Joan Halifax Roshi

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Roshi Joan Halifax has been practicing Buddhism since 1965. She was ordained by the Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn and became a teacher in the Kwan Um Zen School. She was given the Lamp Transmission as a Dharmacharya (Dharma teacher) by Thich Nhat Hanh, and given Inka by Roshi Tetsugen Bernard Glassman in the Taizan Maezumi Roshi line. She is the Founder of the Ojai Foundation, the Upaya Zen Center, the Project on Being with Dying, and the Upaya Prison Project. She is on the Board of the Mind and Life Institute and has been involved with the dialogues with the Dalai Lama and scientists since the inception of Mind and Life. She is a Lindisfarne Fellow, and among many honors given to her over her lifetime, she received a fellowship from the National Institute of Health in Visual Anthropology and was an Honorary Research Fellow at Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology under Dr. Richard Evans Schultes. She is author of numerous books, was trained in anthropology, and is a social activist. Currently, she is Abbot and Head Teacher of the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.