Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield Be Here Now Network

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 PathThe three aspects of Right Attitude: openness/exploration, renunciation/effort, love/non-harmingWorking with our unique personality in this incarnationThe importance of adding fire to our spiritual practiceBreaking free from our automatic habits by bringing conscious awareness to themRam Dass and becoming a "connoisseur or your neurosis"Transforming our life from automatic pilot to being fully consciousThe 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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Connecting the Buddha's wisdom with the teachings of Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda's infamous Yaqui shaman, Jack explores how to become a spiritual warrior.

Learn the Dynamic Art of Guided Meditation in this Masterclass with Jack Kornfield! Sign up for the on-demand version before Nov. 15 to take part in two live Q&A sessions with Jack!

"There's a mysterious beauty that surrounds those individuals who live their lives as warriors, as men or women of knowledge." – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully illuminates:How Buddha's factors of enlightenment (qualities of awakening) connect with Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda's infamous teacher and Yaqui shaman and sorcererDon Juan's wisdom of the 'Way of the Warrior' in relation to BuddhismThe qualities of living as a spiritual warrior: impeccability/wholeness, wise effort/energy, courage/investigation, controlled-folly (play/lightness), strength/concentration, and steadfastness/unshakeablenessShamanism and cutting through our sense of separation into the root of consciousnessFinding inner-freedom by learning how to stop our internal dialogue


"The basic difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary person takes everything as a blessing or a curse." – Carlos Castaneda (Author of The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge)

This talk from 12/31/1983 at Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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In response to the conflicts in the world, Jack offers a harmonizing guided meditation inviting us into peace, sanctuary, and the heart of refuge.

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"I breath in peace and breath out peace to all those who are amidst the troubles of this world—the conflicts, the refuges, the violence and the fear. I send you a peaceful breath. May we be peaceful together." – Jack Kornfield

In this timely episode, Jack leads a harmonizing guided meditation to help us:Find a mindful, balanced, and compassionate response to the conflicts and tragedy's happening throughout the world todayTurn our awareness to the present moment, merging mind, body, and spiritExtend our consciousness, compassion, and mindful loving awareness around the planet, it's people, and environmentsSend out peaceful healing breaths to all those who are amidst the troubles of the world


This episode is from the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Meditation on 10/23/2023.

Learn the Dynamic Art of Guided Meditation in this Masterclass with Jack Kornfield! Sign up for the on-demand version before Nov. 15 to take part in two live Q&A sessions with Jack! 

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In this powerful new Dharma Talk touching on current events, an emotional Jack offers a heart of refuge amidst the world's conflicts.

"There's a liberation amidst birth and death, joy and sorrow, war and peace, that is beyond it all. This is the sacred openness of love and awareness itself.” – Jack Kornfield

In this emotional episode, Jack touches into:The terrors of the ongoing wars in Gaza, Ukraine, DarfurHow constant news media effects our emotions and wellbeingLearning to live from the 'heart of refuge' which the Buddha offersWhat does it mean to be a refugee? How can we help create sanctuary?The importance of outsiders opening to the suffering of all humans rather than taking sidesHow the Buddha's mindful loving awareness overcomes Mara's aggression, greed, and doubtThe ways we can open ourselves to forgiveness, compassion, community, safety, love, and trust


This episode is from the Spirit Rock Meditation Center Monday Night Dharma Talk and Meditation on 10/23/2023.

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Jack explores how meeting our lives with a directness and simplicity helps bring the mind, body, and heart into unity.

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 spirit of the practice is a unification of the mind with the body and the heart, bringing them all together into one. In that unification, or collectedness, then it becomes possible, when the mind isn't wandering in fantasy of past or future, to see directly and clearly.” – Jack Kornfield

In this Dharma Talk, Jack mindfully illuminates:Buddha's simple wisdom: "In the seen, there is only the seen. In the heard, there is only the heard. In the sensed, there is only the sensed. In the thought, there is only the thought." Meeting our practice and the world with a directness and simplicity; bringing the mind, heart, and body into unity Cultivating an "excruciatingly" precise awareness and paying careful attention so we can see our life process in a new way The three-sided crystal of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness/insecurity, and selflessness Suzuki Roshi and the blissful wisdom of simplicity


This Dharma Talk 9/29/1983 at the Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.

Learn the Healing Art of Guided Meditation in this Masterclass with Jack Kornfield! Sign up for the on-demand version before Nov. 15 to take part in two live Q&A sessions with Jack! 

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