Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield

Jack Kornfield explores the nature of mind, offering playful practices and profound perspectives to uncover our true home of freedom, compassion, and ease.

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 the Year of Awakening with Jack Kornfield for a monthly group livestream Q&A hang with Jack, along with weekly modules and prompts to keep your life focused on awakening!

“If we don’t know the nature of mind and the ways of mind, our life is like a boat without a rudder, and we get pulled here there by all the thoughts, images, stories, feelings, and unfinished business that arise during the day” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• The purpose of meditation and Buddhism
• Learning the true nature of mind
• An assortment of micro guided meditation practices
• Experiencing Buddha’s ‘sure heart’s release”
• Uncovering natural happiness and freedom of heart
• How we create our world with our mind
• Discovering what creates suffering and what creates happiness
• The mirror-like quality of meditation
• Stanislav Grof and LSD
• The playfulness and creative capacity of mind
• The Buddhist creation myth
• Counting/noting our thoughts
• Becoming aware of awareness
• Ajahn Chah’s meditation instructions 
• Finding the place of natural mind and rest
• Cultivating inner listening 
• The gradual and sudden dimensions of illumination
• Untangling the unfinished business of our lives 
• Touching the world in kindness and compassion
• Meeting ourselves and this world in kindness and humbleness
• Bearing witness to the sorrows of the world while resting in the heart of the Buddha
• Opening to the great mystery
• Becoming The One Who Knows
• The Timeless Buddha as the ground of all being, our true home

“Buddha didn’t give an answer to the great mystery, he taught us how to rest in our heart in the midst of that mystery, to find our true home, that awakened state.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk from 5/3/1993 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, 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 something sudden in any moment, discovering that what we sought all along was here.” – 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 inspiring poetry-infused talk, Jack weaves Rumi’s wisdom on the camel, lion, and child of the spirit into a journey from devotion, to courage, to wonder—inviting us to awaken the Buddha’s Lion’s Roar within and remember the inner royalty of the heart.

Join the Year of Awakening with Jack Kornfield for a monthly group livestream Q&A hang with Jack, along with weekly modules and prompts to keep your life focused on awakening!

“Poetry and the sense of beauty that art awakens is to move from a small sense of our problems and difficulties to some greater perspective of the heart.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Rumi’s wisdom on The Camel, The Lion, and the Child of the Spirit
• Healing our wounds, grief, and sorrows
• Waking ourselves up from our trance
• Touching our rage, fears, and longings with kindness and respect
• Poetry of compassion, mystery, tenderness, and awakening
• Letting yourself love what you love
• Tenderness and seeing with the eyes of the Divine Mother and the great heart of compassion
• Living a life of wakefulness
• Rumi, bravery, and becoming a lion
• Awakening the Buddha’s Lion’s Roar within
• Uncovering your inner-royalty
• Beginner’s mind and becoming a “child of the spirit”
• Finding wonder and amazement in life
• The mystery of sleep, dreams, and consciousness
• Letting go of pity and reclaiming wonder in the present
• The power of prayer and blessing

“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk for a hundred miles on your knees through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” – Mary Oliver

This Dharma Talk from 4/15/1993 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, 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.

“To see with the eyes of a Buddha, to receive the world with the great heart of compassion, means living in the mystery of this present moment again and again.” – Jack Kornfield

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

Exploring poetry, beauty, and art, Jack helps his dear listeners appreciate the harmonious dichotomy of all life experiences.

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 the Year of Awakening with Jack Kornfield for a monthly group livestream Q&A hang with Jack, along with weekly modules and prompts to keep your life focused on awakening!

“Poetry and beauty are not a denial of the sorrows of the world, but a grace somehow that holds and understands them—the irony and the mixture of love and terror that make up life.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• How art, beauty, music and poetry uplift the world to the sacred
• Rumi’s poem, Tending Two Shops
• Letting go of fear, opening into freedom
• Poetry not as a denial of life’s struggles, but as a gracious way through
• Being at home with oneself
• Poetry from Siddhartha Buddha, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rumi, and more
• Telling the truth, becoming nobody, and walking the path
• Meditation and working with our ‘inner mob’ of voices
• Relating to the ‘zoo’ of our lives with meditation
• The three dimensions of Rumi’s spiritual poetry
• Saying ‘yes’ to this too, even to what’s difficult
• Walking this life and path in humbleness

“Sometimes the greatest political act is to turn on Mozart and turn off the news, or to walk by the ocean or in the hills during sunset, or to read a poem—to sense a possibility in the midst of all the 10,000 joys and sorrows of finding some peace or balance in this heart that can then be brought to the world around us.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk from 4/15/1993 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, 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 source of much of the suffering in the world is the loss of attention, beauty, and connection with one another.” – 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 rich and often humorous talk from the 1990s, Jack explores the art of letting go as the gateway to freedom, inviting us into the coolness of nirvana, and the wholeness found only here and now.

Join the Year of Awakening with Jack Kornfield for a monthly group livestream Q&A hang with Jack, along with weekly modules and prompts to keep your life focused on awakening!

“This freedom is not far away, the freedom of the heart is here, and it’s inviting. Nirvana is inviting.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• The end of exile as a return to the present moment
• Pure awareness and the cycles of life
• Where is freedom found?
• Letting go vs. letting be
• The dignity of just being an earthworm
• Nirvana as a public health measure
• The coolness of nirvana and release from grasping
• How ‘periodic nirvana’ keeps us alive
• Ram Dass, Stephen Levine, surrender, and choosing your spirit
• Bodhicitta as the heart of emptiness and compassion
• Don Juan’s “controlled folly” and Zen paradox
• Finding wholeness in grief, struggle, and beauty
• Each moment as a chance for struggle or freedom
• The goal of practice as keeping our beginner’s mind
• This very moment as the only place of freedom

“If we allow ourselves to stay in the reality of the present, not only does there come a reclaiming of this life, but we also discover this emptiness or spaciousness that holds it all. No matter how painful, beautiful, exalted, or difficult—it arises and moves in its cycle back into wholeness.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on desert retreat in the 1990s 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, 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.

“Just let go, let go, let go. I did nothing but this in my practice for years. Every time I tried to understand or figure things out, I’d say, ‘Let go, let go,’ until that desire would fade away. … Just be an earthworm who knows only two words, ‘Let go, let go…’” – 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 tender and illuminating talk, Jack shares a Zen love story and a path of mindful presence that brings us home—from the stories of the mind to the truth of the heart. Through embodied awareness, we discover that the end of exile begins with loving what is here now.

Join the Year of Awakening with Jack Kornfield for a monthly group livestream Q&A hang with Jack, along with weekly modules and prompts to keep your life focused on awakening!

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 end of exile is when we see all the stories of what should be, and what is, and what will be, passing through the mind, and we rest in some place of peace in the heart.” – Jack Kornfield

This week on Heart Wisdom, Jack heartfully ponders:

• Freedom and the spiritual path
• The Dharma’s ‘one taste’ of freedom 
• The Sure Heart’s Release
• Present, past, future, and Being Here Now
• Life’s often dreamlike quality
• The evanescent present moment 
• Noticing the dreamlike quality of life
• An enlightening Zen love story
• Uncovering your true self
• Overcoming exile with softness of heart
• Mindfulness as the end of exile
• Embodied awakening and finding liberation within the body and mind
• Accepting and including all parts of ourselves
• Mindfulness and reuniting with your body and feelings
• Cultivating “mindfulness of mind” and forgiving its stories
• Watching the mind, resting in the heart
• Stories and poems on the end of exile in our lives
• Finding true kindness through accepting sorrow

“The past disappears, the future isn’t here yet—all there is is this evanescent present moment that’s here for a moment and then changes.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded during a desert retreat on 04/05/1993 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, 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 real koan is: who is your true self?” – Jack Kornfield

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

From gender equity to joyful adaptation, Jack recounts how the Dalai Lama challenged teachers to reshape Buddhism for a modern world in need of heart.

This Dharma Talk recorded on 03/29/93 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

“Somebody said the Dalai Lama’s mind is like a diamond, and whichever facet, whichever direction he turns it to, it comes with clarity and beauty. Everything that he did had a sense of graciousness and beauty about it.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack holds a thought-provoking talk on:

• Counseling, ethics codes, and teacher-training for a new era
• Sectarianism vs. the shared heart of awakening
• A dramatic call for gender equity: nuns, councils & training funded “on the spot”
• Sylvia Wetzel’s meditative reflection: What if the Dalai Lama had always been a woman?
• Humor & honesty: “rebirth control” and other Dalai Lama one-liners
• Engaged Buddhism: arms sales, poverty, over-population, climate
• Drafting a pan-Buddhist code of conduct; yearly councils of elders
• Spirit Rock as a living experiment in consensus leadership
• The invitation: awaken the Buddha-heart in every man, woman & child

“There is no price worth paying to hide what is wrong—tell the truth.” – H.H. the Dalai Lama

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.

“Use your heart to awaken that spirit of the Buddha in every being you meet—that’s all that really matters.” – 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 shares stories and insights from a rare gathering with the Dalai Lama on what really makes a teacher, and how compassion—not titles—spreads the Dharma.

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.

This time on Heart Wisdom, Jack thoughtfully explores these themes & topics:

• Spring renewal at Spirit Rock & the wider Buddhist boom
• 1,000 U.S. meditation centers — a movement far bigger than any one sangha
• The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra on gathering “in harmony and concord”
• The Dalai Lama: compassion over conversion; students over titles
• What really authorizes a teacher? (Hint: their students’ freedom)
• “Spy on your teachers” — trusting slowly & wisely
• The scent-test of liberation: recognizing authentic peace
• “Bodhisattva off-duty?” — practice everywhere, even with late-night TV temptations
• Spiritual life as engagement with, not escape from, difficulty
• Interdependence: why true emptiness embraces every creature
• Speaking out against spiritual misconduct & retraumatization
• The wounded student, the wounded teacher — bringing psychology into Dharma

This Dharma Talk recorded on 03/29/93 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

“The Dalai Lama said, ‘Nirvana has a wonderful scent—like flowers.’ You can tell it when you're around someone connected with nirvana. You can tell it around places where there’s that fragrance of peace, well-being, and liberation.” – Jack Kornfield

“Deep down, what matters is only the spirit of compassion—only what benefits beings in every form, in every realm on this earth. Don’t think about how to spread Buddhism. It doesn’t matter if there are even one or two more Buddhists. The only thing that matters is the well-being of each person and the well-being of the earth that we live on.” – Jack Kornfield quoting H.H. the Dalai Lama

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

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.

“Only the benefit you bring to others proves the depth of your own practice.” – Jack Kornfield

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

What if the blueprint for a more beautiful world is already within you? Jack explores how trust, joy, and imagination awaken transformation—from the inside out.

Join the Year of Awakening with Jack Kornfield for monthly livestream Q&A hangs with Jack, and weekly lessons and reflections to keep your year focused on awakening. Use code AWAKEN50 for 50% off entry.

“In the chrysalis, as the caterpillar imagines itself into the butterfly, there’s a message: trust that transformation is possible. Not only is it possible—but from the heart, you can help shape it. You can make a difference.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• What brings us joy in this life?
• Trust, morals, justice, and taking the long view
• Enlightenment and cultivating a trusting heart
• The imaginal cells of the butterfly
• How your voice, joy, imagination, and trust can truly make a difference
• Stories on trust, love, and making a difference
• Mindful presence and the Awakened Heart 
• Sangha/Satsang, community, and helping each other
• Imagining a beautiful new world together
• Feeling yourself as a playful child of the spirit
• Spelunking the great mystery of life and the universe
• Adding your make-weight of hope to the world
• Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl
• Bringing our joy, love, tenderness and compassion to the world
• The big questions: how to hold suffering, and those causing suffering
• The power of protest, standing up, letting go of fear, and embracing the strength of joy
• Questions and Responses on how to navigate modern times skillfully and joyfully with trust, balance, love, gratitude, equanimity, and compassion

“Trust that you make a difference, and that each one of us makes a difference.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode was recorded on 04/07/2025 for the  Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation. 

“We’re in this together, we can awaken together, and we can support our hearts, minds, and the beautiful world that we can be—it’s in us as part of our imaginal cells.” – 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.

Jack invites us to walk the path of joy—no matter the circumstances—showing how living joyfully and tenderly is a courageous, radical, and transformative act.

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 the Year of Awakening with Jack Kornfield for monthly livestream Q&A hangs with Jack, and weekly lessons and reflections to keep your year focused on awakening. Use code AWAKEN50 for 50% off entry.

“What I’ve seen in visiting refugee camps is that they don’t want you to come in feeling depressed—they have enough of that themselves. They’re not looking for people who are frightened, worried, or downhearted. What they long for is someone who can bring a sense of uplift, possibility, and joy.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Living joyfully with a positive attitude
• Joy as a necessary quality of enlightenment
• How can we have joy in times of chaos, disruption, and suffering?
• Joy as a true service to others and the world
• Uplifting others through our joy and positivity
• Wavy Gravy and the Transformative Power of Joy
• How suffering is not the end of the story; it’s the beginning of the Four Noble Truths
• Bringing joy, beauty, and humor to our protesting, activism, and standing up for what matters
• Being hopeful despite the outside circumstances, and emphasizing compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness
• The joy and playfulness of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu
• How we can bless and heal each other with our joy
• Living in joy, love, health and peace even amidst hate, affliction, and troubles
• Experiencing the sweet joy of living in the way
• The radical joyful presence of Ajahn Chah and Maha Ghosananda
• Risking delight
• Jack’s rapturous experience of meditative bliss
• Learning to step out of the battle and embrace life
• Thich Nhat Hanh and the practice of smiling
• Becoming a make-weight of joy, tipping the scales to hope
• Unshakeable integrity, generosity, gratitude, and tenderness
• Tuning in with nature, relationships, and the mystery
• Father Gregory Boyle and the possibility of transformation and renewal

This episode was recorded on 04/07/2025 for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation.

“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” – Wendell Berry

“Live in joy and love even among those who hate. Live in joy and health even among the afflicted. Live in joy and peace even among the troubled. Look within, be still, free from fears and attachments. Know the sweet joy of living in the way.” – The Dhammapada

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.

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.