In this defining talk, Jack shed's light on his adventurous journey to Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah, and how upon returning home, he had to learn to embody a heart of authenticity.

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“Being with Ajahn Chah was being with a person who rested in their Buddha Nature, their own true nature. He was just himself. He was really at peace with himself. You could feel it from the energy of his presence, rooted like a great tree in the earth.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• His mystical journey to learn with Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah,
• Needing to work his way down the chakras to fully live this human life
• Sudden awakening versus gradual change on the spiritual path
• Ramana Maharshi and liberation through facing one’s own death
• How to live in your soul and dance your unique dance
• What it’s like hanging out with monks covered in wild bees
• Ajahn Chah’s tree-like quality of roundedness, freedom, and openness
• Matching our thoughts and actions with our values
• His first time experience rapture in meditation
• The transformative aspects of therapy, bodywork, marriage, family
• Ram Dass and the healing quality of presence
• Navigating differences in our romantic relationships
• Learning to acknowledge the pain and loss beneath our anger
• Opening to life’s lessons of compassion, wisdom, and wakefulness
• The gift of spiritual community and sharing our authenticity
• Embodying the timeless eternal truth of mindfulness, intimacy, and wakefulness

“To love another person just as they are is the only kind of love that makes any sense.” – Jack Kornfield

“There’s an intimacy and a presence that is true about mindfulness: it’s either now or never.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 9/14/1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Jack helps us heal conflicts, release defensiveness, and cultivate the harmony of wise relationships through the art of reconciliation, deep listening, and truth.

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.

“When we read about western civilization, it is in our history books as predominantly a history of conflict—who fought whom, who took over what kingdom, country, or land from someone else and conquered and triumphed. That conflict is still with us in very obvious ways, whether it is in Los Angeles, or Yugoslavia, or Somalia, Ethiopia, or Cambodia. And so, when we look at human civilization with such a long history of conflict, the question comes, can we learn another way to live as humans?” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Buddhist teachings on community, conflict, and living harmoniously
• If modern civilization is actually all that civilized
• Aristotle on humanity’s weapons of wisdom and virtue
• The historical evolution of human consciousness and compassion
• Types of slavery, overt and hidden: physical, economic, political, clandestine
• The spirituality of truly celebrating life in this present moment
• Wise Relationship, living harmoniously, listening in a way that honors everyone
• Creating a ‘wise culture’ built on honesty and integrity
• How to truly apologize, forgive, reconcile, and renew
• Wise mechanisms for diffusing conflict
• How to stop being defensive and start listening
• Reconciling conflicts in monasteries and spiritual communities
• How the ‘art of listening’ begins with the ‘art of letting go’
• Learning to cooperate in courage, fearlessness, and honoring
• Navigating life from our ‘unarmed truth’ and ‘Soul Force’

“To be able to enter into a process of reconciliation in one’s family, community or body-politic, is to be able to learn to let go of our views, our ideas, how it should be, what we want, what we fear—which is underneath all of those things. It’s a shift of our identity from this small sense of self that we carry often with us, to something that’s greater—the common good, the good of the earth, that which is beautiful and noble no matter what happens in the world around us—to some greater identity of our being.” – Jack Kornfield

“We all want that kind of respect—if you give nothing else to your lover, spouse, children, parents or colleagues, but just that quality of listening with respect—there’s this tremendous sweetness that comes, people love you for it. – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded on 7/27/1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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Opening the doorway to transformation, Jack and Dr. Hübl explore spiritual discernment, identity, “central casting,” overcoming nervous system triggers, reframing trauma, and more.

Transform your 2025 with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online program beginning Jan 2025, but join anytime.

The ‘wisdom of insecurity’ is to learn that it’s okay to feel insecure—that it’s part of our human law—and to love anyway.” – Jack Kornfield

In Part 2 of this episode originally airing for Dr. Hübl’s ‘Spiritual Healing Journey Summit,’ Jack and Thomas mindfully explore:

• Spiritual community, idealism, disillusionment, and healing spiritual injury
• Jack’s experience “pressure testing” his teacher Ajahn Chah
• Trading our “blind faith” for “spiritual discernment”
• Living in joy with a free heart amidst it all
• Ram Dass, identity, and “central casting”
• Seeing past our identities/roles to our Divine Nature while still fully honoring them
• Reframing “trauma” with Buddha’s lens of suffering
• Healing the nervous system and it’s triggers
• Expanding our loving kindness to encompass all beings
• Walking through the doorway of transformation and dissolving the cosmos into love
• How to deal with our trauma and learn to live with suffering
• Reaching out and healing the part of the world we can touch
• The Bodhisattva vow as fostering the awakening of the heart
• Opening to the “wisdom of insecurity”

“Spiritual practice is to remember your true divine nature, and also your social security number, your particular role which ‘central casting’ has placed you in at this time.” – Jack Kornfield

"Disillusionment is part of the spiritual path, baby. It is! You have to see with the eyes of the Buddha to see the truth of suffering and greed and hatred, and also see that it's not the end of the story, that that's not who you are." – Jack Kornfield

About Thomas Hübl, PhD:

Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma.

He is the author of Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations, as a coach for CEOs and organizational leaders, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. For more info, books, podcast, and upcoming offerings, please visit thomashuebl.com

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

Jack and Thomas explore how ritual serves as a powerful language for opening the heart and living joyfully through life’s challenges.

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.

"Ritual and symbol become a gateway back to the heart to our deep connection. When we have that in spiritual life, things open up in a different way." – Jack Kornfield

In Part 1 of this episode originally airing for Dr. Hübl’s ‘Spiritual Healing Journey Summit,’ Jack and Thomas mindfully explore:

• How to live joyfully through difficult times
• Finding the wonder of “everyday grace”
• Reducing suffering through spiritual practice
• Western Psychology and Eastern Spirituality
• Interconnection and opening to the great web of being
• Relational mindfulness and communal mindfulness
• Ritual as a language and gateway to the heart
• How to talk with nature and speak for the trees
• The transformation of having true mentors and guides
• Service, activism, and navigating burnout
• Paying attention and listening to each other and nature

"The nuclear waste of what you've been through can burn in some way that it becomes the fuel for energy and light. It gets transformed in the reactor of the heart and you have a power now." – Jack Kornfield

“No amount of nanotechnology, A.I., space technology, or biotechnology is going to save us. Because the source of hatred, war, racism, conflict, exploitation, and climate disruption is in the human heart. That’s where it starts and where it grows from. Therefore, the outer developments which are becoming really remarkable have to be matched by the inner developments of humanity.” – Jack Kornfield

About Thomas Hübl, PhD:

Thomas Hübl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change, integrating the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has led large-scale events and courses on the healing of collective trauma.

He is the author of Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World and Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds. He has served as an advisor and guest faculty for universities and organizations, as a coach for CEOs and organizational leaders, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. For more info, books, podcast, and upcoming offerings, please visit thomashuebl.com

Transform your 2025 with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online program beginning Jan 2025! Join at bit.ly/Awakening2025

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

Shining a lamp in the darkness, Jack offers a heartwarming holiday story, guided meditation, angelic chant, and powerful intention setting ceremony for the New Year and beyond.

Transform your 2025 with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online program beginning Jan 2025!

“May your holidays and the turning of the seasons bring new light, great love, wisdom, and understanding into your life, to all your touch, and across this beautiful blue-green globe.” – Jack Kornfield

In part 2 of this special holiday series, Jack merrily shares:

• A heartwarming Christmas Dharma story to relax the mind
• Learning the true and boundless joy of making others happy
• A powerful “Just Like Me” two-person guided meditation practice
• Transforming the world through seeing the beauty of those around us
• Setting the compass of your heart for our highest good and intention
• Creating your own New Year’s vow, and becoming a lamp in the darkness for those in need
• A special blessing-cord ceremony—an intention setting ritual for the turning of the seasons, the New Year, and the returning of the light
• The angelic, holy, chanting of the of the mantra, “Namoh”

“How do we respond to this world? You sit and you sweep the garden. You have the capacity as a human being incarnating in this life—with your measure of suffering and the beauty you have—to respond in extraordinary ways.” – Jack Kornfield

“I did a blessing cord ceremony 40 years ago together with Lama Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and somebody raised their hand and said to him, ‘What exactly do these protect you from?’ And he said, ‘Why yourself, of course,’ which is a main protection that human beings need.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation Livestream on 12/14/15. Learn more about Spirit Rock’s offerings. Join Jack’s next event.

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

In this cozy holiday special, Jack sheds seasonal tidings on how to rediscover the secret beauty within you and share your special gifts with the world.

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.

“What you most deeply long for is who you are, is coming back to your own heart, to your own beauty, your own wellbeing that you were born with, to that secret beauty.” – Jack Kornfield

In part 1 of this special holiday video series, Jack merrily explores:

• The spiritual meaning of the Winter Solstice, the turning of the seasons, and the holidays
• How Jack’s teacher Ajahn Chah reacted when a Christmas Tree was put up in the Monastery
• Reconnecting with the great mystery of the world and with each other
• How to deal with your family with compassion, equanimity, and peace
• Seeing the secret beauty behind the eyes of everyone you meet
• Moving past the body of fear, the small sense of self
• The paradox of spiritual practice: you’re perfect and there’s room for improvement
• Rediscovering the love and secret beauty within you
• Cultivating dignity, presence, generosity, clarity, integrity, meaning, compassion, trust
• Bringing the mind and body together in the present
• Loving awareness and entering the wisdom stream
• Manifesting love and understanding into this world
• A Hawaiian story on how to bring your special gift
• Ram Dass, Mother Teresa, service, and allowing yourself to be taken care of
• Moving past fear politics and becoming a force of connection and love

“To meditate, more than anything, is an invitation to remember, to quiet ourselves, to touch back in to this truth, this reality beyond the busyness, fears, and confusion we have because we’re human.” – Jack Kornfield

“Meditation and spiritual practice is not meant to be a grim duty, it’s meant to be a rediscovery of the love and secret beauty that’s within you.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation Livestream on 12/14/15. Learn more about Spirit Rock’s offerings at SpiritRock.org. Join Jack’s next livestream at JackKornfield.com/events

Transform your year with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: An Intimate Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online journey! Sign up at bit.ly/Awakening2025

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

Exploring how compassionate speech and mindful listening can transform our lives, Jack shares how we can navigate culture’s web of lies by using the energy of Wise Speech to truly awaken.

Transform your 2025 with Jack! Join “The Year of Awakening: An Intimate Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield” a year-long online course beginning Jan 2025!

“[Wise Speech] is really about compassion—it’s being aware of the power of speech, and using it to express what is conscious and what brings freedom.” – Jack Kornfield

Exploring the third step of the Eightfold Path, Jack mindfully shares on:

• Wise Speech / Right Speech as a factor of awakening
• Compassion, non-harming, and embodying Buddha Nature
• Ram Dass’s “Hopi-Hippie Be-In” and what it means to ‘speak the truth’
• Navigating culture’s and advertising’s web of lies
• Speaking from your deepest truth and knowing
• Buddha and using the energy of speech to awaken
• What it means to truly listen to another human being
• Compassionate communication and listening
• Discerning your intention and motivation when talking to people
• Speaking like a Buddha and treasuring our speech
• The simple pleasure of talking and communication
• Using your words for justice, truth, love, and wisdom
• Letting go of pride and needing to be right
• A “Wise Speech” guided meditation
• Chanting the seed syllable “Ah”

“The key to listening and speaking wisely is the intention—our intention to learn, to discover, to hear something that we haven’t understood.” – Jack Kornfield

“The possibility, if we are to live an awakened life, is to foster that speech that comes from our deeper knowing.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded in 1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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

Offering decompression from post-election intensity, Jack shares a guided meditation helping us maintain a mindful loving presence amidst it all.

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 seasons turn, elections come and go, whole nations and civilization arise for a time and pass. You are the witness to consciousness, the loving awareness that sees the mystery of arising and passing, and holds it all with love.” – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh episode, Jack leads a guided meditation on:

• Decompressing from the intensity of the election
• Taking your noble seat amidst life’s Eight Worldly Winds and play of opposites
• Feeling a stable and centered presence wherever you are
• Resting in a quiet, open, mindful loving awareness
• Feeling a true sense of loving kindness right here
• Becoming consciousness itself, vast, timeless, spacious
• Witnessing the arising and passing of all, and holding it all in love

“With loving kindness, notice the energy of the mind—the stream of thoughts and plans, ideas, worries, imaginings, analysis, understandings, stories, images—a river of thoughts, feelings, images, and words. You can hold it all in loving kindness and say, ‘Thank you for all that work, I’m okay just now, you can relax.'” – Jack Kornfield

This episode was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation Livestream on 11/11/24. Learn more about Spirit Rock’s offerings at SpiritRock.org. Join Jack’s next livestream at JackKornfield.com/events

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

Reflecting on the election, Jack explores how we can most mindfully and lovingly dance with impermanence, suffering, and ‘the great turning’ of the world.

This episode was originally recorded for the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Guided Meditation Livestream on 11/11/24. Learn more about Spirit Rock’s offerings here. Join Jack’s next livestream event here.

“It’s not about an election one way or the other, they come and go. There’s such huge other forces happening right now—climate change, artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion energy—huge possibilities and huge problems. As T.S. Elliot says, ‘In my end is my beginning.’ Everything that turns offers a new openness and beginning for something else.” – Jack Kornfield

In this fresh episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• Navigating the election and politics in a changing world
• Returning to the basics of Buddhism and living a wise spiritual life
• Quieting the mind, tending the heart, listening to the cries, and seeing with the eyes of wisdom
• What Ajahn Chah’s wisdom for the election results would be
• Opening to change, honoring impermanence, facing suffering
• Annica – the wisdom of uncertainty
• Navigating the “Great Turning” of the world
• Shifting from exploitive and consumer consciousness to one of interdependence and mutual care
• Facing our suffering, warfare, racism, aging, death, loss, and change
• The Zen view of the “dew drop” world
• How annica, dukka, anatta connect with nirvana and unshakeable freedom
• To end the illusion of separation
• Politics as a form of ritualized warfare
• Standing up like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita
• Human history as also containing compassion, courage, and sweetness
• Finding refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
• Living from unconditional love and a freedom from fear
• The transformative power of community
• Our inexorable connection to all the great Saints, Gods, and to the Great Mystery

“You get to choose your spirit. No matter what.” – Jack Kornfield

"We know that we're not separate. You know it especially when you're on the mountaintop looking down after some amazing hike, or listening to a piece of music that transports you beyond the small sense of self. You know it when you make love, or take psychedelics, or have some profound meditation, or dance until you disappear. We all know it." – Jack Kornfield

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Helping us reflect on our daily habits and feelings, Jack shares how Right Attitude, Wise Aspiration, and Mindful Thought allow us to uncover the sweet joy of living in The Way.

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.

“With Wise Attitude we begin to discover the power of kindness, the joy in not grasping, the delight in generosity, the ease in letting go, and the immediacy of freedom and liberation that is here in every moment.” – Jack Kornfield

Exploring the second step of the Eightfold Path, Jack mindfully shares on:

• Right Attitude, Wise Thought, the second step on the Eightfold Path
• Seeing directly the true power of mind and heart
• Overcoming habitual patterns of thought, action, and attitude
• The Buddha on nobility, integrity, and the heart
• Overcoming greed, hatred, and delusion
• Knowing the sweet joy of living in The Way
• Wise Aspiration and the path of the Bodhisattva
• Reflecting on our attitude around death
• Rumi, Stephen Levine, Martin Luther King Jr, Suzuki Roshi, and Alan Watts
• Taking what life gives us as “grist for the mill” of awakening
• Examining spiritual teachings in our own life (what works, what doesn’t?)
• Trading ‘protection and defensiveness’ for ‘openness and curiosity’
• Accepting each moment as an unrepeatable miracle
• Beginner’s Mind and Don’t Know Mind
• Openness, respect, and compassion

“It is knowing what is true that brings ourselves freedom. We don’t get free by making ourselves free.” – Jack Kornfield

“It is only through mercy, through the kindness of compassion, that reconciliation happens, that what’s locked in suffering begins to grow and breathe new life.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded in 1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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

Intersecting the Buddha’s ‘Wise Understanding’ with Alan Watt’s ‘Wisdom of Insecurity,’ Jack illuminates the path of discovering lasting happiness.

For an even deeper dive down the Eightfold Path, sign up for Walking the Eightfold Path with Jack Kornfield, an online course designed to guide you through the wisdom, compassion, and freedom of Buddha’s teachings. Learn more and sign up here.

“Spiritual life is not about possessing or finding security, but rather it’s discovering what Alan Watts called, ‘the wisdom of insecurity,’ the capacity for freedom and compassion of heart, no matter what the circumstances. Right Understanding is a willingness to dedicate ourself to awakening, no matter how conditions change.” – Jack Kornfield

Exploring the first step of the Eightfold Path, Jack mindfully shares on:

• The Buddha, Enlightenment, the Eightfold Path, and Four Noble Truths
• How to live a wise, mindful, happy, and loving life
• The Middle Path as the pathway to freedom
• Wise Understanding, the first step on the Eightfold Path
• Suffering, it’s causes, and how to alleviate it
• Where happiness actually comes from
• Working with clinging, grasping, aging, aversion, fear
• Impermanence, change, and the wisdom of insecurity
• Spiritual Direction and the journey of the soul
• The seed of awakening your Buddha Nature
• Understanding the Law of Karma
• Finding nirvana through our current circumstances
• Having compassion for what puts us to sleep
• Tending your heart to tend the whole world

“Buddha saw that the cause of happiness and the cause of suffering is not so much in life itself, but in the way that we relate to life.” – Jack Kornfield

“Right understanding tells us that we can dedicate our life to something beautiful.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk recorded in 1992 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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