Joan Halifax
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| Joan Halifax | |
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 Joan Halifax with Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
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| Born: | 1942 |
| Place of birth: | Hanover, New Hampshire, United States |
| Nationality: | American |
| Religion: | Zen Buddhism |
| Lineage(s): | Zen Peacemaker Order White Plum Asanga |
| Title(s): | Roshi |
| Workplace: | Upaya Zen Center |
| Education: | Harriet Sophie Newcomb College University of Miami School of Medicine Union Graduate School |
| Teacher(s): | Seung Sahn |
| Predecessor(s): | Bernard Glassman Thich Nhat Hanh |
| Website | |
Joan Jiko Halifax (b. 1942) is a Zen Buddhist roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, shaman, hospice caregiver, and the author of several books on Buddhism and spirituality. She currently serves as abbot and guiding teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a Zen Peacemaker community which she founded in 1990. Halifax-roshi has received Dharma transmission from both Bernard Glassman and Thich Nhat Hanh, and previously studied under the Korean master Seung Sahn. In the 1970s she collaborated on LSD research projects with her ex-husband Stanislav Grof, in addition to other collaborative efforts with Joseph Campbell and Alan Lomax. She is founder of the Ojai Foundation in California, which she led from 1979 to 1989. As a socially engaged Buddhist, Halifax has done extensive work with the dying through her Project in Being with Dying (which she founded).
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[edit] Biography
Joan Halifax was born in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1942. At age four a serious virus caused her to go legally blind, from which she recovered two years later. In 1964 she graduated from Harriet Sophie Newcomb College at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she had become drawn in to the American civil rights movement and participated in anti-war protests.[1][2] Halifax moved to New York and began working with Alan Lomax, and by 1965 she was reading books on Buddhism and teaching herself how to meditate. She worked at the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University with Alan Lomax from 1964-1968. She then went to Paris and worked at the Museum of Man in the Ethnographic Film Section. She received her Ph.D. in medical anthropology and psychology and worked at the University of Miami School of Medicine. She also went to Mali, where she studied the indigenous Dogon tribe. During the 1970s, Halifax went to Mexico to study the Huichols.[3]
Halifax entered a relatively short-lived marriage with Stanislav Grof in 1972.[1] While together the two examined the the use of LSD as a support mechanism for those dying, jointly publishing the book The Human Encounter With Death in 1977. The book discusses several "rebirth" incidents which are rather similar to regular reports of near death experiences.[4]
In 1979, Halifax founded the Ojai Foundation, an educational and interfaith center. In 1990 Halifax founded Upaya Zen Center located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The center offers Zen training, in addition to various courses and retreats on topics such as engaged Buddhism and caring for the dying.[5] According to author Ellison Banks Findly, Upaya is, "...a residential and teaching center on the outskirts of Santa Fe on the site of earlier Buddhist communities. While proceeding in an organic and incremental way, integrating existing structures into the Upaya campus, Joan's vision for its present form has been comprehensive. It is based on her deep understanding of the consonance of mind and spatial expressions. She considers our condition of interrelatedness and interdependence (ties to ancestors and traditional uses of the land, natural cycles and resources, placing sites within the local topography of mountain and river, the interdependence of exterior and interior spaces, and relationships with the community itself) in the design choices she has made. Caring stewardship of the land and its resources has been a constant factor in the development of the site.[6]
As has already been noted, Joan Halifax has done extensive work with the dying over her career. Professor Christopher S. Queen writes—in the book Westward Dharma (edited by Charles S. Prebish and Martin Baumann), "She teaches the techniques of 'being with death and dying' to a class of terminally ill patients, doctors, nurses, lovers, family, and friends. She speaks calmly, with authority. In a culture where death is an enemy to be ignored, denied, and hidden away, Joan physically touches the dying. She holds them, listens to them, comforts them, calms them, and eases their suffering by any means possible. She shares their thoughts and fears; she feels their last shuddering breaths, holding them in her arms. She travels easily from church to synagogue, hospice to hospital, dispensing techniques and training born of Buddhist traditions and beliefs in a culturally and spiritually flexible manner."[7]
[edit] Bibliography
- Halifax, Joan (1998). A Buddhist Life in America: Simplicity in the Complex. Paulist Press. ISBN 0809137852.
- Halifax, Joan (1993). The Fruitful Darkness: Reconnecting With the Body of the Earth. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0062503693.
- Halifax, Joan (1991). Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives. Arkana. ISBN 0140193480.
- Halifax, Joan (1982). Shaman, the Wounded Healer. Crossroad. ISBN 0824500660.
- Grof, Stanislav; Halifax, Joan (1977). The Human Encounter with Death. E.P. Dutton. ISBN 0525129758.
- Halifax, Joan (1968). Trance in Native American Churches. OCLC 26412971.
[edit] Other media
[edit] Audio
- Halifax, Joan (1997). Being With Dying. Sounds True. ISBN 1564554937.
- Halifax, Joan (1987). Thorns and Roses Living Mindfully. New Dimensions Foundation. OCLC 16185539.
- Grof, Stanislav; Halifax, Joan (19-?). Optional Ways of Dying. Big Sur Recordings. OCLC 36710741.
[edit] Video
- Omega Institute for Holistic Studies (1992). Elder As Healer With Joan Halifax. Panacea Productions. OCLC 28118179.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Alive in Death (Issue 24). Dharma Life (Winter 2004). Retrieved on 2008-03-02.
- Findly, Ellison Banks (2000). Women's Buddhism, Buddhism's Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0861711653.
- Ford, James Ishmael (2006). Zen Master Who?: A Guide to the People and Stories of Zen. Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0861715098.
- Leach, Nicky; Richard Mahler (2005). Insider's Guide to Santa Fe. Globe Pequot. ISBN 0762736909.
- Prebish, Charles S.; Baumann, Martin (2002). Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia. University of California Press. ISBN 0520226259.
- Skog, Susan (1995). Embracing Our Essence: Spiritual Conversations With Prominent Women. Health Communications. ISBN 1558743596.
- Zaleski, Carol (1987). Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experience in Medieval and. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195056655.
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