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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
System
Maximum
Society
Helpful
Individual
Individuals
Difficult
Buddhism
Death
Six
Work
Prison
Years
Worked
People
Security
Accessible

More quotes by Joan Halifax

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Don't ever think compassion is weak. Compassion is about strength.
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
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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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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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[I'm inspired by ] courageous young people who take a stand and go into the field to serve really old people who see that every minute of life is to be lived fully and compassionately and so many between this world and that world.
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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Yes, creation is moving toward us life is moving toward us all the time. We back away, but it keeps pushing toward us. Why not step forward and greet it.
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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All are interconnected...the environment rights of the dying care of caregivers education and medical care for peoples of the Himalayas prison work those living on the margins of society, particularly kids.
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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Compassion has enemies, and those enemies are things like pity, moral outrage, fear.
Joan Halifax
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For me, Buddhism is a psychology and a philosophy that provides a means, upayas, for working with the mind.
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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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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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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May I see my own limits with compassion, just as I view the limits of others.
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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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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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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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