joan Halifax

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Many of us think that compassion drains us, but I promise you it is something that truly enlivens us.
Joan Halifax
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There is the in-breath and there is the out-breath, and too often we feel like we have to exhale all the time. The inhale is absolutely essential - and then you can exhale.
Joan Halifax
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Kaz's art is a powerful example of discipline and freedom. His classical calligraphy captures the inner movement and stillness of the brush and mind.
Joan Halifax
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The roots of all living things are tied together. Deep in the ground of being, they tangle and embrace. This understanding is expressed in the term nonduality. If we look deeply, we find that we do not have a separate self-identity, a self that does not include sun and wind, earth and water, creatures and plants, and one another.
Joan Halifax
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When we have disorderly lives, it makes it difficult for our minds to be orderly and for us to be at ease with disorder.
Joan Halifax
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Catastrophe is the essence of the spiritual path, a series of breakdowns allowing us to discover the threads that weave all of life into a whole cloth.
Joan Halifax
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We live in a time when science is validating what humans have known throughout the ages: that compassion is not a luxury it is a necessity for our well-being, resilience, and survival.
Joan Halifax
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Buddhist practice is the grounding for this work, this life, this way.
Joan Halifax
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The Shobogenzo is an enormous work that captures the vastness of Dogen's realization. Kaz, over many years, threaded the beads of these many fascicles into a great mala of wisdom.
Joan Halifax
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Most of us are shrinking in the face of psycho-social and physical poisons, of the toxins of our world. But compassion, the generation of compassion, actually mobilizes our immunity.
Joan Halifax
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I am always cautious about naming the known, as we often forget to hold in regard those whose names will never be known to anyone outside of their close circle.
Joan Halifax
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How about Burma, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, our streets, our neighborhoods, our own minds. We don't have to look far - and we should look far as well.
Joan Halifax
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We have even done a weekend on Japanese grammar! Not that I know anything about Japanese grammar, but it was Kaz's idea, and it was a bit of an adventure, to say the least.
Joan Halifax
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Developing our capacity for compassion makes it possible for us to help others in a more skillful and effective way.
Joan Halifax
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My work has been in the field of engaged Buddhism. That is my own practice, which began in 1965 that formed the base for the work I was doing in the civil rights and anti-war movement.
Joan Halifax
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May I see my own limits with compassion, just as I view the limits of others.
Joan Halifax
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I am working on a technical paper on compassion. So I am reading everything I can on the subject, including my own mind and heart.
Joan Halifax
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Don't ever think compassion is weak. Compassion is about strength.
Joan Halifax
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Cease consuming, practice generosity.
Joan Halifax
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To work with Kaz on this kind of project is a fascinating process...He seems to be Dogen himself when offering the translations that we Western collaborators then refine with him.
Joan Halifax