Be Here Now Network

Bestselling author, Yung Pueblo, and reporter, Dan Harris, join Jack to dive into how to love without grasping, Ram Dass's humor at his own predicament, and how to meditate when you are freaking out.

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

"The point of meditation practice isn't to withdraw from the world or become a monastic, but it's the possibility to live and take the activities of our life and bring them alive through loving kindness, compassion, and care for yourself and others. People sometimes think if I'm supposed to serve, I have to take care of everybody else, but the circle of compassion is only complete when it also includes yourself." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack, Yung Pueblo, and Dan Harris dive into:

- Jack and Yung Pueblo's connection to create Wisdom Ventures to bring compassion and right livelihood to business

- How the circle of compassion is only complete when you also include yourself

- Ram Dass' vulnerability, and how having a sense of humor about one's own predicament and being amused at our neurotic humanness is actually what truly liberates us

- Meditation as an act of care and listening which allows intuition and understanding

- The importance of community and why meditating in groups holds a different and usually higher resonance than meditating alone

- Skillful ways to handle conflict and difficult situations

- How to love family, partners, and friends openhandedly rather than with attachment and grasping

"Meditation is not a grim duty, it's meant to be an act of care. And we live in a culture that's forgotten how we can take care of ourself. And one part of that care, even though at first it feels unfamiliar, is just to be quiet for a little bit and listen. Then there are things in us that we know—intuitions and understandings that come for how to navigate our life from what really matters." – Jack Kornfield

This conversation originally aired on the Ten Percent Happier Podcast with Dan Harris. If you enjoy this, Dan Harris has a new series – Non-Negotiables in the New Year – where he interviews celebrities and dharma experts to discuss their time tested, research-backed advice to get you through the new year and beyond. Listen at TenPercent.com

About Yung Pueblo:

Diego Perez is a meditator and #1 New York Times bestselling author who is widely known on Instagram and various social media networks through his pen name, Yung Pueblo. Online he has an audience of over 3 million people. His writing focuses on the power of self-healing, creating healthy relationships, and the wisdom that comes when we truly work on knowing ourselves. Learn more at YungPueblo.com

About Dan Harris:

A skeptical journalist, Dan Harris had a panic attack on live TV that sent him on a journey that led him to try something he otherwise wouldn't have considered: meditation. He went on to write the best-selling book, 10% Happier. The show features interviews with top scientists, celebrities and experts in the field of mindfulness. And Dan's approach is seemingly modest, but secretly radical: happiness is a skill you can train, just like working your bicep in the gym. For more Dan check out podcast, Ten Percent Happier, and visit his website TenPercent.com

In this new Dharma Talk, Jack explores how we can navigate the suffering of the world's conflicts with compassion, understanding, and peace.

This episode is from the Cloud Sangha Community Talk on Dec. 13, 2023. If you would like to join Cloud Sangha to steep in spiritual community, they are offering a 2-week free trial here.

"I think that we are afraid somehow that our own heart is not big enough to hold the tears and suffering of the world." – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh episode, Jack compassionately elucidates:

- How compassion is built into us and is absolutely natural

- Why the only side Jack is choosing is the side of peace

- Ajahn Chah's monastery as a zone of peace during wartime

- Opening our heart big enough to hold it all, connecting with the Mother of the world

- Pausing, living from our best intention, listening with an open heart, and mending what we can

- How when love meets suffering, it transforms into compassion

- Seeing the world through the eyes of compassion, and taking a stand for love

- How hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed

- A powerful guided meditation practice in opening to the heart of compassion

- How not to get swallowed up by the collective suffering

- Turning off the news, stepping out of the war, and becoming a place of peace, compassion, and loving awareness

- Dealing with pain, death, regrets, and "what if's"

- Being vulnerable and opening communication with estranged relations

- Acting beneficially without attachment to the results of our actions

"It's not your job to fix the world or to stop all the wars. It's your job to do your part, to stand for what matters, to speak and act in a way that represents compassion and love for everyone, to plant seeds to mend the places that you can." – Jack Kornfield

"Love, when it meets suffering, changes to a different quality, which is compassion. It's that quivering of the heart when we feel in ourself other's struggles and difficulties. It's the resonance with them, and the natural upwelling of, 'How can I help?' – Jack Kornfield

In this unique exploration of Dharma, Jack shares how we can transform our daily lives by looking into how the Buddha answered questions.

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

"This talk on the way the Buddha answered questions is not to give you another talk on Buddhist history, but to connect us with the ancient timeless endeavor of practice, of awakening, and the ways human beings over many centuries have worked with the development of their understanding." – Jack Kornfield

In this illuminating episode, Jack highlights:

- How the way Buddha answered questions is relevant to living in our modern times

- Buddha's ancient sutras, talks, and Q&As, and how those teachings have touched the world

- Buddha's vision of mind and ability to understand the psyche, how it gets entangled, and how we can become free

- The "one taste" of Dharma and our capacity for inner-freedom

- Illuminating the reality of non-self

- How the teachings of the Dharma turn the mind back to one's own personal experience

- The radical way of seeing the world through a lens that is not, "I, me, mine."

- How to live fully whether we have one life or many lives to live

- Buddha's view of the "world on fire" and how to work with this in our daily lives

- How to work with contradictions along the spiritual path

- Continuity and carrying our practice and presence into the day in an enjoyable way

"The essence of Dharma is how we love moment to moment." – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk from October 1983 at Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.

In Jack's heartfelt final talk at Insight Meditation Society, he explores heart and mind, wholeness and emptiness, and how the only way to be free is to let go of it all.

"When I was first studying Buddhism and meditating, even as it got a lot deeper, it was a clearing of the mind—mind becoming more silent, fewer thoughts, starting to see with a vision of clarity how things really arise, pass, and are truly ownerless. There's a kind of coolness to that vision, just like on a hot summer day when you go into a place and the cool breeze comes, and it cools off at night. That kind of vision of openness, of spaciousness of mind, and the clarity to see, has a sweetness, a sweet kind

In this heartfelt episode, Jack mindfully explores:

- The significance of this session as his last Dharma Talk at Insight Meditation Society before leaving to California to found Spirit Rock Meditation Center

- Jack's connection as a founding teacher of IMS alongside other Be Here Now Network teachers and podcasters, Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein

- How sangha—spiritual community—has a way of naturally calibrating itself and the students/teachers within it

- The sweet coolness and spacious clarity which comes from spiritual practice

- Suzuki Roshi and the wisdom of 0 and 1, emptiness and wholeness

- A moving story of service and renewal from a Ram Dass book

- How the only way to be free is to let go of all of it, absolutely everything

- The question Jack will ask himself when his body is dying: whether I've lived fully and loved well

- What the Buddha said about love

"The only way to be free is to let go of all of it." – Jack Kornfield

"What I imagine I'll ask myself when I die is: whether I've lived fully—but even more than that—whether I've loved very well." – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk from 03/18/1984 at Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.

Describing how perceptions and constructs shape our experiences, Joseph Goldstein teaches on the concept of self.

In this episode, Joseph describes:

The liberating jewel of the Buddha’s teachings

The Self as the fabrication of our minds

The relief of selflessness

Abandoning unwholesome qualities

Using Buddhist psychology to understand how The Self is created

Recognizing, naming, and remembering

Perception in the service of mindfulness

Seeing the frame instead of the picture

How concepts can limit our understanding

Division and the concept of space

Past, present, future, and the concept of time

The constriction within self-image

Projection and self-assessment

Age, culture, race, and other created constructs

When concepts can be useful

“Our perceptions are concepts about what we are experiencing. This overlay on experience very often conditions how we feel about that experience. And, one of the startling things about all this, is that often our perceptions are inaccurate and yet they are conditioning the experience we are having.”– Joseph Goldstein

Illuminating the benefits of taking spiritual retreat, Jack highlights the importance of meeting our practice with great faith, great courage, and great questioning.

Join Jack with Trudy Goodman, Krishna Das, Anne Lamott and more, live online from Maui in the virtual Ram Dass Legacy Retreat: Love and Renewal 11/29 - 12/3! Register at RamDass.org/retreat

"It's not a question of practicing and losing weight, or getting rid of our neurosis or figuring out our mother, father, husband, or wife trip; but it's really to get the bottom of the question of life itself: Who are we? What makes up our experience? And to ask that question, to come to the end of our questioning requires a kind of passion, a kind of urgency, to see, to know." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully illuminates:

- The history and importance of taking spiritual retreat in Eastern traditions

- What it was like for Jack to take spiritual retreat with Burmese Buddhist teacher, Mahasi Sayadaw, and his Thai Buddhist teacher, Ajahn Chah

- Instructions for meditation and how to apply them properly to the retreat experience

- Moving beyond our psychological melodrama so we can gain deeper insight into the processes of mind

- Gurdjieff and using the fire of practice to transform our inner-world into a single whole

- Using our time wisely within the great mystery of this precious human birth

- Meeting our meditation practice with great faith, great courage, and great questioning

- The Diamond Sutra and how to live with a heart of light

"You say that practice is difficult. This is thinking. Practice is not difficult. If you say it's difficult this means you're examining yourself too much—examining your situation, your condition, your opinion—so you say practice is difficult. But if you keep the mind that is before thinking and planning, then practice is not difficult." – Jack Kornfield quoting a Zen Master

This Dharma Talk on 10/07/78 from Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.

In this question-and-answer session, Joseph Goldstein explores skillful means for non-clinging, how to work with the comparing mind, the intricacies of walking meditation, and much more.

This dharma talk, recorded on October 20, 2023, was originally published on Dharma Seed.

“So when I began to hear these different teachings, rather than frame it – ‘Which is true?’ or ‘Which is right?’ – just to take the teachings as skillful means. So then the question is, skillful means for what? And here is where all the traditions of Buddhism are unified, and that is skillful means for non-clinging. That’s the essence of the free mind in all the Buddhist traditions.” – Joseph Goldstein

In this episode of Insight Hour:

Joseph offers a series of tips on walking meditation

He responds to questions about working with the comparing mind and working with the mind that is desperate to fix everything

Joseph talks about how it is possible for a layperson to awaken and why enlightenment is all about lightening up

He explores the importance of not being attached to our beliefs or our disbeliefs and keeping an open mind

Finally, Joseph offers his perspective on how the Dharma has helped him in difficult times and why the Buddhist teachings are all about skillful means for non-clinging

“Because we can be as attached to disbelief as we are to belief. And so with things that we don’t know, I think it’s a much wiser frame to say, ‘I don’t know,’ and just stay open in the not knowing, rather than, ‘It’s not true.’ Because saying, ‘It’s not true,’ implies that you know.” – Joseph Goldstein

Exploring the liberating step of Right Attitude, Jack illuminates how we can break free from our automatic habits by becoming fully conscious of them.

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

"There's a strength of heart that comes when we don't just follow our habit. It's a strengthening of heart that brings a sense of wellbeing or purity. Because we begin to train ourselves that we don't have to follow all our habits and all our desires." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

- Right Attitude/Thought as one of the steps on the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path

- The three aspects of Right Attitude: openness/exploration, renunciation/effort, love/non-harming

- Working with our unique personality in this incarnation

- The importance of adding fire to our spiritual practice

- Breaking free from our automatic habits by bringing conscious awareness to them

- Ram Dass and becoming a "connoisseur or your neurosis"

- Transforming our life from automatic pilot to being fully conscious

- The story of Larry Brilliant helping cure smallpox and what he learned about surrender and interconnectivity

"I think love really manifests when things get difficult. That's when you really know it. That's the fire that melts whatever barriers we ever have in our hearts. And our hearts want to be melted. The pain isn't so bad; it's much better than having it still solid and barricaded." – Jack Kornfield

Join Jack and friends live ONLINE from Maui Nov. 29 - Dec. 3 at the 3rd Annual Ram Dass Legacy Retreat in this 5-day virtual livestream event. Learn more and register at RamDass.org/retreat

Mindfulness teacher Oren Jay Sofer sits with Raghu to discuss keeping our hearts open through difficult times.

In this episode, Raghu Markus and Oren Jay Sofer talk about:

Oren’s path to mindfulness

The influence of Vipassana Meditation

How mindfulness can be a resource to navigate the horrors of global conflict

Expanding the capacity of our hearts

The potential that human beings have to move beyond ourselves

The challenges we are currently faces as a species

Compassion and the route to a better world

Family and the importance of relationships

How the company we keep affects our spiritual practice

The way that individual change can impact society

Ecology and the abuse of earth

Yugas, cosmology, and building a future through our daily choices

Sangha and witnessing another human being’s healing

Stories from experiences with Munindraji

The importance of joy and gratitude

How self-centeredness is being encouraged and exploited by technology

Courage and the willingness to be vulnerable

A brief guided meditation around ease

“Our hearts were made to flourish. We are born with these immense capacities and this beautiful potential to contribute and grow and flower as human beings, if we receive the right nourishment and if we know how to water those seeds.” – Oren Jay Sofer

About Oren Jay Sofer:

Oren teaches mindfulness, meditation and Nonviolent Communication in secular and Buddhist contexts. Oren is also the founder and Guiding Teacher of Next Step Dharma, an innovative online course focused on bringing the tools of meditation to daily life, and co-founder of Mindful Healthcare. He is a CNVC Certified Trainer of Nonviolent Communication, and visiting teacher at the Insight Meditation Society. You can order your copy of Oren Jay Sofer's new book, Your Heart Was Made For This, on his website.

Check our Oren’s recent blog post about allowing the heart to open and close during difficult times.

Connecting the Buddha's wisdom with the teachings of Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda's infamous Yaqui shaman, Jack explores how to become a spiritual warrior.

"There's a mysterious beauty that surrounds those individuals who live their lives as warriors, as men or women of knowledge." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully illuminates:

- How Buddha's factors of enlightenment (qualities of awakening) connect with Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda's infamous teacher and Yaqui shaman and sorcerer

- Don Juan's wisdom of the 'Way of the Warrior' in relation to Buddhism

- The qualities of living as a spiritual warrior: impeccability/wholeness, wise effort/energy, courage/investigation, controlled-folly (play/lightness), strength/concentration, and steadfastness/unshakeableness

- Shamanism and cutting through our sense of separation into the root of consciousness

- Finding inner-freedom by learning how to stop our internal dialogue

"The basic difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary person takes everything as a blessing or a curse." – Carlos Castaneda (Author of The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge)

This talk from 12/31/1983 at Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.