Awareness In Action: Solidarity with Joan Halifax (Part 6 – May)

In this powerful talk from the Awakened Action series, Roshi Joan Halifax explores how solidarity can transform our shared and interwoven world during these critical times. After a warm introduction, Roshi begins, “From a Buddhist point of view, solidarity is expressed through mutual support, through shared responsibility… we emphasize the experience of interconnectedness, of cause and effect, and how important it is to actively address suffering and work toward not just our personal wellbeing, but literally collective wellbeing.” Roshi continues, intertwining and referencing a wide range of writers, thinkers, and activists such as Joanna Macy, Bill McKibben, Rebecca Solnit, Grace Lee Boggs, Monica Roa, Terry Tempest Williams, Mahatma Gandhi, and more – who all point us towards the path of interconnection and embodied action. “The narrative of individualism both told and lived has paved the way for the rise of authoritarianism by fragmenting our societies and eroding the communal ties that sustain us.” Roshi goes on, “Our attention has been colonized by the corporate world. And in it, we take ourselves out of the spaces for collective living and knowing.” “It is the delusion that the self is so separate and fragile, that we must delineate and defend its boundaries, that it is so small and so needy that we must endlessly acquire and endlessly consume.” We are both reminded and inspired to jump fully into the tangle, to embody our commitment to collective responsibility and leverage our wisdom and compassion for the sake of all beings, as Roshi puts it, “When we look deeply, we can see that the history of social movements and of enduring social change is not the work of a single individual, but of communities living the narrative of connection, of inter being, of ethical, courageous, and caring solidarity, interconnected communities dedicated to the wellbeing of all.” To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here.