Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield

In this brand new Dharma Talk, Jack sings a redemption song inviting us to lay down our suffering and anger so we can open to the heart of compassion.

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"These teachings of redemption point to the wondrous possibility that the conflicts that plague the world can be transformed by the nobility of heart." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully shares:

• Real tear-jerking stories of redemption of the human heart
• If there is a possibility of return from all the conflicts in the world today
• Contemplating who we push out of our hearts
• The value of offering compassion and loving kindness
• Not letting the suffering of the world poison our hearts and turn us against whole groups of people
• How without compassion and wisdom, we project it out on "them"
• How Buddhist teachings of impermanence lead to the possibility of redemption
• The transformative miracle of neuroplasticity
• Putting down thoughts of blame and turning towards a peaceful heart
• How good stories can help us break the trance and bring us into the present moment
• The way Ram Dass helped Jack, Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein work through a period of conflict
• How the world is full of second chances and redemption is possible

"What is the value of the gaze of compassion and loving kindness? It's the consciousness, it's the conscience that leads us to a wiser and more humane life. And with the most terrible dictators and terrorists, the warlords that we see causing so much suffering in this world—we have to do all we can to stop that suffering, but it's also important not to let it poison our hearts, not to let it in any way demonize our hearts to turn against whole groups of people, or give way to despair." – Jack Kornfield

"It's not just the grass that keeps growing, your body keeps renewing itself. Everything is in change. Consciousness is a waterfall, a river, an ocean of recreation again and again, inviting new patterns in illumination and the possibility of redemption. You can trust this power and align yourself to it." – Jack Kornfield

This lecture from Jack originally took place for the Spirit Rock Live: Monday Night Dharma Talk and Meditation. If you would like to join Jack online for his next livestream on Feb 19, register here!

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In this lively session, Jack illuminates how we can begin to open the heart through the transformational power of self-acceptance.

"Acceptance is the ground out of which true insight and understanding comes. It's an essential aspect of our practice. If we don't accept some aspect of ourself—some feeling, some physical sense of ourself aspect, some mental sense of ourself—then how are we to learn about it if we condemn it? How are we to discover it's nature? How are we to become free in relationship to it? Self-acceptance is not all of the practice, but it's a foundation and spirit which allows for attention and mindfulness to work." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully illuminates:

• Transforming ourself and our practice through self-acceptance
• How true acceptance allows the practice of attention and mindfulness to work
• Don Juan, attention, non-self, and "dissolving the world"
• The power of accepting our non-acceptance
• Practice as a process of opening the heart and mind
• Dipa Ma as an embodiment of loving kindness, metta
• The gradual transformational created through the careful continuity of 'noting'
• Overcoming and integrating doubt, anger, guilt, and pain
• Resting in the present and the natural calming of the heart and the mind
• Impermanence and the Five Aggregates
• The spiritual question of 'free will versus determinism'
• Meditation and looking at our intentions
• Moving poems by Thich Nhat Hạnh and Hanshan

"Practice is a process of opening both the heart and the mind. To open the heart is to allow ourselves to begin to experience whatever there is in our being—in our walking, in our moving, in our eating—with a kindness, with a softness." – Jack Kornfield

"You can sit, and the intention to get up will arise, and if you really notice with continuity and care, you can notice maybe the attention to standup and walk because you're uncomfortable, or the intention to go take tea, or the intention to go to the bathroom. And if you notice sometimes you'll see the intention arise as that quality, 'About to do something...', and you note it, and it disappears, and there you are still sitting there. You watch the breath for a while and the intention comes again, and you begin to see how intention functions, and that it too is impersonal. It's not something you can say is, 'I, me, or mine.'" – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk from 10/16/1983 at Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack illuminates the law of karma and shares how we can overcome habits in order to live a life of awareness.

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"To live a life of awareness asks a lot of us—it asks that we know ourselves, know our feelings, and know our hearts." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack compassionately outlines:

• How to move past our karmas to live a life of awareness
• Listening inside to find integrity with our words, actions, and hearts
• Buddha's emphasis on working with our feelings to find freedom
• How not to get caught in reaction to the 'Eight Worldly Winds'
• Understanding the law of karma and law of change
• Overcoming our habits and shaping our future with awareness
• Understanding our motivations in our actions
• Discerning between feelings in the body and our mind's stories
• Diffusing overpowering emotions with awareness

"The first part of karma is simply that things keep changing, and that how we respond to them creates our future. What's in our hearts that motivates us, creates how the future will be." – Jack Kornfield

"Wisdom—understanding, living wisely—comes from the cultivation of awareness." – Jack Kornfield

This talk from New Years Day 1/1/1988 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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In this New Years episode exploring how we can revolutionize our lives by becoming aware of our feelings, Jack talks clear seeing and gives instructions for an eating meditation.

"If you become aware of your feelings, they don't last very long. We feel like we're angry for a day, or sad for a week, or happy for a month, or grieving for a while—as if those feelings lasted that long. But if you look closely and you let yourself feel what's here and pay attention, feelings rarely last more than thirty seconds, maybe a minute, and then then turn into something else. Guaranteed. If you have some feeling that feels like it's lasted much longer than that, you haven't paid attention to it." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully illuminates:

• The practice of awareness, mindfulness, and paying attention
• Working with the inevitability of change, impermanence, and death
• Clear seeing, clear comprehension, and integrity
• Mindfulness of the process of eating, food, diet, and hunger
• Instructions for an 'eating meditation'
• Discerning the voices in our head and choosing the most skillful one to follow
• Using 'noting' and 'tracking' to become aware of our feelings and diffuse their grip on us

"When we remember that things change, when we can see it in front of us from moment to moment, it effects deeply the way that we live. If we know that things are really fleeting, it brings a quality or a care to our attention to know where we are. Because we realize that this may be the only time—in fact it is the only time—that we'll be in this day, in this moment, in this circumstance. So one tends to live less automatically if we remember the fact of change, of impermanence and death." – Jack Kornfield

This talk from New Years Day 1/1/1988 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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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
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"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 here!

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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!

"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.

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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 / Right 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 here.

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