Sharing deep spiritual secrets of love and attachment, Jack transforms our unhealthy attachments into Wise Relationships through vulnerability, inner joy, and shared humanity.

Today’s podcast 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 secret is, the opposite of attachment is not detachment, but love. Because true love does not seek to possess or control, it doesn’t separate or fear what is there. True love is the ability to be present without grasping. From this place, love offers its blessings.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Transforming unhealthy clingings into Wise Attachment
• Not getting stuck in our ideas and views 
• The global price of collective addiction and attachment
• Moving past our attachment to our sense of separateness
• The big spiritual question—who are we really?
• His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and keeping a healthy curiosity around death
• Lowering our defenses and helping others lower their defenses around us
• Parenting with trust and connection rather than clinging and control
• The good side of attachment—connection, well-being, mirroring
• Transforming low-self-esteem and the body of fear into self-confidence and openness
• Using spiritual practice to open to a love that includes our full humanity
• Finding the true possibilities that the spiritual path offers
• Resting in our being—how not to seek and chase, and how not to run away and hide
• Touching our incompleteness, our brokenness, with compassion
• Expanding our heart and connecting with our shared humanity
• Uncovering within us our inner knowing, The One Who Knows
• How to be true to yourself, and make a light of yourself
• Meditation as an invitation into vulnerability
• Moving from unhealthy attachment into Wise Relationship
• How Being Here Now, our capacity to be present, transforms our life
• Nirvana as the absence of struggle with the world as it as

Please help support Jack's daughter Caroline's Oasis Legal Services in their mission to help persecuted LGBTQ+ Asylum Seekers gain citizenship and safety in the U.S.

“We want to be loved, we want to be held, and it’s so hard to be vulnerable. Meditation is an invitation to that vulnerability, the rawness and openness of the heart. Not because it’s good for us, but because it moves us back to the truth that we are held. If we can sit and open, we’ll discover that this universe that has given birth to us really does hold us.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode recorded on 03/08/1993 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed. 

“Nirvana, which is the absence of suffering, doesn’t mean that the world goes away. Nirvana is the absence of struggle with the world as it is.” – Jack Kornfield

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 year's 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.

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

Exploring the ancient Zen teaching of the Great Way, Jack guides us toward freedom from attachment, clarity beyond preferences, and the liberating joy of letting go.

“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When attachment and hatred are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction; however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinion for or against anything.” – Third Zen Ancestor

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Finding freedom from attachment by learning to let go
• Can we meditate society’s problems away?
• What does it mean to seek wisdom, compassion, freedom?
• The Third Patriarch of Zen
• Finding the Great Way and seeing the truth
• Moving past our opinions and preferences
• How our desires blind us and manufacture our reality
• Suffering, impermanence, grasping, and not relying on reality
• The path to liberation from our grasping and fears
• The joy of letting go of our attachments and relaxing into what is
• Training ourselves to have an obedient mind of the Buddha
• Is there appropriate or wise attachment?
• Clarifying the full spectrum of attachment
• How to get out addiction and the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts
• Dealing with attachment to our isolation, our separateness
• Commitment as a healthy devoted attachment  
• Seeking a Wise Relationship to ourselves, others, and the world
• The slippery slope of pleasure, into desire, into habit, into need
• Wise attachment vs unwise attachment
• The full spectrum of attachment and love

“Go where you wish—cave, monastery, India, Tibet, do what you like—your mind goes with you, that’s the problem.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode recorded on 03/08/1993 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed. 

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 year's worth of online meetups with Jack and fellow community members, 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.

“Often we think attachment is only to other people and things, but often what we are attached to is our own isolation, our own separateness.” – Jack Kornfield

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

Jack and Ocean continue their deep conversation, exploring how to create positive change in the world without losing our spiritual center and loving essence. 

Today’s podcast 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.

“Neither meditation nor activism has to be a grim duty. These are invitations to open the heart and be present for everything. In activism you stand up because you care and you love, and then you bring your best to it.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack and Ocean mindfully explore:

• Activism and creating positive change in the world
• How to save the world without losing yourself
• Acting beautifully without attachment to the fruits
• How not not to let the immense suffering of the world get to us
• Wes Nisker, Gary Snyder, and saving the world because you love it
• Acting in this world with peace, love, courage, and nobility
• Honoring our emotions, grief, and fears, but not letting them control us
• Becoming what you want the world to be
• His Holiness the Dalai Lama and meeting our lives with honesty and joy
• Fighting for freedom and justice, but having fun doing it
• Making activism fun, joyful, and beautiful
• Emphasizing the positives acts in the world
• Life changing wisdom from the Buddha
• Holding it all in the great heart of compassion
• Adding your voice, love, energy, and compassion
• If your grief is big, hold it from something bigger

This episode was originally recorded for the Food Revolution Network in November of 2024. 

Discover Your Buddha Nature with Jack Kornfield, an online journey for reclaiming our dignity, compassion, and generosity, beginning June 2.

“It says in the Bhagavad Gita, the essence is to act beautifully without attachment to the fruits of the actions. What it means is, you don’t get to determine how it turns out, but you do get to plant your seeds of goodness. And as Thoreau says, ‘Convince me you have a seed there, and I’m prepared to expect miracles.’ You get to plant the seeds, and eventually, in their own time, they bear fruit. That’s not your job. Your job is to make a beautiful garden, to plant beautiful things, and to tend them.” – Jack Kornfield

About Ocean Robbins:

Ocean Robbins is an American entrepreneur and author, best known for his role as the co-founder of Food Revolution Network, Inc. This California-based company is dedicated to advocating for a whole foods, plant-based diet. Check out Ocean’s book, 31-Day Food Revolution, to learn more about healing the body and transforming the world. You can keep up with Ocean on his website, HERE.

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 year's worth of online meetups with Jack and fellow community members, 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.

“If we don’t look, if we don’t acknowledge the children who are hungry, if we don’t acknowledge not just Ukraine and Gaza, but Sudan, and the Congo, and Myanmar, and the Rohingas—if we turn our gaze away in denial, we can’t make a difference. Our heart has to be big enough and our dignity strong enough that we’re willing to see it. And then some of us are called to do that work in the way that we can.” – Jack Kornfield

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

Jack is interviewed by Ocean Robbins to explore the big spiritual questions—why there is suffering, how to navigate duality, making the ordinary holy, and cultivating a loving witness.

Discover Your Buddha Nature with Jack Kornfield, an online journey for reclaiming our dignity, compassion, and generosity, beginning June 2.

“It’s important to not use spiritual practice to set up an ideal or judge yourself. Sometimes you need to shut down, and then you open again. So the spiritual path is really about being with both the calm ocean and the storm.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack and Ocean mindfully explore:

• What first got Jack into mindfulness and meditation
• Life as beautiful, and an ocean of tears
• Suffering, Buddhism, and the end of suffering
• Why is there suffering in the world?
• Navigating the reality of duality—form and emptiness, life and death
• The recycling nature of the universe
• How to make the ordinary holy
• Meeting our lives with presence
• A simple way to explain “The Witness”
• The magic of consciousness
• A calming and deep guided meditation 
• Holding fear and grief in compassion
• Not getting caught in reactions and anger
• Acting the nobility of heart and your original dignity 

This episode was originally recorded for the Food Revolution Network in November of 2024. 

“Life is extraordinarily beautiful, and it’s an ocean of tears. You can’t have birth without death, you can’t have light without dark, you can’t have beginnings without endings. We live in a universe constructed of opposites. That’s just the game of form, of duality. You can’t have form without the emptiness from which it comes.” – Jack Kornfield

About Ocean Robbins:

Ocean Robbins is an American entrepreneur and author, best known for his role as the co-founder of Food Revolution Network, Inc. This California-based company is dedicated to advocating for a whole foods, plant-based diet. Check out Ocean’s book, 31-Day Food Revolution, to learn more about healing the body and transforming the world. You can keep up with Ocean on his website, HERE.

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 year's worth of online meetups with Jack and fellow community members, 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.

“We live in a universe that’s recycling itself—the ultimate recycling of birth and death, form and rebirth. For us as human beings, the question is not why or how. The Buddha didn’t actually answer those questions. He said those are questions that don’t tend to have understanding. He said, what I’m interested in is how to navigate the universe as it is, in a way that brings love, well-being, and freedom to all who want to awaken to this.” – Jack Kornfield 

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

In this guided breath meditation, Jack Kornfield invites listeners into a space of ease, trust, and ardent gratitude for our bodies, hearts, and minds. 

Today’s podcast 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.

Learn to cultivate dignity, compassion, and generosity in Discovering Your Buddha Nature with Jack Kornfield, an online journey beginning June 2. 

This week on Heart Wisdom, Jack leads listeners through:

• The true purpose of meditation and returning from the outer world to our inner selves 
• Softening the body and releasing any physical and emotional tension
• Grounding ourselves as we sense the weight of our body being fully supported by the earth 
• Receiving whatever thoughts and emotions arise during meditation with compassion and openness
• Noticing how the body breathes itself, relaxing into each breath, and inviting a sense of ease and trust 
• Feeling the rise and fall of our bellies with each inhale and exhale
• Bowing inwardly to our life-sustaining breath and thanking it for keeping us alive
• Expanding the field of mindful loving awareness to the entire body, heart, and mind 
• Finding the parts of our body that are storing buried difficulties 
• Considering the energy of the mind and how occupied it is most of the time
• Welcoming a sense of peace and presence with a quieter mind and a tender heart 
• Resting in ‘the awareness that notices’ and de-identifying with the breath and body

"This is your life breath. It breathes you together with all living things. It breathes you with everyone in the room, the ocean of air in the trees. As if to make an inward bow, you can say thank you to your breath for keeping you alive so steadily." – Jack Kornfield 

This meditation was originally recorded for the InsightLA Sunday livestream on April 20, 2025.

“Notice that you are not your breath and body. You are not your feelings and thoughts. But, who you are is the awareness that has been kindly witnessing. You are the loving awareness itself.” – Jack Kornfield 

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 year's 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.

"The goal of meditation is not to get to somewhere else, to get from here to there, but to come from there to here. To be present, awake, kind, alive." – Jack Kornfield

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

In this time of global uncertainty, Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman call us to rise with fierce compassion and become Bodhisattvas of the Great Turning.

Join Jack's Free New Course, Stand Up For Compassion: A Free Course and Resource for Navigating Uncertain Times. 

“You become the imaginal cells in these times. Things fall apart, but in you is the understanding that compassion is big enough to hold all of this, that the heart is big enough to hold all this, that the Dharma is big enough to shine through empires, changes, crisis, and beauty. That’s what we have—the Bodhisattva can carry on liberating beings from suffering, however long it takes.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack and Trudy mindfully explore:

• How you can pick all the flowers, but you can’t stop the spring
• Navigating fear politics and the cultural media machine
• Letting go of fear, blame, shame, and ending systemic division
• Using this time of “The Great Turning” as an opportunity to create a more loving world
• Ajahn Chah and living the truth of uncertainty
• How to face the big problems of the world with even bigger love
• Meeting the world through the Bodhisattva Vows
• How loving people and feeding people connects with enlightenment
• The path and practices of loving awareness and compassion
• Inclining the heart towards kindness and generosity
• How caterpillars change to butterflies through Imaginal Cells
• The world-changing power of true community
• Learning how to respond mindfully to any trigger or circumstance
• Becoming a make-weight of hope to tip the scales of humanity to love and balance
• The spiritual wisdom of Passover and Easter
• Letting go of tension and flowing into relaxation
• The Pagan Goddess of Dawn
• Community as the antidote for loneliness
• Crying, letting the tears come, and seeing what happens
• How to interact with people who are highly anxious or avoidant
• Saying hello to the people around you

“Tears feel endless, bottomless, when they don’t have a chance to fall. When they get to fall, they fall and fall, but they stop because tears too are impermanent, they cannot fall forever. It’s really like this with all the intense emotions we are afraid will flood and drown us in some way.” – Trudy Goodman

"What we're experiencing, Joanna Macy calls, The Great Turning. It's the breakdown of the exploitive late-stage capitalist model where we get as much as we can, and the harbinger of the possibility of interdependence. When it breaks down, that turning says, ‘We will use this time to turn this world into something better, to care for one another. The possibility starts with us." – Jack Kornfield 

This episode was originally recorded for the InsightLA Sunday livestream on April 20, 2025.

Photo via Wirestock

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 year's 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.

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

Exploring how to let go of victim consciousness and awaken inner resilience, Jack shares how to rest in awareness and live from the trusting heart.

Today’s podcast 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.

Join Jack's New Free Course, Stand Up For Compassion: A Free Course and Resource for Navigating Uncertain Times. 

In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:

• Liberation, resilience, and the Trusting Heart
• The physical nature of time within the infinite nature of awareness
• Change, aging, and the weirdness of looking in the mirror
• Meditation and working with the drama that arises
• Remembering who we truly are, no matter how lost we get
• Moving past victim consciousness, shame, and blame
• Dropping our negative stories and starting to live with nobility
• How we are so much more than our suffering
• How to stop being loyal to our stories about ourselves and the world
• Navigating these "latter day degenerate times with cherry blossoms everywhere”
• The goal of practice as keeping our beginners mind
• Letting go of fear and opening to adventure
• Not confusing no-self with low-self esteem
• "No self, no problem"
• The strength, aliveness, and fullness of true emptiness
• The Dharma of a zoo in a hurricane
• The Trusting Heart as natural as the Tao, as resilient as water, and as forgiving as the earth
• The resiliency, compassion, and intuition of the Witness
• Recognizing how good you're actually doing

"When we become still, when we're not trying to be something, when we're in the moments of the trusting heart—what's left is not imitation or artificial, it is as natural as the Tao, as resilient and flexible as water, and as forgiving as the earth." – Jack Kornfield 

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

“Is this who you really are—the victim, the abandoned one, the lonely one? Is that really who you are? If you speak it out loud, 'I'm the victim,' it gets embarrassing because something in there can't say it very long. Over time we've become really loyal to this story, but actually, something in us knows that it's not the whole game. There comes tremendous freedom when we begin to experience this." – Jack Kornfield

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 year's 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.

"There is a resiliency in us as human beings which becomes trustworthy when we let go of the small sense of self and become the spacious, open, witness to all things." – Jack Kornfield

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

Who are we really? Jack Kornfield peels back the veil on our identity roles to uncover the deeper truth that we really are. 

Join Jack's New Free Course, Stand Up For Compassion: A Free Course and Resource for Navigating Uncertain Times. 

In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:

• Opening to a new vast, gracious, and spacious perspective on life
• Stepping out of your ordinary habits and roles to see something in a new way
• How to navigate the reality that death is stalking us
• Meditation as a practice of letting things go
• The spirituality of the nature of change and the present moment
• Ram Dass and the mystery of identity, change, and awareness
• Seeing past our roles to the deeper reality of who we are
• Looking into the mystery of: Who I Am?
• Touching the secret beauty you were born with
• Jack's experience communicating with Koko the Gorilla
• Seeing past the illusion of separateness and the small self
• Meditation as a sacred space of non-consumption
• Remembering and healing through listening and letting go
• Seeing the entire arc of life with the eyes of the Divine
• Overcoming the forces of greed, hatred, and fear
• Untangling the places that cause suffering and confusion
• Opening to the birthright of your freedom
• Living the pattern of mystery that is this life
• Recognizing the total interconnection of all of life

"Part of what makes meditation so extraordinary is that to simply sit and not try to make anything happen, or get anywhere, or do something—is to step out of our identity and our roles in the small sense of self." – Jack Kornfield 

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

“Meditation offers us a sacred space of non-consumption. There's nothing to do, no grade, no accomplishment, nothing you have to become. It is the sacred space to listen and remember, and touch the freedom of heart or spirit that is possible in any circumstance." – Jack Kornfield

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.

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

Exploring how to stay buoyant and balanced on life's great ocean of change, Jack sets our spiritual compass for letting go into what is.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.

Join Jack's New Free Course, Stand Up For Compassion: A Free Course and Resource for Navigating Uncertain Times. 

"What we're asked to do here is a very deep thing, which isn't to change ourselves, but to give ourselves to our life, to practice with continuity and care, bowing, opening. It's really like being in labor, if you've ever had a child or been there for childbirth, it's a birth of your life, a birth of yourself, over and over, letting go to what is." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:

• The Tibetan story of Avalokitesvara, Green Tara, and White Tara
• The spiritual wisdom of a duck resting on the ocean
• Floating softly on life's constant ocean of change
• Experiencing ourselves as an always flowing river of life
• Bowing to the truth of impermanence
• Selflessness, emptiness, and openness
• Seeing through the dreamlike mirage of 'who you think you are'
• Letting go into the ever-changing process of life
• Honoring the truth of what's here and now
• Suffering, opening your heart, and connecting to all beings
• Awakening the great heart of compassion
• Ram Dass and the gift of service
• Meeting death with curiosity, play, and wisdom
• Rebirthing ourselves over and over again
• Giving ourselves over sincerely to our life, letting go into what is
• Awakening the great wisdom and heart of the Buddha in every circumstance
• How surrender leads directly to freedom

This Dharma Talk recorded on 1/3/93 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

“The more we pay attention, the more we sense ourselves as a river of life." – Jack Kornfield

Interested in learning more on this topic? Check out our most recent Here and Now episode for Ram Dass’ perspective on the ocean of change. 

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.

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Jack invites us to stop fighting what is and begin bowing to it—awakening the timeless wisdom and compassionate heart of a Buddha, right here and now, in the midst of our joys, sorrows, and the suffering of the world.

This Dharma Talk recorded on 1/3/93 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

This week on Heart Wisdom, Jack gives perspectives on:

• Evaluating our spiritual practice
• Joanna Macy and healing the environment
• The rollercoaster ride of meditation
• Awakening right here and right now
• The transformative power of bowing to it all
• The Buddhas of all the universes
• Suffering and the truth of Nirvana, timeless delight
• Facing the reality of the human realm—joy and sorrow, birth and death
• Looking at the difficulties facing the planet today—war, famine, racism, greed, environmental concerns
• Stop fighting what is true; the end of denial
• Bowing to suffering, attachment, and change
• Insight—seeing things just as they are

"We awaken the wisdom and the great, compassionate heart of a Buddha right where we are. Where else could it be?" – Jack Kornfield

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