Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield Be Here Now Network

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 presentSeeing the Eightfold Path as a lotus or mandalaCarlos Castaneda, impeccability, and becoming a spiritual warriorHow to wake yourself up from sleepwalking through your lifeHaving a full heart, deep attention, and clear seeingThe two levels of spiritual friends and spiritual practiceUsing suffering to develop a wise heartRemembering death and impermanenceWhat Jack taught his daughter about deathBowing to our difficult emotions and moving onDisentangling ourselves from greed, fear, and obsessionNourishing equanimity, ease, joy, beauty, and loving kindnessTending each moment as if you were planting a seedBalance and the Buddha stringing the luteRamana Maharshi and the wisdom of letting goMaking 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 lifeSpiritual practice as a voyage, a journeyOpenness and the necessity of letting goWhat we can learn from the change of seasonsCultivating the courage to live a spiritual lifeRumi’s poem of the wisdom of the bird in the trapThe peace of rejecting nothing whatsoeverHow Jack had to work his way down the chakras instead of upEmbodying and experiencing your feelingsStillness, simplicity, intimacy and reconnecting with the earthA perspective-shifting Buddhist meditation on death and good deedsOvercoming self-judgement and unworthinessNon-attachment and commitment in relationshipsA tantric master’s wisdom on overcoming burnoutThe 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 PreceptsAhimsa – the blessing of non-harmingThe chilling note Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote when he escaped TibetTaking a fearless moral inventoryHonesty and the simplicity of goodnessWhat Buddha learned in his past livesDr. Martin Luther King Jr. and standing up for truthAdi-Sila – spontaneous or innate virtue, the shining of the just heartThe Tibetan Buddhist perspective on reincarnationJack’s meeting with “hugging saint,” Amma-ji, archetype of the Divine MotherFinding your Buddha Nature, Tao, and DharmaRumi’s brilliant poem about ducksInterdependence and connectednessDeep philosophical questions and contemplations from JackNapoleon, 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 timesWhy someone would take vows and become a monk or nuKabir's poetry, being human, and walking the spiritual pathSexuality and celibacy in spiritual communitiesRelating to both ultimate and relative realityDealing with the body in physically taxing situationsWorking with injustice, inequality, and hierarchy within monasteries and spiritual institutionsThe nature of change and how our present creates our futureOpen-heartedness and open-mindednessLiving the Dharma every second of our existenceLetting our issues be our teachersA 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 sufferingA relaxing Jack “Just Here: Guided Meditation” on loving awarenessHow An Autobiography of Trauma led to Peter’s powerful healing journeyWorking with the astrological and Jungian archetype of Chiron, the Wounded HealerSomatic Experiencing and the roots of healing trauma in the bodyThe transformative aspects of meeting trauma with loving kindness and persistenceCuriosity as a necessary factor of enlightenmentHow the gift of Jack’s childhood trauma led him to discover BuddhismImagination and Peter’s mystical meet-ups with Albert EinsteinMiracles, intuition, and psychic premonition/knowingWhat Jack shared with his scientific-materialist atheist father on his deathbedOur 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 SpheresEnergies of the 2024 Solar EclipseAlan Watts on why 'life is like music'The enlightening present momentHarmonizing life's opposites like the TaoDancing with life's changing rhythmsTo be married to amazement and mysteryThe beautiful revelation of sudden awakeningBeing at the still point of the turning worldSudden realization, gradual practice, and ZenReleasing from the body of fearBuddha's gardening wisdomThe 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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