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

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

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Pema Chödrön:

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

About Ajahn Sumedho:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Peter A Levine, PhD:

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

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

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

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

In this fresh video episode, Jack blissfully illuminates:

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, Jack mindfully illuminates:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, Jack skillfully illuminates:

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

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

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

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