Quotes from Joan Halifax

There is evidence from evolutionary biology, sociology, neuroscience, and many other fields that we need to abandon our old misanthropic (and misogynist) notions for a sweeping new view of human nature.

The secret of life," say the Utes, "is in the shadows and not in the open sun; to see anything at all, you must look deeply into the shadow of a living thing.

if we manipulate others into not sharing so we don't have to hear, so we don't have to listen, or if we react with horror or abandon the scene, we stifle our empathy and rob ourselves of this fundamental virtue of humanity.

action, calls us to turn or return to the world with

Realizing fully the true nature of place is to talk its language and hold its silence.

Why climb a mountain? Look! a mountain there. I don't climb mountain. Mountain climbs me. Mountain is myself. I climb on myself. There is no mountain nor myself. Something moves up and down in the air. Nanao Sakaki

The second tenet, bearing witness, calls us to be present with the suffering and joy in the world, as it is, without judgment or any attachment to outcome.

Most of us are shrinking in the face of psycho-social and physical poisons, of the toxins of our world. But compassion actually mobilizes our immunity.

Iris Murdoch defined humility as a "selfless respect for reality.

Thomas Berry, in The Dream of the Earth,

Speaking in Creation's tongues, hearing Creation's voices, the boundary of our soul expands. Earth has many voices. Those who understand that Earth is a living being know this because they have translated themselves to the humble grasses and old trees. They know that Earth is a community that is constantly talking to itself; a communicating universe. And whether we know it or not, we are participating in the web of this community.

Birdfoot's Grampa The old man must have stopped our car two dozen times to climb out and gather into his hands the small toads blinded by our lights and leaping, live drops of rain. ******** The rain was falling a mist about his white hair and I kept saying you can't save them all accept it, get back in we've got places to go. But the leathery hands full of wet brown life knee deep in the summer roadside grass he just smiled and said they have places to go too.

Don't ever think compassion is weak. Compassion is about strength.

In accepting death as inevitable, we don't label it as a good thing or a bad thing. As one of my teachers once said to me, "Death happens. It is just death, and how we meet it is up to us.

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.

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.

Whether or not enlightenment is possible at the moment of death, the practices that prepare one for this possibility also bring one closer to the bone of life.

In being with dying, we arrive at a natural crucible of what it means to love and be loved. And we can ask ourselves this: Knowing that death is inevitable, what is most precious today?

If compassion is so good for us, why don't we train our health care providers in compassion so that they can do what they're supposed to do, which is to transform suffering?

No single answer can hold the truth of a good heart.

Developing our capacity for compassion makes it possible for us to help others in a more skillful and effective way. And compassion helps us as well.

Many of us think that compassion drains us, but I promise you it is something that truly enlivens us.

Compassionate action emerges from the sense of openness, connectedness, and discernment you have created.

When I first was exposed to Buddhism in the mid-1960s, I said it was so practical and utterly pragmatic. That's what attracted me to Buddhism.