Standing at the Edge

Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet

By: Joan Halifax

Narrated by: Joan Halifax

"In Standing at the Edge, Joan Halifax weaves together scientific research and her own powerful personal experiences as a social activist and humanitarian to show how we can transform our biggest challenges with compassion and wisdom. Standing at the Edge is essential reading for our time." — Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global

Standing at the Edge is an evocative examination of how we can respond to suffering, live our fullest lives, and remain open to the full spectrum of our human experience.

Joan Halifax has enriched thousands of lives around the world through her work as a humanitarian, a social activist, an anthropologist, and as a Buddhist teacher. Over many decades, she has also collaborated with neuroscientists, clinicians, and psychologists to understand how contemplative practice can be a vehicle for social transformation. Through her unusual background, she developed an understanding of how our greatest challenges can become the most valuable source of our wisdom—and how we can transform our experience of suffering into the power of compassion for the benefit of others.

In this audiobook, Halifax identifies five psychological territories she calls Edge States—altruism, empathy, integrity, respect, and engagement—that epitomize strength of character. Yet each of these states can also be the cause of personal and social suffering. In this way, these five psychological experiences form edges, and it is only when we stand at these edges that we become open to the full range of our human experience and discover who we really are.

Recounting the experiences of caregivers, activists, humanitarians, politicians, parents, and teachers, incorporating the wisdom of Zen traditions and mindfulness practices, and rooted in Halifax’s groundbreaking research on compassion, Standing at the Edge is destined to become a contemporary classic.

A powerful guide on how to find the freedom we seek for others and ourselves, this is an audiobook that will serve us all.

Praise for Standing at the Edge:

"...narrator Joan Halifax's meditative voice takes us by the ear and reorients us toward serenity...Her slow and steady pace allows listeners to keep up with the considerable wisdom she is passing along. This title will likely leave listeners feeling serene." - AudioFile Magazine

"Halifax offers an invitation to hold these states not only in our minds, but in our hearts." — Psychology Today

Critic reviews

“Halifax’s medium is psyches, communities, and social systems. Through her many activities—teaching, bridging cultures…drawing people to social activism and a contemplative life—she can be imagined as a weaver or a sculptor, conjuring new forms out of her raw material: people and groups. To intervene in individuals’ lives takes confidence, which she has in abundance.”
—Rebecca Solnit, The New Yorker

"To help listeners cope with today's fast-paced, noisy world, narrator Joan Halifax's meditative voice takes us by the ear and reorients us toward serenity." -AudioFile

Absolutely healing!

This book goes through so many stories and examples showing us things that we do not normally see in each other or in life.

Profoundly moving and inspiring.

Listening to this book was time well spent. I’m eternally grateful for books like this one. Namaste.

Compassion

Stunning, gentle, and revelatory. For those seeking to serve with open minds and open hearts.

Profoundly moving book

I found Roshi Joan Halifax’s exploration of the edge states profoundly meaningful and useful. She doesn’t just explore what it means to be empathic and compassionate, she gives practical instruction on how to act with compassion to serve others. The stories she tells are moving and eye opening and her reading of her book is exceptional. I feel such gratitude for this book and for her wise teachings.

This book is a refuge!

I want to offer my heartfelt gratitude for Joan and the tribe of folk who helped her write this book! I found it after beginning a new public service job. Within a few short weeks, I was suffering with deep empathic distress and a sense of groundlessness as my old cosmology and unconscious attachment to consensus reality crumbled.

This book is a gift and a guiding text of how to navigate edge states while accessing more compassion for self and others.

Written by a beautiful human who has stood at the edge and looked into the abyss of suffering, Joan gently articulates but doesn't shy away from the experiences of what it's like to witness extreme suffering. She compassionately describes her growth edges along with moments of success, creating a bridge for all of us to deepen our own awareness and relationship with compassion- no matter where we may be in our practice.

Thank you, Joan and for all that blessed you with help and guidance to release this much needed text