Mind & Life Roshi Joan Halifax - Enactive Compassion [From the Archive]
21 snips
Dec 12, 2025 
In a thought-provoking conversation, Roshi Joan Halifax, a Zen Buddhist teacher and pioneer in end-of-life care, delves into the exciting intersections of science and spirituality. She shares her experiences initiating dialogues between the Dalai Lama and scientists, highlighting compassion as an emergent, context-dependent process. Joan emphasizes the role of embodiment in health care, explores the triple benefits of compassion, and discusses training prosocial qualities. She also reflects on the importance of contemplative practices and indigenous wisdom in addressing climate change and preparing for death.
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Seed Of Mind & Life Dialogues
- Roshi Joan Halifax describes meeting Francisco Varela through the Lindisfarne Association and their shared vision for dialogues with the Dalai Lama.
- She recounts a private audience where His Holiness embraced their interdisciplinary proposal, sparking Mind & Life beginnings.
Mind As Enactive And Contextual
- The enactive (embodied) view sees mind as inseparable from context, emerging through interaction with environment.
- Roshi Joan emphasizes compassion is emergent, non-volitional, and must be primed by upstream conditions.
Cultivate Attentional Balance
- Train attention with both focused concentration and open, panoramic presence to ground responsiveness to suffering.
- Practice attentional balance to include immediate and wider context before attempting to help.
