Join Zen Peacemakers in November for a conversation with Roshi Joan Halifax exploring what she has called “the architecture of goodness.” She will share perspectives on motivation, intention, commitment, atonement, and vows from her upcoming book 'Unfinished Vow,' and how these principles can form the ground of a life oriented toward goodness.
"Human life inevitably includes confusion, contradiction, harm, and error. What matters is whether we are willing to acknowledge when we have lost the thread, take responsibility, make repair where possible, and realign ourselves with what is deepest and truest… and to try, in whatever ways one can, to respond to the suffering of the world."
— Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD.
Roshi Joan is a Buddhist teacher, social activist, anthropologist, author, and Founder and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center. A successor of Bernie Glassman and Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, she is a pioneer in the field of end-of-life care. Her work and practice for more than three decades has focused on socially engaged Buddhism.
Register through the link below to join us online for this Peacemaker Circle which will include Q&A and discussion. All are welcome.
Unfinished Vow:
A Conversation with Roshi Joan Halifax
Peacemakers Circle
Wednesday, November 18th, 2026
12:00pm - 1:30pm EST
Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D. is a Buddhist teacher, Founder and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a social activist, author, and in her early years was an anthropologist at Columbia University (1964-68) and University of Miami School of Medicine (1970-72).
She has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions and medical centers around the world and is the recipient of numerous awards, and honors, including the Pioneer Medal for Outstanding Leadership in Health Care by HealthCare Chaplaincy and an Honorary DSc from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
From 1972-1975, she worked with psychiatrist Stanislav Grof at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center with dying cancer patients. Roshi Joan has continued to work with dying people and their families, and to teach health care professionals and family caregivers the psycho-social, ethical and spiritual aspects of care of the dying. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying, and Founder of the Upaya Prison Project that develops programs on meditation for prisoners. She is also founder of the Nomads Clinic in Nepal.
Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof); The Fruitful Darkness, A Journey Through Buddhist Practice; Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America; Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Wisdom in the Presence of Death; Standing at the Edge:Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet; Sophie Learns to Be Brave; and her latest work, In a Moment, In a Breath. She has been involved with the Mind and Life Institute since its inception and is founder of the Varela International Symposium.
For more about Roshi Joan’s life and work, please visit her website: joanhalifax.org.
Dear ones,
Will this be recorded? I'll be working, and I would really love to hear our dear Roshi Joan