Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield

Exploring the spiritual paradox of individual and universal responsibility, Jack helps us find balance between meditation and service in our daily lives.

This Dharma Talk from 12/7/1992 at Insight Meditation Society was originally published on Dharmaseed.

In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:

• The paradox of individual and universal responsibility
• What's the better spiritual practice—meditation or service?
• What exactly is individual, and what is the universe?
• Joanna Macy's painful yet healing trip to Chernobyl
• Becoming stewards of each other, the earth, and the future
• Distinguishing between freedom and it's near enemies
• Near enemies as fostering separation; freedom as interdependence
• How to respond to suffering authentically and helpfully
• Creating change blossoming from the human heart
• The radical act of "doing nothing and facing yourself"
• Dealing with the homelessness problem, warfare, environmental destruction
• Balancing "Don't just do something, sit there," and "Don't just sit there, there isn't time."
• Choosing between inner practice and outward service
• Following a true path with heart in this lifetime
• Vimala Thakar, Ajahn Chah, and Maha Ghosananda as beacons of peace
• The power of helping feed the hungry
• Navigating the up and down, inner and outer, cycles of spiritual life

"Every act counts. Each one of us has the power to affect the world." – Jack Kornfield

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Fostering the mind-body-heart connection, Jack shares how the healing breath reawakens the body and reconnects us with life.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:

• Using breath to live wisely and simply in this complex human existence
• Good spiritual community as an island of peace and sanity
• Seeing past negative fear politics and news media
• A Charm to Use Against the Language of Politics
• The Buddha on mindfulness of your life breath
• Noting the subtle nuances of the breath in meditation
• "Buddha in the palm of your hand" technique
• Training the restless puppy of the mind
• Using breath to reconnect body, heart, and mind
• Short and simple guided breath practices
• What the Cross and the Circle represent
• Directing your breath to feel and open emotional wounds and dis-ease
• Reawakening your body, and reconnecting with life, through breathing

"Most of the destruction that modern society has caused in the world is the result of the mind being disconnected from the heart and the body." – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk originally taking place on 11/2/1992 at Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Standing up for compassion in this powerful new Dharma Talk, Jack offers a steady spiritual rudder for navigating turbulent politics with the heart of a Bodhisattva.

Learn the Dynamic Art of Interactive Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield in this online masterclass beginning April 7!

“It’s a time to get quiet and remember that you’re here for a beautiful purpose, oh Bodhisattvas. What better thing to do with your life?” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:

• Navigating this world's maelstrom of change from a deep spiritual rudder
• Returning from his trip to Asia; landing in Los Angeles on fire
• Samsara and the nature of uncertainty
• Creating a wise society based on mutual care
• Trading our personal and cultural anxiety for imagination and hope
• Alison Luterman's heart-opening poem, Praise the Broken Promise of America
• Using the Dharma to move past Liberal versus Conservative
• How to help the vulnerable in the world
• Remembering your best values as things change
• Grounding yourself, steadying your heart, and remaining hopeful
• Bringing peace to this world, developing metta, and supporting what's good
• Taking the long view, living with integrity, virtue, and imagination
• Joining together with your community to stand up for compassion
• Being hopeful and helpful through difficult times
• Living like a Bodhisattva—offering support, compassion, loving kindness

“Take the long view—your intention, heart, and mind in all the cycles of birth and death. That deep intention of wisdom creates what’s possible for a wise society. It becomes a rudder through difficult times.” – Jack Kornfield

“When a society treats its members with respect, cares for the weak and vulnerable among them and tends the natural world around… it can be expected to prosper and not decline.” – Mahāparinibbāna Sutta

This Dharma Talk was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Talk and Meditation on 2/10/25.

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“A powerful way of practicing metta is to invite in the feeling of love without specific words or images. You become a beacon of kindness. Then whatever arises as you sit—thoughts, people, images, concerns—will be held in that kindness.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

This week on Heart Wisdom, Jack offers listeners instruction on:

• Metta and invoking the spirit of love within ourselves 
• Holding all that arises during meditation with kindness
• Letting our body have a sense of care and well being 
• Allowing ourselves to soften, relax, and rest easily
• Feeling completely supported by the earth below us 
• Opening our hearts and minds via the metta sutta of loving-kindness
• Suffusing the whole world with unobstructed, sublime love

“The ideal as you practice is to find your own way, to find what most naturally resonates with yourself as a gateway to open the heart.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation Livestream for Feb 2025.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this engaging Q&A session, Jack and Trudy explore romance, impermanence, attachment, diffusing anger, manifesting your dreams using mindfulness, and more!

Learn How to Thrive in Love: Buddhist Secrets to Transform Your Relationships with Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman – join now!

In Part 2 of this episode, Jack and Trudy dive into Q&A on:

• Finding appreciation and wisdom in things “falling apart”
• Accepting change, aging, impermanence
• Entering the naked unknown of the wilderness, nature
• The wisdom of swimming with dolphins in the ocean
• Sending metta (loving kindness) to the world and those in positions of power
• How to tend our romantic relationships and partnerships with mindfulness and care
• Diffusing anger and learning how to communicate lovingly
• Connecting from a place of vulnerability and presence
• Moving past warfare, racism, violence, and blame
• Learning how to communicate across differences
• Noting the difference between your intention and it’s impact on others
• Manifesting your dreams using mindfulness
• “Attachment” in Buddhism vs Western Psychology
• Working through trauma in a safe and mindful way

This talk originally aired on the Voices of Esalen Podcast:

The Voices of Esalen Podcast showcases in-depth interviews with the dynamic teachers and thinkers who are part of Esalen Institute. Hosted by Sam Stern, a former Esalen student and current staff member, the podcasts have featured engaging conversations with authors Cheryl Strayed and Michael Pollan, innovators Stan Grof and Dr. Mark Hyman, teachers Byron Katie, Mark Coleman and Jean Houston, Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy, and many more. Learn more at Esalen.org/story/podcasts

About Trudy Goodman:

Trudy is a Vipassana teacher in the Theravada lineage and the Founding Teacher of InsightLA. For 25 years, in Cambridge, MA, Trudy practiced mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, teenagers, couples and individuals. Trudy conducts retreats, engages in activism work, and teaches workshops worldwide and online. She is also the voice of Trudy the Love Barbarian in the Netflix series, The Midnight Gospel. You can learn more about about Trudy’s flourishing array of wonderful offerings at TrudyGoodman.com

This episode is brought to you by Dharma Moon. Join Buddhist teachers David Nichtern and Professor Robert Thurman for a free online event on Tuesday, March 4th at 6pm ET. Together, they'll explore the power of lineage, tradition, and the evolution of mindfulness practices. They’ll also discuss Dharma Moon’s renowned mindfulness meditation teacher training program. Visit dharmamoon.com/lineage for more info and to reserve your spot for the free online event with David Nichtern and Professor Robert Thurman!

About Jack Kornfield:

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma, studying as a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies.

Jack is currently offering a wonderful array of transformational online courses diving into crucial topics like Mindfulness Meditation Fundamentals, Walking the Eightfold Path, Opening the Heart of Forgiveness, Living Beautifully, Transforming Your Life Through Powerful Stories, and so much more. Sign up for an All Access Pass to explore Jack’s entire course library. If you would like a years worth of online meetups with Jack and fellow community, join The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield

Stay up to date with Jack and his stream of fresh dharma offerings by visiting JackKornfield.com and signing up for his email teachings.

“It’s important to love what we love; it’s only a problem when we need to let go.” – Trudy Goodman

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Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman join forces in an exploration of Buddha’s eternal wisdom: ‘hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed.’

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“We start to sense that who we are is not just limited by the events of the world, but that we’re connected to something vast, mysterious, and greater.” – Jack Kornfield

In Part 1 of this episode, Jack and Trudy mindfully explore:

• Loving Awareness and mindful response
• Seeing the world with the eyes of a Buddha
• Opening to that world with the heart of a Buddha
• How the art of meditation is actually the art of love
• The story of Maha Ghosananda, the Gandhi of Cambodia
• Buddha’s eternal wisdom: Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed
• Facing climate change, racism, warfare, refugees, injustice, and trauma
• Dealing with our cultural anxiety, and saving ourselves from despair
• Becoming the calm person on the boat who can show the way for all
• Becoming a Bodhisattva, setting the compass of your heart for compassion
• Standing up for what matters, and tending the world with beauty
• Shifting our practice from unconsciousness to loving awareness
• Suffusing mindfulness practice with tenderness and compassion
• How we are all the same size when facing the vulnerability of our mortality
• The Heart Sutra mantra: Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha
• Finding wisdom and comfort in “falling apart”

“Spiritually, we are all the same size, because we all are facing the vulnerability of our mortality.” – Trudy Goodman

“In community, in family, in our lives, in joy and sorrow, in birth and death—we’re, given the responsibility to hold ourselves in a web of love.” – Jack Kornfield

Learn How to Thrive in Love: Buddhist Secrets to Transform Your Relationships with Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman beginning Feb 17 – join anytime!

About Trudy Goodman:

Trudy is a Vipassana teacher in the Theravada lineage and the Founding Teacher of InsightLA. For 25 years, in Cambridge, MA, Trudy practiced mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, teenagers, couples and individuals. Trudy conducts retreats, engages in activism work, and teaches workshops worldwide and online. She is also the voice of Trudy the Love Barbarian in the Netflix series, The Midnight Gospel. You can learn more about about Trudy's flourishing array of wonderful offerings at TrudyGoodman.com

This talk originally aired on the Voices of Esalen Podcast:

The Voices of Esalen Podcast showcases in-depth interviews with the dynamic teachers and thinkers who are part of Esalen Institute. Hosted by Sam Stern, a former Esalen student and current staff member, the podcasts have featured engaging conversations with authors Cheryl Strayed and Michael Pollan, innovators Stan Grof and Dr. Mark Hyman, teachers Byron Katie, Mark Coleman and Jean Houston, Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy, and many more. Learn more at Esalen.org/story/podcasts

About Jack Kornfield:

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma, studying as. a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies.

Jack is currently offering a wonderful array of transformational online courses and programs diving into crucial topics like Mindfulness Meditation, Relationships, Walking the Eightfold Path, Opening the Heart of Forgiveness, Living Beautifully, Transforming Your Life Through Powerful Stories, and so much more. Learn about these and Jack's flowing stream of Dharma offerings at JackKornfield.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Love is in the air, as Jack explores the nature of desire, relationships, and spiritual passion—offering wisdom on stabilizing the heart, navigating distractions, and awakening to the timeless and sacred.

Learn How to Thrive in Love: Buddhist Secrets to Transform Your Relationships with Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman beginning Feb 17 – join anytime!

“If you know what it’s like to really fall in love with someone, then you can begin to sense what it means to bring the full presence of attention to your life.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• The Buddha on mindfulness and awareness
• Stabilizing the heart, mind, and body in the present
• Overcoming distractions and difficult moods
• Being aware of desires arising and passing
• Chanda – spiritual passion, the desire for awakening
• The connection between power, insecurity, and fear
• How to stop feeding the hungry heart in unskillful ways
• The difference between desire and love
• Relationship, marriage, and staying in love
• A moving love story from Thich Nhat Hanh
• Reclaiming our humanity and animal nature
• Reawakening mystery, gratitude, awe
• Touching that which is timeless and sacred
• Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of infinite compassion
• Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and living your fullness
• Noticing what tempts you away during meditation

“What direction do our personal desires take us? It’s good to study them. As my teacher Ajahn Chah said, ‘It may be a very fast car, but you ought to look at what road you’re going down and which way it’s headed.'” – Jack Kornfield

“Perhaps what we most deeply desire is immensely simple—to reclaim our humanity, our animal nature that Jung talked about, the wondrous senses, the sense of the spirit of awe, the remembering, the reawakening of that sense of gratitude and mystery for life.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 9/28/1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rekindling the ancient art of listening, Jack shares how we can transform our lives through nourishing inner stillness and simplifying the mind.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“The Divine waits for us to taste the food and not just read the menu.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Reclaiming the ancient Art of Listening
• Meditating like the Buddha in nature
• How your breath reflects your life
• Meditation, attention, and overcoming restlessness
• The ways we keep ourselves busy
• How to trust your human instincts
• Reclaiming an intimacy with your senses
• Noticing when we’re listening and when we’re not
• Honoring others through your attention
• Cultivating the humility of ‘Don’t Know Mind’
• The mystery of life, death, love, consciousness
• Nourishing inner stillness and simplifying your mind
• Letting go into the unfolding present moment
• The rather bizarre situation of having a human body
• Our connection to nature, earth, the elements, and all of being
• Finding the meditative space of no going forward, backward, or standing still

“To meditate is to remember, reclaim, reawaken the ancient art of listening.” – Jack Kornfield

“When the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree on his night of enlightenment, it wasn’t to do, get, or make something, but to listen inwardly with all of his senses to the nature of this world that we are born into for a time.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 9/21/1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this defining talk, Jack shed's light on his adventurous journey to Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah, and how upon returning home, he had to learn to embody a heart of authenticity.

Transform your 2025 with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online program on mindfulness, love, community, and connection. Join in anytime.

“Being with Ajahn Chah was being with a person who rested in their Buddha Nature, their own true nature. He was just himself. He was really at peace with himself. You could feel it from the energy of his presence, rooted like a great tree in the earth.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• His mystical journey to learn with Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah,
• Needing to work his way down the chakras to fully live this human life
• Sudden awakening versus gradual change on the spiritual path
• Ramana Maharshi and liberation through facing one’s own death
• How to live in your soul and dance your unique dance
• What it’s like hanging out with monks covered in wild bees
• Ajahn Chah’s tree-like quality of roundedness, freedom, and openness
• Matching our thoughts and actions with our values
• His first time experience rapture in meditation
• The transformative aspects of therapy, bodywork, marriage, family
• Ram Dass and the healing quality of presence
• Navigating differences in our romantic relationships
• Learning to acknowledge the pain and loss beneath our anger
• Opening to life’s lessons of compassion, wisdom, and wakefulness
• The gift of spiritual community and sharing our authenticity
• Embodying the timeless eternal truth of mindfulness, intimacy, and wakefulness

“To love another person just as they are is the only kind of love that makes any sense.” – Jack Kornfield

“There’s an intimacy and a presence that is true about mindfulness: it’s either now or never.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 9/14/1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jack helps us heal conflicts, release defensiveness, and cultivate the harmony of wise relationships through the art of reconciliation, deep listening, and truth.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“When we read about western civilization, it is in our history books as predominantly a history of conflict—who fought whom, who took over what kingdom, country, or land from someone else and conquered and triumphed. That conflict is still with us in very obvious ways, whether it is in Los Angeles, or Yugoslavia, or Somalia, Ethiopia, or Cambodia. And so, when we look at human civilization with such a long history of conflict, the question comes, can we learn another way to live as humans?” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Buddhist teachings on community, conflict, and living harmoniously
• If modern civilization is actually all that civilized
• Aristotle on humanity’s weapons of wisdom and virtue
• The historical evolution of human consciousness and compassion
• Types of slavery, overt and hidden: physical, economic, political, clandestine
• The spirituality of truly celebrating life in this present moment
• Wise Relationship, living harmoniously, listening in a way that honors everyone
• Creating a ‘wise culture’ built on honesty and integrity
• How to truly apologize, forgive, reconcile, and renew
• Wise mechanisms for diffusing conflict
• How to stop being defensive and start listening
• Reconciling conflicts in monasteries and spiritual communities
• How the ‘art of listening’ begins with the ‘art of letting go’
• Learning to cooperate in courage, fearlessness, and honoring
• Navigating life from our ‘unarmed truth’ and ‘Soul Force’

“To be able to enter into a process of reconciliation in one’s family, community or body-politic, is to be able to learn to let go of our views, our ideas, how it should be, what we want, what we fear—which is underneath all of those things. It’s a shift of our identity from this small sense of self that we carry often with us, to something that’s greater—the common good, the good of the earth, that which is beautiful and noble no matter what happens in the world around us—to some greater identity of our being.” – Jack Kornfield

“We all want that kind of respect—if you give nothing else to your lover, spouse, children, parents or colleagues, but just that quality of listening with respect—there’s this tremendous sweetness that comes, people love you for it. – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 7/27/1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Opening the doorway to transformation, Jack and Dr. Hübl explore spiritual discernment, identity, “central casting,” overcoming nervous system triggers, reframing trauma, and more.

Transform your 2025 with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online program beginning Jan 2025, but join anytime.

The ‘wisdom of insecurity’ is to learn that it’s okay to feel insecure—that it’s part of our human law—and to love anyway.” – Jack Kornfield

In Part 2 of this episode originally airing for Dr. Hübl’s ‘Spiritual Healing Journey Summit,’ Jack and Thomas mindfully explore:

• Spiritual community, idealism, disillusionment, and healing spiritual injury
• Jack’s experience “pressure testing” his teacher Ajahn Chah
• Trading our “blind faith” for “spiritual discernment”
• Living in joy with a free heart amidst it all
• Ram Dass, identity, and “central casting”
• Seeing past our identities/roles to our Divine Nature while still fully honoring them
• Reframing “trauma” with Buddha’s lens of suffering
• Healing the nervous system and it’s triggers
• Expanding our loving kindness to encompass all beings
• Walking through the doorway of transformation and dissolving the cosmos into love
• How to deal with our trauma and learn to live with suffering
• Reaching out and healing the part of the world we can touch
• The Bodhisattva vow as fostering the awakening of the heart
• Opening to the “wisdom of insecurity”

“Spiritual practice is to remember your true divine nature, and also your social security number, your particular role which ‘central casting’ has placed you in at this time.” – Jack Kornfield

"Disillusionment is part of the spiritual path, baby. It is! You have to see with the eyes of the Buddha to see the truth of suffering and greed and hatred, and also see that it's not the end of the story, that that's not who you are." – Jack Kornfield

About Thomas Hübl, PhD:

Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma.

He is the author of Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations, as a coach for CEOs and organizational leaders, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. For more info, books, podcast, and upcoming offerings, please visit thomashuebl.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jack and Thomas explore how ritual serves as a powerful language for opening the heart and living joyfully through life’s challenges.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

"Ritual and symbol become a gateway back to the heart to our deep connection. When we have that in spiritual life, things open up in a different way." – Jack Kornfield

In Part 1 of this episode originally airing for Dr. Hübl’s ‘Spiritual Healing Journey Summit,’ Jack and Thomas mindfully explore:

• How to live joyfully through difficult times
• Finding the wonder of “everyday grace”
• Reducing suffering through spiritual practice
• Western Psychology and Eastern Spirituality
• Interconnection and opening to the great web of being
• Relational mindfulness and communal mindfulness
• Ritual as a language and gateway to the heart
• How to talk with nature and speak for the trees
• The transformation of having true mentors and guides
• Service, activism, and navigating burnout
• Paying attention and listening to each other and nature

"The nuclear waste of what you've been through can burn in some way that it becomes the fuel for energy and light. It gets transformed in the reactor of the heart and you have a power now." – Jack Kornfield

“No amount of nanotechnology, A.I., space technology, or biotechnology is going to save us. Because the source of hatred, war, racism, conflict, exploitation, and climate disruption is in the human heart. That’s where it starts and where it grows from. Therefore, the outer developments which are becoming really remarkable have to be matched by the inner developments of humanity.” – Jack Kornfield

About Thomas Hübl, PhD:

Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma.

He is the author of Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations, as a coach for CEOs and organizational leaders, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. For more info, books, podcast, and upcoming offerings, please visit thomashuebl.com

Transform your 2025 with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online program beginning Jan 2025! Join at bit.ly/Awakening2025

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Shining a lamp in the darkness, Jack offers a heartwarming holiday story, guided meditation, angelic chant, and powerful intention setting ceremony for the New Year and beyond.

Transform your 2025 with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online program beginning Jan 2025!

“May your holidays and the turning of the seasons bring new light, great love, wisdom, and understanding into your life, to all your touch, and across this beautiful blue-green globe.” – Jack Kornfield

In part 2 of this special holiday series, Jack merrily shares:

• A heartwarming Christmas Dharma story to relax the mind
• Learning the true and boundless joy of making others happy
• A powerful “Just Like Me” two-person guided meditation practice
• Transforming the world through seeing the beauty of those around us
• Setting the compass of your heart for our highest good and intention
• Creating your own New Year’s vow, and becoming a lamp in the darkness for those in need
• A special blessing-cord ceremony—an intention setting ritual for the turning of the seasons, the New Year, and the returning of the light
• The angelic, holy, chanting of the of the mantra, “Namoh”

“How do we respond to this world? You sit and you sweep the garden. You have the capacity as a human being incarnating in this life—with your measure of suffering and the beauty you have—to respond in extraordinary ways.” – Jack Kornfield

“I did a blessing cord ceremony 40 years ago together with Lama Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and somebody raised their hand and said to him, ‘What exactly do these protect you from?’ And he said, ‘Why yourself, of course,’ which is a main protection that human beings need.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation Livestream on 12/14/15. Learn more about Spirit Rock’s offerings. Join Jack’s next event.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this cozy holiday special, Jack sheds seasonal tidings on how to rediscover the secret beauty within you and share your special gifts with the world.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“What you most deeply long for is who you are, is coming back to your own heart, to your own beauty, your own wellbeing that you were born with, to that secret beauty.” – Jack Kornfield

In part 1 of this special holiday video series, Jack merrily explores:

• The spiritual meaning of the Winter Solstice, the turning of the seasons, and the holidays
• How Jack’s teacher Ajahn Chah reacted when a Christmas Tree was put up in the Monastery
• Reconnecting with the great mystery of the world and with each other
• How to deal with your family with compassion, equanimity, and peace
• Seeing the secret beauty behind the eyes of everyone you meet
• Moving past the body of fear, the small sense of self
• The paradox of spiritual practice: you’re perfect and there’s room for improvement
• Rediscovering the love and secret beauty within you
• Cultivating dignity, presence, generosity, clarity, integrity, meaning, compassion, trust
• Bringing the mind and body together in the present
• Loving awareness and entering the wisdom stream
• Manifesting love and understanding into this world
• A Hawaiian story on how to bring your special gift
• Ram Dass, Mother Teresa, service, and allowing yourself to be taken care of
• Moving past fear politics and becoming a force of connection and love

“To meditate, more than anything, is an invitation to remember, to quiet ourselves, to touch back in to this truth, this reality beyond the busyness, fears, and confusion we have because we’re human.” – Jack Kornfield

“Meditation and spiritual practice is not meant to be a grim duty, it’s meant to be a rediscovery of the love and secret beauty that’s within you.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation Livestream on 12/14/15. Learn more about Spirit Rock’s offerings at SpiritRock.org. Join Jack’s next livestream at JackKornfield.com/events

Transform your year with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: An Intimate Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online journey! Sign up at bit.ly/Awakening2025

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Exploring how compassionate speech and mindful listening can transform our lives, Jack shares how we can navigate culture’s web of lies by using the energy of Wise Speech to truly awaken.

Transform your 2025 with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: An Intimate Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online course beginning Jan 2025!

“[Wise Speech] is really about compassion—it’s being aware of the power of speech, and using it to express what is conscious and what brings freedom.” – Jack Kornfield

Exploring the third step of the Eightfold Path, Jack mindfully shares on:

• Wise Speech / Right Speech as a factor of awakening
• Compassion, non-harming, and embodying Buddha Nature
• Ram Dass’s “Hopi-Hippie Be-In” and what it means to ‘speak the truth’
• Navigating culture’s and advertising’s web of lies
• Speaking from your deepest truth and knowing
• Buddha and using the energy of speech to awaken
• What it means to truly listen to another human being
• Compassionate communication and listening
• Discerning your intention and motivation when talking to people
• Speaking like a Buddha and treasuring our speech
• The simple pleasure of talking and communication
• Using your words for justice, truth, love, and wisdom
• Letting go of pride and needing to be right
• A “Wise Speech” guided meditation
• Chanting the seed syllable “Ah”

“The key to listening and speaking wisely is the intention—our intention to learn, to discover, to hear something that we haven’t understood.” – Jack Kornfield

“The possibility, if we are to live an awakened life, is to foster that speech that comes from our deeper knowing.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded in 1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Offering decompression from post-election intensity, Jack shares a guided meditation helping us maintain a mindful loving presence amidst it all.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“The seasons turn, elections come and go, whole nations and civilization arise for a time and pass. You are the witness to consciousness, the loving awareness that sees the mystery of arising and passing, and holds it all with love.” – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh episode, Jack leads a guided meditation on:

• Decompressing from the intensity of the election
• Taking your noble seat amidst life’s Eight Worldly Winds and play of opposites
• Feeling a stable and centered presence wherever you are
• Resting in a quiet, open, mindful loving awareness
• Feeling a true sense of loving kindness right here
• Becoming consciousness itself, vast, timeless, spacious
• Witnessing the arising and passing of all, and holding it all in love

“With loving kindness, notice the energy of the mind—the stream of thoughts and plans, ideas, worries, imaginings, analysis, understandings, stories, images—a river of thoughts, feelings, images, and words. You can hold it all in loving kindness and say, ‘Thank you for all that work, I’m okay just now, you can relax.'” – Jack Kornfield

This episode was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation Livestream on 11/11/24. Learn more about Spirit Rock’s offerings at SpiritRock.org. Join Jack’s next livestream at JackKornfield.com/events

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Reflecting on the election, Jack explores how we can most mindfully and lovingly dance with impermanence, suffering, and ‘the great turning’ of the world.

This episode was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation Livestream on 11/11/24. Learn more about Spirit Rock’s offerings here. Join Jack’s next livestream event here.

“It’s not about an election one way or the other, they come and go. There’s such huge other forces happening right now—climate change, artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion energy—huge possibilities and huge problems. As T.S. Elliot says, ‘In my end is my beginning.’ Everything that turns offers a new openness and beginning for something else.” – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Navigating the election and politics in a changing world
• Returning to the basics of Buddhism and living a wise spiritual life
• Quieting the mind, tending the heart, listening to the cries, and seeing with the eyes of wisdom
• What Ajahn Chah’s wisdom for the election results would be
• Opening to change, honoring impermanence, facing suffering
• Annica – the wisdom of uncertainty
• Navigating the “Great Turning” of the world
• Shifting from exploitive and consumer consciousness to one of interdependence and mutual care
• Facing our suffering, warfare, racism, aging, death, loss, and change
• The Zen view of the “dew drop” world
• How annica, dukka, anatta connect with nirvana and unshakeable freedom
• To end the illusion of separation
• Politics as a form of ritualized warfare
• Standing up like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita
• Human history as also containing compassion, courage, and sweetness
• Finding refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
• Living from unconditional love and a freedom from fear
• The transformative power of community
• Our inexorable connection to all the great Saints, Gods, and to the Great Mystery

“You get to choose your spirit. No matter what.” – Jack Kornfield

"We know that we're not separate. You know it especially when you're on the mountaintop looking down after some amazing hike, or listening to a piece of music that transports you beyond the small sense of self. You know it when you make love, or take psychedelics, or have some profound meditation, or dance until you disappear. We all know it." – Jack Kornfield

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Helping us reflect on our daily habits and feelings, Jack shares how Right Attitude, Wise Aspiration, and Mindful Thought allow us to uncover the sweet joy of living in The Way.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“With Wise Attitude we begin to discover the power of kindness, the joy in not grasping, the delight in generosity, the ease in letting go, and the immediacy of freedom and liberation that is here in every moment.” – Jack Kornfield

Exploring the second step of the Eightfold Path, Jack mindfully shares on:

• Right Attitude, Wise Thought, the second step on the Eightfold Path
• Seeing directly the true power of mind and heart
• Overcoming habitual patterns of thought, action, and attitude
• The Buddha on nobility, integrity, and the heart
• Overcoming greed, hatred, and delusion
• Knowing the sweet joy of living in The Way
• Wise Aspiration and the path of the Bodhisattva
• Reflecting on our attitude around death
• Rumi, Stephen Levine, Martin Luther King Jr, Suzuki Roshi, and Alan Watts
• Taking what life gives us as “grist for the mill” of awakening
• Examining spiritual teachings in our own life (what works, what doesn’t?)
• Trading ‘protection and defensiveness’ for ‘openness and curiosity’
• Accepting each moment as an unrepeatable miracle
• Beginner’s Mind and Don’t Know Mind
• Openness, respect, and compassion

“It is knowing what is true that brings ourselves freedom. We don’t get free by making ourselves free.” – Jack Kornfield

“It is only through mercy, through the kindness of compassion, that reconciliation happens, that what’s locked in suffering begins to grow and breathe new life.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded in 1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Intersecting the Buddha’s ‘Wise Understanding’ with Alan Watt’s ‘Wisdom of Insecurity,’ Jack illuminates the path of discovering lasting happiness.

For an even deeper dive down the Eightfold Path, sign up for Walking the Eightfold Path with Jack Kornfield, an online course designed to guide you through the wisdom, compassion, and freedom of Buddha’s teachings. Learn more and sign up here.

“Spiritual life is not about possessing or finding security, but rather it’s discovering what Alan Watts called, ‘the wisdom of insecurity,’ the capacity for freedom and compassion of heart, no matter what the circumstances. Right Understanding is a willingness to dedicate ourself to awakening, no matter how conditions change.” – Jack Kornfield

Exploring the first step of the Eightfold Path, Jack mindfully shares on:

• The Buddha, Enlightenment, the Eightfold Path, and Four Noble Truths
• How to live a wise, mindful, happy, and loving life
• The Middle Path as the pathway to freedom
• Wise Understanding, the first step on the Eightfold Path
• Suffering, it’s causes, and how to alleviate it
• Where happiness actually comes from
• Working with clinging, grasping, aging, aversion, fear
• Impermanence, change, and the wisdom of insecurity
• Spiritual Direction and the journey of the soul
• The seed of awakening your Buddha Nature
• Understanding the Law of Karma
• Finding nirvana through our current circumstances
• Having compassion for what puts us to sleep
• Tending your heart to tend the whole world

“Buddha saw that the cause of happiness and the cause of suffering is not so much in life itself, but in the way that we relate to life.” – Jack Kornfield

“Right understanding tells us that we can dedicate our life to something beautiful.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded in 1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Discover how to shift from trauma to loving awareness through mindfulness, conscious healing, and compassionate activism with Jack Kornfield and Thomas Hübl, PhD.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“Who you are is so much more than your trauma, you are consciousness itself.” – Jack Kornfield

In Part 2 of this episode originally airing for The Collective Trauma Summit in 2021, Jack and Thomas mindfully explore:

• Developing the skills to heal our trauma
• Jack’s time with meditation master, Maha Ghosananda
• The powerful connection between activism and spirituality
• Avoiding burnout, finding balance
• Transforming from skeptical to mystical
• Navigating the traumas in the Middle East
• Digesting our traumas
• Waking up from auto-pilot
• Expanding your window of tolerance
• How to face racism, war, economic disparity, the environment, etc
• Mindfulness, consciousness, and loving awareness

“The whole notion that spiritual practice doesn’t have anything to do with activism is a fiction.” – Jack Kornfield

“Every breath you take is the breath of the starlings and the breath of the earthworms and the soil. We’re all inter-breathing it together. That’s how it works, that’s what life is.” – Jack Kornfield

About Thomas Hübl, PhD:

Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma.

He is the author of Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations, as a coach for CEOs and organizational leaders, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. For more info, books, podcast, and upcoming offerings, please visit thomashuebl.com

Open the Heart of Forgiveness with Jack Kornfield: A Journey of Redemption, Reconciliation and Renewal. Learn more and sign up!

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Jack Kornfield and Thomas Hübl, PhD explore the dimensions of trauma, individual and collective healing, and the transformative power of community.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“Almost every great spiritual tradition knows that we can’t do it alone. Because part of the revelation is that the whole notion of separateness is a constructed fiction—that we are one another’s bond, we are one another’s glory, that we are life itself—and that sense of separation dissolves in mystical ways, in the deepest most profound therapeutic ways.” – Jack Kornfield

In Part 1 of this episode originally airing for The Collective Trauma Summit in 2021, Jack and Thomas mindfully explore:

• The essence of trauma, how it gets locked in our body, and how to finally release it
• The merging point of Eastern Spirituality and Western Psychology
• The way intimate relationships help bring up exactly what we need to work on
• How our trauma work can lead to spiritual healing
• The various dimensions of healing trauma
• Deep and moving stories of alchemizing trauma
• Creating a safe container for our healing and collective healing
• How interdependence in a group naturally leads to healing
• The importance of community (satsang, sangha)
• How Stan Grof’s holotropic breathwork is a psychedelic experience
• Grounding and integrating our our practice into mindful loving awareness
• An ancient Buddhist parable on merging the physical world with the spiritual

Open the Heart of Forgiveness with Jack Kornfield: A Journey of Redemption, Reconciliation and Renewal beginning Oct 21. Learn more and sign up!

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Jack guides us in creating a sacred container for spiritual practice—a space where, like a garden, our inner life can be nurtured, allowing us to transform life’s challenges into paths of awakening and growth.

Open the Heart of Forgiveness with Jack Kornfield: A Journey of Redemption, Reconciliation and Renewal beginning Oct 21. Learn more and sign up!

“Much of our spiritual life, to mature, needs a sacred container for transformation. It needs this container that is greater than our small self—the body of fear and the mind of desire—something that honors a larger spirit, a larger truth.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

Creating a free and protected space, a sacred container for your practice

How the very difficulties in our lives are what actually awakens us

Using our hardships as a crucible for uncovering our own goodness

Rumi’s flavorful and delicious “vegetable fable”

Learning how to stay centered on your cushion

The mirror-like quality of meditation practice

Meeting our practice with commitment, constancy, patience

Honoring the cycles of nature and the universe

Feeling our feelings to heal our grief

Learning the value of staying with things, even through difficulty

Choosing the Dharma over the body of fear and mind of desire

Nurturing the sacred garden within yourself

The power of prayer and feeling blessed

“In a way, sitting is nothing more than looking in the mirror. You sit and face whatever arises.” – Jack Kornfield

“It almost doesn’t matter what we pick, who our partner is, or what we choose to do, as long as it’s reasonably wholesome. What matters is how much we can give to it, of our sincerity, of our earnestness, of our heart.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 8/1/1991 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Guiding us through the ever-changing cycles of life, Jack uncovers the profound truth of our interconnectedness as boundless and unique expressions of the Dharma.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“We see that there isn’t one way to practice or to live, but many cycles, seasons, and expressions of Dharma and truth.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Natural wisdom of the rainforest ecosystem
• Discovering the truth of our inexorable interconnection
• Seeing clearly the reality of change and impermanence
• Interconnectedness within the flowing stream of interbeing
• Spiritual maturity and recognizing the patterns and cycles of life
• The many unique expressions of Dharma, spirituality, and truth in this world
• Wisdom from Buddha, Dipa Ma, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, HH the Dalai Lama, S.N. Goenka, and Tibetan cave-dwelling yogis
• Bringing your compassion to the environment, politics, social action, homelessness, education, etc
• Meditation as a radical act: facing head-on the forces of greed, prejudice, hatred, and delusion
• Finding your unique dharma and way to help the world
• Life and spirituality as a process of death and rebirth over and over again
• Uncovering a deep ‘joy for no reason’
• How the “light and love” in meditation is actually literal
• Untangling the knots of our attachments to live in inner freedom
• A poem dedicated to the struggles in the Middle East
• Discovering your capacity to awaken, and your unique gift

“It’s not about perfection of oneself or the world, but it’s learning to live in a simple way and touch one moment after another with wisdom, understanding, compassion, and presence.” – Jack Kornfield

“Wisdom is a state of our being in our heart. And to live in that way takes humility, a surrender or commitment, a trusting heart, a going into the unknown.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk from 1/3/1991 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

Open the Heart of Forgiveness with Jack Kornfield: A Journey of Redemption, Reconciliation and Renewal beginning Oct 21. Learn more and sign up!

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Speaking to progressing on the spiritual path, Jack explores enlightenment as true intimacy, and shares how: where we’re going is actually here.

“Where we’re going is here, and what we’re after doesn’t exist in time.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Our idealistic/romantic notions of the spiritual path
• Consciousness, impermanence, and working with human emotions
• Wisdom stories of Ajahn Chah, Jack’s accomplished Thai meditation teacher
• Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the legend of building a Spiritual Amusement Park
• Progress and patience along the spiritual path
• Enlightenment as intimacy with all things
• A guided meditation practice reflecting on life, death, and good deeds
• Transforming the the world with one small act of kindness at a time
• Honoring our own beauty and goodness
• How compassion is characterized by true intimacy
• Recognizing and coming to our spiritual maturity
• Living like a Bodhisattva, and what it really means to ‘save all beings’
• Alchemizing extreme suffering, trauma, and grief into compassion, forgiveness, and service

“Enlightenment is to be intimate with what’s here.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk from 1/3/1991 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

For more teachings, full courses, articles, and guided meditations, head to JackKornfield.com or sign up for Jack's email teachings at JackKornfield.com/newsletter

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Jack unfolds the radical wisdom and healing teachings of the great Buddhist sage Atīśa on living this dreamlike life as gesture of love.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“If life is like a dream, make it a beautiful one.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Radical wisdom from the 7 Verses of Atīśa – one of the greatest Buddhist sages
• A moving story about the deep transformative power encased within committing an act of truth
• The nature of timeless awareness and the witness
• Exchanging “spiritual trading cards” with Ram Dass
• Humor, listening, stillness, and spiritual perspective
• Not being swayed by outer circumstance
• Learning what really matters in this life
• Living with an honest and compassionate heart
• Emptiness and considering all phenomenon to be dreams
• Not brooding over the faults of others
• Noticing our inner waterfall of thoughts, feelings, sensations
• Becoming medicine for others and the world
• Looking through the eyes of mercy
• Being grateful to everyone and everything
• Always relying on joyful and peaceful mind and heart
• Don’t expect a standing ovation for your spiritual work or service to the world

“Who you are is what matters most—and who you are is awareness having this amazing life journey.” – Jack Kornfield

“Let your life be a gesture of love.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode was originally recorded on 11/20/23 for the Spirit Rock Monday Night Dharma Talk and Meditation. To join Jack's next livestream, head to JackKornfield.com/events

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In this fresh guided meditation, Jack invites you to rest your mind and heart to uncover the authentic happiness encased within true peace.

This Dharma Talk originally took place for the Spirit Rock Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation on 11/23/2024. To join his next livestream, please check out Jack’s events calendar.

“There is no greater happiness than peace.” – Jack Kornfield

• In this episode, Jack leads a guided meditation on:
• Peace as the highest happiness
• Finding ease, stability, stillness, and presence
• Receiving whatever arises with kindness and compassion
• Inviting thoughts and emotions to quiet
• Resting in mindful loving awareness
• Uncovering a peaceful mind and full heart

“Feel how the earth you are sitting on supports you completely in its steadiness.” – Jack Kornfield

Join senior meditation teachers David Nichtern and Rebecca D’Onofrio for a free online discussion on the path of developing one's own meditation practice and supporting others who wish to explore this transformative path. Register for free today: The Journey of Becoming a Meditation Teacher | Sep. 19th @ 6:00pm ET

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Listening to the song of the present moment, Jack uncovers how to dance with life’s dynamic rhythms along the harmonizing path to inner-freedom.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“The rhythm of your breath is no different than the rhythm of the stars.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• The art of listening to the song of life, birth and death
• Why it can be so tough to actually “Be Here Now” like Ram Dass
• How love connects to the present moment
• Alan Watts, music, dance, and harmonizing to the universe
• Feeling the rhythms of your breath and body
• Learning to dance to life’s dynamic music
• Staying open and avoiding spiritual bypass
• Looking at our body and life clearly and directly
• The power of attention, noting, and spaciousness for diffusing our judgements and emotions
• Buddha’s discovery of the Middle Way, and why he stopped fighting himself
• Dealing with the unfinished business of grief, loss, loneliness, wounds
• How to handle worries or fantasies that keep looping over and over
• Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the tenderness and fearlessness of an Awakened Heart
• Why Buddha focused on humans as ‘five processes,’ rather than personalities
• Letting go of our rigid sense of self and diving into the fluidity of life
• Non-grasping and how even enlightenment is a problem
• Discovering the true path to liberation
• Death, dying, and a reading from the Tibetan Book of the Dead

“To listen is to be awake in the present without moving away from or running away from what’s actually here.” – Jack Kornfield

“The only place to actually love another person, or a tree, or a living creature, or the earth itself, is when we’re here in the present.” – Jack Kornfield

Discover your great joy and love in Jack’s life-changing new online journey – The Awakened Heart: Discovering Great Joy and Love – Dive in here and now at JackKornfield.com

This Dharma talk originally recorded in 1991 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

Join senior meditation teachers David Nichtern and Rebecca D’Onofrio for a free online discussion on the path of developing one's own meditation practice and supporting others who wish to explore this transformative path. Register for free today: The Journey of Becoming a Meditation Teacher | Sep. 19th @ 6:00pm ET

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Revealing how to calm the mind through meditation, Jack shares wisdom on self-acceptance, trust, and healing the unfinished business of the heart.

Discover your great joy and love in Jack’s life-changing new online journey – The Awakened Heart: Discovering Great Joy and Love – Sign up by Sept 9 to take part in two live Q&A’s with Jack.

“Don’t live in the mind, rest in the heart and let the mind come and go as it will. This is discovering your Buddha Nature.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Working with the ‘unfinished business of the heart’ – grief, sorrows, longing, wounds, loss
• Honoring life’s ‘ocean of tears’ with love and kind attention
• Cultivating the courage to allow your heart to be broken
• Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the tender heart of a warrior
• Self-acceptance, allowing yourself to feel, and reawakening a trust in yourself
• Healing the mind by seeing clearly and not taking it so seriously
• Resting the in heart and letting the mind come and go
• Discovering Your Buddha Nature, your fundamental ground of being
• The technique of seeing the world as enlightened, and the path as yours
• The healing encased within understanding emptiness, selflessness, and letting go
• Meditation as a truly courageous act

“The problem with the mind mostly is that we take it seriously.” – Jack Kornfield

“Healing of the mind is when we can hold in our hearts all that arises, and sense a rest and a goodness, a wholeness in us.” – Jack Kornfield

Join senior meditation teachers David Nichtern and Rebecca D’Onofrio for a free online discussion on the path of developing one's own meditation practice and supporting others who wish to explore this transformative path. Register for free today: The Journey of Becoming a Meditation Teacher | Sep. 19th @ 6:00pm ET

This episode recorded in 1991 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Exploring healing through meditation, Jack shares on kundalini, addiction, suffering, and the transformation of having an ‘in body experience.’

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“You have heard of ‘out of the body experiences,’ but what we’re after is something more unusual and important, an ‘in the body experience.'” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully illuminates:

• Finding strength, wakefulness, and compassion amidst it all
• The Coconut Monk and the Jesus-Buddha connection
• Finding compassion and joy despite suffering and war
• Healing—what it is, how it arises, and how we can connect with it
• Listening and respect as the ground for healing
• Finding and living a path with heart
• Mindfulness, breath, attention, noting, and the Buddha
• Meditation and having an ‘in-body experience’
• Kundalini and opening the energy body
• Learning to handle both pleasure and pain
• Buddha and finding the Middle Way
• The healing of reconnecting with our senses and world around us
• What addictions really mean in an addicted society
• Facing our suffering as the gateway to the precious mystery of life
• Reading children’s direct messages to God

“There’s a healing that comes just in reconnecting with the senses and the world around us.” – Jack Kornfield

“As we begin to practice together, we can sense that meditation and spiritual work is to bring a heartfelt awareness to our life, and out of this there comes an awakening or opening, which we call healing.” – Jack Kornfield

Discover your great joy and love in Jack’s life-changing new online journey – The Awakened Heart: Discovering Great Joy and Love – Sign up by Sept 9 to take part in two live Q&A's with Jack.

This episode recorded in late December 1991 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Deeply unveiling the Buddha’s transformative miracle of awakening, Jack provides a comprehensive guide to finding freedom in everyday life.

Discover your great joy and love in Jack's life-changing new online journey beginning Sept 9 – 'The Awakened Heart: Discovering Your Great Joy and Love'

“We’re asked to discover in this dance the possibility of awakening in the midst of our life, to turn what we do into something sacred.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• What happened to the Buddha when he sat under the Bodhi Tree
• What Buddha’s enlightenment means for the world
• Bodh Gaya and the possibility of awakening through nature
• Buddha’s path as a yogi, and how he dealt with his spiritual powers
• Buddha's miracle of awakening and education
• Reflections and questions from the Buddha for how you are living
• Keeping freshness and “beginner’s mind” in your practice
• Parenting, schooling, and the different styles of education
• Finding freedom in the difficulties and direct circumstances of your life
• The real possibility of awakening in the midst of life
• The Ten Paramitas, Buddhism’s Ten Perfections
• What walking meditation is actually about
• Why Thich Nhat Hanh does everything slowly and mindfully
• Patience, listening, and presence
• Spiritual life as the education of awakening
• Listening deeply for the Tao, Dharma, truth

“Spiritual life kindles in us an interest, an attention, a passion to awaken.” – Jack Kornfield

“Meditation is the art of doing what we do and bringing our senses, our heart, our whole being to that.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode recorded on 10/01/1990 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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In this fresh Dharma Talk, Jack reveals how listening from the heart can empower you to transform yourself and the world.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“Difficult times call on our best spirit.” – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Navigating life skillfully through difficult times
• How we can change ourselves and the world through true listening
• The two dimensions of mindfulness: Sati (mindful presence) and Sampajanna (mindful response)
• How deep listening leads to compassionate response
• Using our difficulties as doorways of opportunity to help us awaken
• Reflecting on how we respond to the troubles of the world
• The art of listening and how it brings us into the present moment
• How taking a “sacred pause” leads to more possibilities
• The childlike playfulness and joy between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu
• Jack tells a transformational and moving story of Dr. Yeshi Dhonden, the miraculous Tibetan physician.
• How all the problems and conflicts of the world are symptoms, and the solution is in the human heart
• Activism, service, and helping with an open heart
• Listening deeply to sense the universal truths of reality
• The powerful prayer of Black Elk, the mystical Lakota medicine man
• Listening inwardly, tending the heart, and honing your intuition

“The very difficulties you have are the place that truly awakens the heart.” – Jack Kornfield

“Quiet the mind, take time, tend the heart, listen inwardly, listen to one another, listen to the earth—and you will know what to do.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk originally took place for the Spirit Rock Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation on 4/15/24. To join his next livestream, please check out Jack’s events calendar.

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In this special episode originally airing on television’s Thinking Allowed series, Jeffrey Mishlove interviews Jack Kornfield about meditation, mindfulness, and self-acceptance.

Want fresh Jack teachings delivered to your inbox? Sign up for Jack’s newsletter for weekly free content from JackKornfield.com – guided meditations, Dharma Talks, articles, and more! JackKornfield.com/newsletter

“The purpose of meditation is to make people happy.” – Jack Kornfield

In this special television episode, Jeffrey Mishlove interviews Jack about:

• How western psychology and science fits together with eastern spirituality and meditation
• Whether Jack preferred getting his Ph.D. or his time at the Buddhist monastery
• The three aspects of Buddhist practice: generosity, ethics/virtue, training of heart/mind
• How what we practice, positive or negative, grows in our life
• Spiritual bypass and mediation as an escape
• Vipassana meditation and seeing clearly
• Overcoming the “near enemies” in Buddhism
• Equanimity, balance, centering, and fearlessness
• Meditation in action and engaging mindfully with the world
• Facing our fears and confronting ourselves in meditation practice
• Self-acceptance and learning to care for oneself
• Not being so afraid of what’s painful
• Uncovering the basic mechanics of meditation
• Releasing tensions, unskillful concepts, and our limited sense of self
• Psychic abilities and intuition
• Awareness and moving past our thoughts
• Using meditation to relate deeper to your inner life

“Meditative awareness has a healing quality to it.” – Jeffrey Mishlove

“One of the tenets of Buddhism is that the heart, body, and mind can all be trained. That is, if you practice something, it will gradually grow in your life.” – Jack Kornfield

About Jeffrey Mishlove:

Jeffrey Mishlove, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist, an accomplished radio and television interviewer, and one of the most erudite and articulate personalities on television. Jeffrey holds the only doctoral diploma in parapsychology to be awarded by an accredited American university. Learn more about Dr. Mishlove and his ongoing offerings and interviews at newthinkingallowed.com

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Unraveling the mystery of who you truly are, Jack reveals mindfulness as the gateway to liberation within the ever-changing river of life.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“Mindfulness, in the Buddhist tradition, is said to be the gateway to liberation, the gateway to that which is eternal, to the timeless or the deathless.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Mindfulness as the gateway to liberation
• The Buddha’s Eightfold Path and the Middle Way
• Sacred attention, receptivity, and sensitivity
• The prayer of Mad Bear, a magical Iroquois medicine man
• Overcoming worry in the present moment
• Rumi’s transformational poem, The Guest House
• Awareness of breath, body, mind states, feelings, dharma, and the laws of nature
• Using mindfulness as a vehicle to discover who we really are
• Eternity, time, timelessness, change, and becoming deathless
• What it was like when Thich Nhat Hanh visited Spirit Rock
• Entering the “river of life,” humanity’s collective pains, joys, etc
• Dealing with attachment, aversion, grief, and suffering
• Working spiritually with our dreams
• Stepping out of the bureaucracy of ego, thought, and mind
• The freedom of identifying with “the witness”
• Liberation as both practical and radical

“Reality comes out of nothing, exists according to certain patterns, and then disappears. To know this frees us. To not know it, we are bound. This recognition brings us face to face with the mystery.” – Jack Kornfield

“To become mindful is to become free, to have the capacity to step out of the rat race, the speed, the complexity and be who we are, be true to our hearts. There comes a great balance and ease with that. In any moment, we stop the war, we stop the conflict, we come back to be as the Buddha sits, as the Buddha walks, as the Buddha speaks, where we are, just present and alive.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 3/1/1992 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Exploring how to direct energy in a wise way, Jack shares how embracing Sacred Effort nourishes joy, ease, beauty, equanimity, mindfulness, and loving kindness in your life.

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"Right Effort, or Wise Energy, most fundamentally is the effort to pay attention, the effort to be present, awake, and see what is true in front of us. Out of all the kinds of efforts we can make, the most fundamental wise effort in spiritual life is to be where we are and see it clearly, to be conscious, or mindful." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Directing the energy of your life to be awake, aware, and present
• Seeing the Eightfold Path as a lotus or mandala
• Carlos Castaneda, impeccability, and becoming a spiritual warrior
• How to wake yourself up from sleepwalking through your life
• Having a full heart, deep attention, and clear seeing
• The two levels of spiritual friends and spiritual practice
• Using suffering to develop a wise heart
• Remembering death and impermanence
• What Jack taught his daughter about death
• Bowing to our difficult emotions and moving on
• Disentangling ourselves from greed, fear, and obsession
• Nourishing equanimity, ease, joy, beauty, and loving kindness
• Tending each moment as if you were planting a seed
• Balance and the Buddha stringing the lute
• Ramana Maharshi and the wisdom of letting go
• Making your life and activity an expression of the Tao

"The teaching of Right Effort or Wise Effort is a reminder of our nobility. It is a reminder of the human inspiration of spirit not just to get through our lives, but to honor it, to respect it, to be present for it, to delight in it." – Jack Kornfield

"Unclench the heart, steady yourself, and be present for things as they are, and then your activity becomes an expression of your awakening, it becomes a vehicle for the Tao." – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 3/1/1992 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Revealing how to smoothly navigate the cycles of spiritual life in openness, stillness, and intimacy, Jack explores the transformative beauty of living the Dharma.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“There are different cycles. They are natural for us. We breathe in and out. Our heart opens and closes. Your heart isn’t supposed to stay open all the time, even flowers close at night. So don’t get some idea you’re supposed to be some certain state or some certain way. It’s more about flexibility, listening, and honoring what cycle you are in in your life.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Navigating the cycles of spiritual life
• Spiritual practice as a voyage, a journey
• Openness and the necessity of letting go
• What we can learn from the change of seasons
• Cultivating the courage to live a spiritual life
• Rumi’s poem of the wisdom of the bird in the trap
• The peace of rejecting nothing whatsoever
• How Jack had to work his way down the chakras instead of up
• Embodying and experiencing your feelings
• Stillness, simplicity, intimacy and reconnecting with the earth
• A perspective-shifting Buddhist meditation on death and good deeds
• Overcoming self-judgement and unworthiness
• Non-attachment and commitment in relationships
• A tantric master’s wisdom on overcoming burnout
• The Dalai Lama’s surprising advice to Jack

“When you look back over your life, what really matters is, ‘How well have I loved?’ And that love is never done in generalities. It’s always done in a moment with a tree, or a spider, or a person that you meet, or a person close to you.” – Jack Kornfield

“In some way in life, that’s all that people around us want if you look—people mostly just want to be listened to and acknowledged.” – Jack Kornfield

For free teachings and meditations from Jack delivered to your inbox weekly, along with new courses, upcoming events, and more, sign up for Jack's newsletter at JackKornfield.com/newsletter

This Dharma Talk recorded on 7/14/1990 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Jack Kornfield delves into the simplicity of goodness and virtue in a talk spanning Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Amma-ji, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Napoleon, and Rumi.

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“I believe within us, within the human heart and human consciousness, is an innate love of honesty and a joy in virtue, straightforwardness, and the simplicity of goodness.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Buddhism, virtue, and the Five Precepts
• Ahimsa – the blessing of non-harming
• The chilling note Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote when he escaped Tibet
• Taking a fearless moral inventory
• Honesty and the simplicity of goodness
• What Buddha learned in his past lives
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and standing up for truth
• Adi-Sila – spontaneous or innate virtue, the shining of the just heart
• The Tibetan Buddhist perspective on reincarnation
• Jack’s meeting with “hugging saint,” Amma-ji, archetype of the Divine Mother
• Finding your Buddha Nature, Tao, and Dharma
• Rumi’s brilliant poem about ducks
• Interdependence and connectedness
• Deep philosophical questions and contemplations from Jack
• Napoleon, the sword, and the spirit

“Meditation or spiritual life asks us to look at our actions and pay attention to how we actually live.” – Jack Kornfield

“We’re all in it together, we’re all connected, we all support one another.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 6/1/1990 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Teaching a nature retreat amidst softly chirping birds and cooling rain, Jack, Pema Chödrön, and Ajahn Sumedho illuminate joyful insights of monastic life.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

"Mostly what draws people to monastic life in the healthiest and best sense is its joy." – Jack Kornfield

In this special outdoor retreat, Jack, Pema Chödrön, and Ajahn Sumedho explore:

• Chanting the powerful seed syllable mantra, "Ah"
• Joys and misconceptions of monastic life in modern times
• Why someone would take vows and become a monk or nu
• Kabir's poetry, being human, and walking the spiritual path
• Sexuality and celibacy in spiritual communities
• Relating to both ultimate and relative reality
• Dealing with the body in physically taxing situations
• Working with injustice, inequality, and hierarchy within monasteries and spiritual institutions
• The nature of change and how our present creates our future
• Open-heartedness and open-mindedness
• Living the Dharma every second of our existence
• Letting our issues be our teachers
• A surprise Q&A appearance from Heart Wisdom family, Brother David Steindl-Rast, along with Ajahn Sundara, and Sister Columba

"Quite clearly the future is the result of how we work with our minds now. To the degree that we open our hearts and minds to the present moment, that creates our future." – Pema Chödrön

"I like to reflect that the Buddha only taught two things: suffering and the end of suffering." – Ajahn Sumedho

About Pema Chödrön:

Pema Chödrön is a Buddhist teacher in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa. She served as the director of Karma Dzong, in Boulder, until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche asked her to work towards the establishment of a monastery for western monks and nuns. Check out her new book, How We Live Is How We Die, and learn more at PemaChodronFoundation.org

About Ajahn Sumedho:

Ajahn Sumedho is a prominent teacher in the Thai Forest Tradition of Theravāda Buddhism. He was ordained in 1967, trained under Ajahn Chah, and has been instrumental in helping bring Buddha's teachings to the West. Learn more about Ajahn Sumedho in Teachings of a Buddhist Monk, including a forward by Jack.

This Dharma Talk recorded on 5/26/1990 on the land which would become Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Jack and trauma expert, Peter A Levine, PhD, map the path to healing through imagination, curiosity, somatic experiencing, and loving awareness.

Want fresh Jack teachings delivered to your inbox? Join Jack's newsletter for weekly free content from JackKornfield.com – guided meditations, Dharma Talks, articles, and more! Sign up at JackKornfield.com/newsletter

“Healing has to be coming together through the minute particulars in the body and in the story that’s actually our experience and not some idea about it.” – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh conversation, Jack and Dr. Levine dive into:

• Mapping trauma and the path to healing suffering
• A relaxing Jack “Just Here: Guided Meditation” on loving awareness
• How An Autobiography of Trauma led to Peter’s powerful healing journey
• Working with the astrological and Jungian archetype of Chiron, the Wounded Healer
• Somatic Experiencing and the roots of healing trauma in the body
• The transformative aspects of meeting trauma with loving kindness and persistence
• Curiosity as a necessary factor of enlightenment
• How the gift of Jack’s childhood trauma led him to discover Buddhism
• Imagination and Peter’s mystical meet-ups with Albert Einstein
• Miracles, intuition, and psychic premonition/knowing
• What Jack shared with his scientific-materialist atheist father on his deathbed
• Our inseparable connection and recognition that it’s always “us” in this web of life

“The whole notion that we are separate is a fabrication. We are in a field of consciousness.” – Jack Kornfield

About Peter A Levine, PhD:

Dr. Peter A. Levine has worked in the field of stress and trauma for over 40 years, is the developer of the Somatic Experiencing method, and founder of the Ergos Institute of Somatic Education. To connect more with Peter’s teachings, pick up a copy of his illuminating book, An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, and sign up for his upcoming classes and programs at SomaticExperiencing.com

This conversation was originally filmed on 5/24/24 by the Ergos Institute of Somatic Experiencing as a community health somatic support benefit for MathMoms in Cape Town, South Africa. Learn more about this compassionate initiative here at mathmoms.co.za

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Harmonizing to the 'music of the spheres' & sharing gardening tips from Buddha, a blissful Jack unveils the possibility of sudden awakening.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

"You don't want to wait until you float out of your body when you die and look back and say, 'Wow, that was an amazing incarnation, wasn't it?' You actually want to have it now." – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh video episode, Jack blissfully illuminates:

• The wisdom of the Music of the Spheres
• Energies of the 2024 Solar Eclipse
• Alan Watts on why 'life is like music'
• The enlightening present moment
• Harmonizing life's opposites like the Tao
• Dancing with life's changing rhythms
• To be married to amazement and mystery
• The beautiful revelation of sudden awakening
• Being at the still point of the turning world
• Sudden realization, gradual practice, and Zen
• Releasing from the body of fear
• Buddha's gardening wisdom
• The fruits of inner well-being

"That's what meditation does, it makes space. We step out of the thrall of our plans, thoughts, reactions, how it should be, what's happened, and what should happen; and out of the fears and the confusion, sadness, excitement, and all those things; and we become the space of loving awareness that says, 'Yes.' It's an act of love." – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk originally took place 3/25/24 for Spirit Rock Meditation Center's Monday Night Dharma Talk and Meditation. Sign up for Jack's next one at JackKornfield.com/events

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Revealing how to disentangle your illusions and let go of old identities, Jack paves the way to the mystical present moment.

Join Jack online Sat June 22 for The Awakened Heart: Mindfulness and Compassion Practices for Living a Wise and Free Life – a special live daylong retreat exploring lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and peace. Register here.

“Part of the joy of selflessness is that as we become selfless much greater forces of what life is move through us.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Disentangling your illusions
• Opening to the paradox of self and no-self
• The yogic practice of asking, “Who am I?”
• This mystical present moment
• How the entire universe is inside your mind
• Experiencing selflessness
• Why you can’t just ‘no-self’ it away
• Moving past your inner-critic, shame, and unworthiness
• Listening to, accepting, and loving the shadow
• The strength of being grounded on Earth
• Working with meaninglessness
• Letting go of old identities
• Love as the work of a lifetime

“You can’t just ‘no-self’ it away.” – Jack Kornfield

“All that you need to do is to keep coming back to the present and what needs to open in you will. You can really trust that.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk estimated to be recorded on 4/23/1990 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Exploring life as a flowing, dynamic process, Jack shares the jewel of Buddha's awakening by unraveling the paradox of self and no-self.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

"Each of those sets of words, 'self,' and 'no-self,' are concepts or ideas or words that we use in a very crude approximation of pointing to some mystery of this process of life that's neither self nor no-self." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully illuminates:

• Unraveling the paradox of self and no-self
• The Jewel of the Buddha's Awakening
• Anattā (selflessness) and how it connects with respect
• Tales of a Magic Monastery
• Living in the reality of expansion and contraction
• Why Ajahn Chah shared 'self' and 'no self' both aren't true
• The word "happy/sad" in Japanese
• Opening to our life as a flowing, moving process
• Becoming aware of selflessness
• Interdependence, interconnection, codependent arising
• Learning to respect ourself and nourish beneficial qualities
• Developing yourself while also "losing yourself"
• Discovering your True Self
• The importance of integrating our spiritual practice into our lives
• Learning to live in your body and love well

"To be really present is to connect with the mystery." – Jack Kornfield

"You develop yourself as you lose yourself." – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk estimated to be recorded on 4/23/1990 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

Learn the Dynamic Art of Interactive Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield in an online masterclass! To take part in the two live online Q&A sessions, register by June 9 at bit.ly/InteractiveCohort

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Sharing the blueprint for how to unlock true abundance, Jack reveals the secrets of letting go of greed, embracing generosity, and appreciating simplicity in life.

Learn the Dynamic Art of Interactive Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield in an online masterclass cohort this June! Join the journey.

"Abundance isn't about how much you have, but how much you appreciate. – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• How to let go of our greed and live in true abundance
• The Buddhist notion of "dana" – generosity, service, open-hearted caring
• Greed as a strategy of impoverishment, rejection, and incompleteness
• Transforming our 'endless wanting' into a beneficial awakened dance with the world
• Expressing the Tao, the harmony of the universe, through our being
• The Dharmic alchemy of the Bodhisattva
• Meditation, listening, and finding out what we truly want in this life
• Where Suzuki Roshi meets Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
• How abundance of the spirit connects with simplicity rather than things
• A personal story of Jack taking his unique Bodhisattva Vows in the Rocky Mountains while teaching at Chögyam Trungpa's Naropa University
• Taking your strong, grounded, noble seat that can handle it all
• How being there for others is abundance in their life
• The generosity and delight of authentically giving – things, space, silence, listening, attention, commitment, honesty, smiles, blessings
• Ram Dass and Maharajji's lesson of "feed people, love people."
• Is "selfless service" actually selfless?

"Abundance of the spirit doesn't mean things; it means discovering a kind of simplicity of our life where we're abundant in any circumstance." – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk estimated to be recorded on 3/1/1990 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Unveiling how to grow your heart as big as the sky, Jack shares the spiritual antidote for aversion, negativity, and fear.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

"Let your heart be as big as your whole experience, like the sky." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Overcoming aversion by "bringing it into your heart" rather than your rational mind
• Touching into emotions, fears, and judgements with compassion instead of aversion
• Using techniques like "noting/naming" for moving past intense feelings
• Loving your negatives states as you would love your own child
• Seeing clearly the karma, value, and consequence of your personal patterns
• Who would you be if you dropped your opinions, views, identity?
• Growing your heart to the size of the sky
• Practicing the 'art of letting go'
• Learning to live in the reality 'the Now'
• Why Buddha had a better time than most
• Painting as a doorway to spiritual experience
• Transmuting difficulties by dropping our resistance to them
• How to hold healthy views without being attached to them

"In this space of Now, it's not necessary to have fear. In this place of Now, we can rest." – Jack Kornfield

"If we want to create peace, or if we want to live free from greed, hatred and delusion, the place to start is in ourselves." – Jack Kornfield

Learn the Dynamic Art of Interactive Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield in an online masterclass cohort starting this June.

This Dharma Talk originally recorded on 1/1/1989 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Illustrating how to free yourself from fear and opinion, Jack reveals how to overcome suffering by cultivating a pure heart.

This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

"The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there." – Robert M. Pirsig

In this episode, Jack skillfully illuminates:

• Skillful ways to free yourself from stuck views and opinions
• Ram Dass's teaching advice to Jack
• Balancing life's sufferings with life's joys
• Zen wisdom on how to drop your views
• Accepting what you see and rejecting what you think
• Overcoming suffering by living with a pure heart
• Buddha's 'Fire Sermon' teachings
• The way attachment connects to fear, and how to get to the root
• How views and opinions keep you separate, ego-focused, and defensive
• Working with racism and fear by imbibing wakefulness and mindfulness
• Overcoming opinions and and views by the method of noting/naming

This Dharma Talk originally recorded on 1/1/1989 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

Learn the Dynamic Art of Interactive Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield in an online masterclass cohort starting this June!

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Uncovering how to find joy and freedom in any situation, Jack shares the roadmap for discovering peace within yourself.

Learn the Dynamic Art of Interactive Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield in this online masterclass cohort starting this June! Learn more and register at bit.ly/InteractiveCohort

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“Peace is the cessation of your struggle, it’s putting down the burden and letting things be as they actually are.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Learning to be at peace with yourself and the world
• How to meditate when it feels like you can’t meditate
• The way emptiness connects with compassion
• Reconciling where peace meets struggle
• Peace as an internal state you can bring with you
• Being Here Now, opening to life fully, and becoming intimate with all things
• How we can find joy, liberation, and freedom in any situation
• Dharma stories of the Buddha as well as the Bodhisattva Vimalakīrti
• Coming to terms with the First Noble Truth of suffering, disappointment, and change
• The transformative power of meeting life exactly as it is
• What we can learn from both a “Duck Meditation,” “Goose Poem,” and a Tibetan Prayer
• Love and it’s connection with courage

“We can’t come to rest because we’re at war with what’s actually here.” – Jack Kornfield

“To enter into the unknown is really to enter into the moment.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk originally recorded on 12/01/1989 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Jack and the ‘Grandfather of Gratitude,’ Brother David Steindl-Rast, delve into sacred reflections on death, where Buddha meets Jesus, the power of compassion, the positive side of grief, and beyond.

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“The process of grieving that breaks this little heart, which closes itself in itself, opens us to the heart that we all share, the one heart that we all have in common.” – Brother David Steindl-Rast

In this sacred dialogue, Jack, Brother David, and Frank Ostaseski reflect on:

• How Christianity and Buddhism fit together spiritually
• The compassionate smile of Buddha meeting the sacred heart of Jesus Christ
• The positive side of grief: opening to the collective heart
• Death and grace in both traditions
• Deconditioning from a difficult mother
• Harnessing the power of your common sense
• A funny story about the Pope, and how to awaken to who we already are
• Jack’s journey to the Temple of the Coconut Monk
• How to handle pain like a Burmese Master
• How to forgive yourself and overcome remorse
• Diffusing suicidal tendencies by cultivating self-compassion
• Guided meditations and sacred chants from Jack and Brother David

“In a meditative way, one of the big pieces of being able to love, or touch, or open, or live, is really the work of forgiveness, grace, and receiving yourself in all of your complexity and loving.” – Jack Kornfield

“Compassion, loving kindness, and understanding are our true nature, our true state.” – Jack Kornfield

This conversation recorded on 6/30/1988 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Fantastic Fungi's visionary director, Louie Schwartzberg, joins Jack to explore the profound connection between psychedelics and mindfulness. 

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/heartwisdom and get on your way to being your best self.

“You can’t separate psychedelics from life.” – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh conversation, Jack and Louie spelunk the depths of:

• The connection between psychedelics and spirituality
• Psychedelics as a gateway to wonder, curiosity, and the sacred
• How tripping on psychedelics informed Louie’s filmmaking
• Albert Einstein and psychedelics as the intersection between art and science
• The universe and life as a constant transformation of light energy
• Buddha’s “Flower Sermon” and Zen Master Suzuki Roshi’s “Beginner’s Mind”
• Jack “exchanging maps” with famous LSD researcher, Stanislav Grof
• Studies showing the combination of psilocybin mushrooms and Louie’s time-lapse nature imagery as a powerful therapeutic tool for helping addiction and PTSD
• The importance of “set and setting,” community, and integration
• How psychedelics actually fit into the Buddhist precepts
• Honoring biology and the feminine aspects of nature
• The gifts of sacred attention and loving awareness
• Finding beauty wherever you are, and how Louie’s films heal by sharing patterns of nature for the soul to connect with

This conversation was originally recorded on 3/29/24 by Banyan Together – an online mindfulness community started by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. To join the community and learn more, visit BanyanTogether.com

“A lot of the work I do is to make the invisible visible. And that’s the perfect description of what a psychedelic journey is like, making the invisible visible.” – Louie Schwartzberg

“We live in a culture that’s almost defined by the absence of the sacred. And so we feel this yearning, this intuitive wish to connect—whether it’s going high in the mountains, or making love, or taking psychedelics, or meditating.” – Jack Kornfield

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Inviting in calm, strength, and steadiness, Jack leads a guided meditation into the heart of mindful loving awareness.

This guided meditation was originally recorded on 2/19/2024 for the Spirit Rock Monday Night Dharma Talk and Meditation. Register to join Jack's next livestream at JackKornfield.com/events

"Feel the weight of your body, gravity, and how the earth completely supports you when you let go into your seat. You're met by the strength and steadiness of the earth itself. You can rest on her. – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh episode, Jack leads a guided meditation for:

• Inviting in a sense of ease and calm
• Relaxing into mindful loving awareness
• Finding a steady, grounded, rooted posture
• Keeping a natural, soft, and flowing breath
• Quieting the mind and watching experience unfold
• Noticing the arising and passing away of all phenomena
• Allowing yourself into rest, trust, and relaxation

Learn to live beautifully with Jack Kornfield and Dr. Dan Siegel in their new online journey, Living Beautifully: Transformative Science and Mindfulness Practices to Cultivate a Wise Heart

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Exploring the great mystery of life and existence, Jack shares enlightening insights on the playful nature of wisdom.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to recieve 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/heartwisdom

"The beautiful thing is, wisdom is gracious." – Jack Kornfield

Fresh from an adventure in Costa Rica, Jack offers wisdom on:

• Spelunking the great mystery of life
• Wisdom as inherently gracious and playful
• Balancing compassion with emptiness
• How to speak with suffering people
• Joanna Macy and the "Great Turning" of human civilization
• Ram Dass, Ajahn Chah, and Stephen Levine
• "Central Casting" and the human experience
• How Jack and his colleagues handle their own aging

"It's all empty and it all matters." – Jack Kornfield

"Meditation is not about gaining or attaining something, it's about seeing the world with the heart of wisdom." – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk was originally recorded on 2/19/2024 for the Spirit Rock Monday Night Dharma Talk and Meditation. Register to join Jack's next livestream at JackKornfield.com/events

Learn to live beautifully with Jack Kornfield and Dr. Dan Siegel in their new online journey starting April 15, Living Beautifully: Transformative Science and Mindfulness Practices to Cultivate a Wise Heart

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Offering compassion for our human flaws, Jack relays how to stop being so loyal to our suffering, and helps uncover the heart of the Buddha living within each of us.

Learn to live beautifully with Jack Kornfield and Dr. Dan Siegel in their new online journey, Living Beautifully: Transformative Science and Mindfulness Practice to Cultivate a Wise Heart

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Living the Divine Abodes to uncover the heart of the Buddha within yourself
• How to live in loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity/peace
• Ram Dass, the Chicken and Rice Man, and selfless service
• How the circle of compassion is not complete until it includes self-compassion
• Viktor Frankl and the boundless freedom of the human spirit
• David Roche and The Church of 80% Sincerity
• Moving beyond looks and into the reality of unconditional love
• Turning off the news and doing something enjoyable
• How to stop being so loyal to your suffering

This Dharma Talk from 12/10/2007 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

“You can search the tenfold universe as the Buddha and not find a single person more worthy of love and care than the one seated right here in your own body.” – Jack Kornfield

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