Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care. She received her PhD in medical anthropology and has extensively lectured on the subject of death and dying. Roshi Halifax is the founder, abbot, and head teacher of Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 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 the founder of the Nomads Clinic in Nepal. Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof), Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America, and Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Wisdom in the Presence of Death.