Latest Joan Halifax Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• [Kaz] is a great scholar, very funny - a true man of no rank!

  Joan Halifax

  Men, True Man, Scholar

• I remember having a discussion with [Kaz] about his translation of the word shunyata as "boundlessness," instead of the more traditional "emptiness." I said: "Kaz, everyone is used to the word emptiness for shunyata. This might not sit well with people. He said: "Translator's prerogative!" Then he added, "One cannot assume we know what they meant...." I agreed.

  Joan Halifax

  People, Might, Emptiness

• My test for veracity has always been: How this will settle with a person who is dying? Boundlessness seemed to me to open the door to the true nature of mind that is pointed to in the Heart Sutra.

  Joan Halifax

  Heart, Doors, Mind

  "About Kazuaki Tanahashi: An Interview with Roshi Joan Halifax". Shambhala Interview, www.shambhala.com.

• Kaz came to Switzerland where I was teaching to share with me [Heart Sutra] wondrous insight. There he and I worked on this new translation - with my part being to help render it into a verse form that would be good to chant. Since I have worked with many dying people over the years and often share the Heart Sutra with them, I found this new version that we created together to be so much more accessible to those who were facing death.

  Joan Halifax

  Teaching, Heart, Years

• 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

  Art, Powerful, Discipline

  "About Kazuaki Tanahashi: An Interview with Roshi Joan Halifax". Shambhala Interview, www.shambhala.com.

• Kaz's wilder work captures the great beauty of the human heart and the natural world.

  Joan Halifax

  Heart, World, Natural

• 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

  Offering, Kind, Projects

  "About Kazuaki Tanahashi: An Interview with Roshi Joan Halifax". Shambhala Interview, www.shambhala.com.

• 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

  Years, Realization, Vastness

  "About Kazuaki Tanahashi: An Interview with Roshi Joan Halifax". Shambhala Interview, www.shambhala.com.

• 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

  Adventure, Weekend, Ideas

  "About Kazuaki Tanahashi: An Interview with Roshi Joan Halifax". Shambhala Interview, www.shambhala.com.

• We have been teaching together [with Kaz] now for more than twenty years in sesshins, in international travel programs in Japan and China, as well as intensives on Buddhism that focus on the work of Zen Master Dogen and Ryokan, as well as on many of the Mahayana sutras.

  Joan Halifax

  Teaching, Buddhism, Japan

• I met Kaz in the mid 1980s when we invited him and other artists to the Ojai Foundation with Thich Nhat Hanh. I felt an instant connection with him, and since that time we have collaborated on many projects and have become good friends and allies in the work of nonviolence.

  Joan Halifax

  Good Friend, Artist, Foundation

  "About Kazuaki Tanahashi: An Interview with Roshi Joan Halifax". Shambhala Interview, www.shambhala.com.

• Cease consuming, practice generosity.

  Joan Halifax

  Practice, Generosity, Consuming

  Source: zenpeacemakers.org

• Buddhist practice is the grounding for this work, this life, this way.

  Joan Halifax

  Buddhist, Practice, Way

  Source: zenpeacemakers.org

• 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

  Mind, Looks, Libya

  Source: zenpeacemakers.org

• 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

  Kids, Rights, Dying

  Source: zenpeacemakers.org

• 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

  Circles, Names, Forget

  Source: zenpeacemakers.org

• [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

  People, World, Fields

  Source: zenpeacemakers.org

• 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

  Reading, Heart, Compassion

  Source: zenpeacemakers.org