Heart Wisdom With Jack Kornfield

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 KornfieldIn this episode, Jack mindfully explores:Rumi’s wisdom on The Camel, The Lion, and the Child of the SpiritHealing our wounds, grief, and sorrowsWaking ourselves up from our tranceTouching our rage, fears, and longings with kindness and respectPoetry of compassion, mystery, tenderness, and awakeningLetting yourself love what you loveTenderness and seeing with the eyes of the Divine Mother and the great heart of c

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 KornfieldIn this episode, Jack mindfully explores:How art, beauty, music and poetry uplift the world to the sacredRumi’s poem, Tending Two ShopsLetting go of fear, opening into freedomPoetry not as a denial of life’s struggles, but as a gracious way throughBeing at home with oneselfPoetry from Siddhartha Buddha, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rumi, and moreTelling the truth, becoming nobody, a

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 KornfieldIn this episode, Jack mindfully explores:The end of exile as a return to the present momentPure awareness and the cycles of lifeWhere is freedom found?Letting go vs. letting beThe dignity of just being an earthwormNirvana as a public health measureThe coolness of nirvana and release from graspingHow ‘periodic nirvana’ keeps us aliveRam Dass, Stephen Levine, surrender, and choosing your spiritBodhicitta as the heart of emptiness and compassionDon Juan’s “controlled folly” and Zen paradoxFinding wholeness in grief, stru

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 KornfieldThis week on Heart Wisdom, Jack heartfully ponders:Freedom and the spiritual pathThe Dharma’s ‘one taste’ of freedom The Sure Heart’s ReleasePresent, past, future, and Being Here NowLife’s often dreamlike qualityThe evanescent p

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 KornfieldIn this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack holds a thought-provoking talk on:Counseling, ethics codes, and teacher-training for a new eraSectarianism vs. the shared heart of awakeningA 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-linersEngaged Buddhism: arms sales, poverty, over-population, climateDrafting a pan-Buddhist code of conduct; yearl

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 boom1,000 U.S. meditation centers — a movement far bigger than any one sanghaThe Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra on gathering “in harmony and concord”The Dalai Lama: compassion over conversion; students over titlesWhat really authorizes a teacher? (Hint: their students’ freedom)“Spy on your teachers” — trusting slowly & wiselyThe scent-test of liberation: recognizing authentic peace“Bodhisattva off-duty?” — practice everywhere, even with late-night TV temptationsSpiritual life as engagement with, not escape from, difficultyInterdependence: why true emptiness embraces every creatureSp

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 KornfieldIn this episode, Jack mindfully explores:What brings us joy in this life?Trust, morals, justice, and taking the long viewEnlightenment and cultivating a trusting heartThe imaginal cells of the butterflyHow your voice, joy, imagination, and trust can truly make a differenceStories on trust, love, and making a differenceMindful presence and the Awakened Heart Sangha/Satsang, community, and helping each otherI

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. 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 KornfieldIn this episode, Jack mindfully explores:Living joyfully with a positive attitudeJoy as a necessary quality of enlightenmentHow can we have joy in times of chaos, disruption, and suffering?Joy as a true service to others and the worldUplifting others through our joy and positivityWavy Gravy and the Transformative Power of JoyHow suffering is n

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 KornfieldIn this episode, Jack mindfully explores:Transforming unhealthy clingings into Wise AttachmentNot getting stuck in our ideas and views The global price of collective addiction and attachmentMoving past our attachment to our sense of separatenessThe big spiritual question—who are we really?His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and keeping a healthy curiosity around deathLowering our defenses and helping others low

Exploring the ancient Zen teaching of the Great Way, Jack guides us toward freedom from attachment, clarity beyond preferences, and the liberating joy of letting go.“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When attachment and hatred are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction; however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinion for or against anything.” – Third Zen AncestorIn this episode, Jack mindfully explores:Finding freedom from attachment by learning to let goCan we meditate society’s problems away?What does it mean to seek wisdom, compassion, freedom?The Third Patriarch of ZenFinding the Great Way and seeing the truthMoving past our opinions and preferencesHow our desires blind us and manufacture our realitySuffering, impermanence, grasping, and not relying on realityThe path to liberation from our grasping and fearsThe joy of letting go of our attachments and relaxing into what

Jack and Ocean continue their deep conversation, exploring how to create positive change in the world without losing our spiritual center and loving essence. 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.“Neither meditation nor activism has to be a grim duty. These are invitations to open the heart and be present for everything. In activism you stand up because you care and you love, and then you bring your best to it.” – Jack KornfieldIn this episode, Jack and Ocean mindfully explore:Activism and creating positive change in the worldHow to save the world without losing yourselfActing beautifully without attachment to the fruitsHow not not to let the immense suffering of the world get to usWes Nisker, Gary Snyder, and saving the world because you love itActing in this world with peace, love, courage, and nobilityHonoring our emotions, grief, and fears, but not letting them control usBecoming w

Jack is interviewed by Ocean Robbins to explore the big spiritual questions—why there is suffering, how to navigate duality, making the ordinary holy, and cultivating a loving witness.Discover Your Buddha Nature with Jack Kornfield, an online journey for reclaiming our dignity, compassion, and generosity, beginning June 2.“It’s important to not use spiritual practice to set up an ideal or judge yourself. Sometimes you need to shut down, and then you open again. So the spiritual path is really about being with both the calm ocean and the storm.” – Jack KornfieldIn this episode, Jack and Ocean mindfully explore:What first got Jack into mindfulness and meditationLife as beautiful, and an ocean of tearsSuffering, Buddhism, and the end of sufferingWhy is there suffering in the world?Navigating the reality of duality—form and emptiness, life and deathThe recycling nature of the universeHow to make the ordinary holyMeeting our lives with presenceA simple way to explain “The Witness”The magic of consciousnessA calmin

In this guided breath meditation, Jack Kornfield invites listeners into a space of ease, trust, and ardent gratitude for our bodies, hearts, and minds. 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.Learn to cultivate dignity, compassion, and generosity in Discovering Your Buddha Nature with Jack Kornfield, an online journey beginning June 2. This week on Heart Wisdom, Jack leads listeners through:The true purpose of meditation and returning from the outer world to our inner selves Softening the body and releasing any physical and emotional tensionGrounding ourselves as we sense the weight of our body being fully supported by the earth Receiving whatever thoughts and emotions arise during meditation with compassion and opennessNoticing how the body breathes itself, relaxing into each breath, and inviting a sense of ease and trust Feeling the rise and fall of our bellies with each inha

In this time of global uncertainty, Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman call us to rise with fierce compassion and become Bodhisattvas of the Great Turning.Join Jack's Free New Course, Stand Up For Compassion: A Free Course and Resource for Navigating Uncertain Times. “You become the imaginal cells in these times. Things fall apart, but in you is the understanding that compassion is big enough to hold all of this, that the heart is big enough to hold all this, that the Dharma is big enough to shine through empires, changes, crisis, and beauty. That’s what we have—the Bodhisattva can carry on liberating beings from suffering, however long it takes.” – Jack KornfieldIn this episode, Jack and Trudy mindfully explore:How you can pick all the flowers, but you can’t stop the springNavigating fear politics and the cultural media machineLetting go of fear, blame, shame, and ending systemic divisionUsing this time of “The Great Turning” as an opportunity to create a more loving worldAjahn Chah and living the truth o

Exploring how to let go of victim consciousness and awaken inner resilience, Jack shares how to rest in awareness and live from the trusting heart.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 Jack's New Free Course, Stand Up For Compassion: A Free Course and Resource for Navigating Uncertain Times. In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:Liberation, resilience, and the Trusting HeartThe physical nature of time within the infinite nature of awarenessChange, aging, and the weirdness of looking in the mirrorMeditation and working with the drama that arisesRemembering who we truly are, no matter how lost we getMoving past victim consciousness, shame, and blameDropping our negative stories and starting to live with nobilityHow we are so much more than our sufferingHow to stop being loyal to our stories about ourselves and the worldNavigating these "latter day degenerate times with cher

Who are we really? Jack Kornfield peels back the veil on our identity roles to uncover the deeper truth that we really are. Join Jack's New Free Course, Stand Up For Compassion: A Free Course and Resource for Navigating Uncertain Times. In this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:Opening to a new vast, gracious, and spacious perspective on lifeStepping out of your ordinary habits and roles to see something in a new wayHow to navigate the reality that death is stalking usMeditation as a practice of letting things goThe spirituality of the nature of change and the present momentRam Dass and the mystery of identity, change, and awarenessSeeing past our roles to the deeper reality of who we areLooking into the mystery of: Who I Am?Touching the secret beauty you were born withJack's experience communicating with Koko the GorillaSeeing past the illusion of separateness and the small selfMeditation as a sacred space of non-consumptionRemembering and healing through listening and letting goSeei

Exploring how to stay buoyant and balanced on life's great ocean of change, Jack sets our spiritual compass for letting go into what is.Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self. Join Jack's New Free Course, Stand Up For Compassion: A Free Course and Resource for Navigating Uncertain Times. "What we're asked to do here is a very deep thing, which isn't to change ourselves, but to give ourselves to our life, to practice with continuity and care, bowing, opening. It's really like being in labor, if you've ever had a child or been there for childbirth, it's a birth of your life, a birth of yourself, over and over, letting go to what is." – Jack KornfieldIn this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:The Tibetan story of Avalokitesvara, Green Tara, and White TaraThe spiritual wisdom of a duck resting on the oceanFloating softly on life's constant ocean of changeExperiencing ourselves as an alway

Jack invites us to stop fighting what is and begin bowing to it—awakening the timeless wisdom and compassionate heart of a Buddha, right here and now, in the midst of our joys, sorrows, and the suffering of the world.This Dharma Talk recorded on 1/3/93 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.This week on Heart Wisdom, Jack gives perspectives on:Evaluating our spiritual practiceJoanna Macy and healing the environmentThe rollercoaster ride of meditationAwakening right here and right nowThe transformative power of bowing to it allThe Buddhas of all the universesSuffering and the truth of Nirvana, timeless delightFacing the reality of the human realm—joy and sorrow, birth and deathLooking at the difficulties facing the planet today—war, famine, racism, greed, environmental concernsStop fighting what is true; the end of denialBowing to suffering, attachment, and changeInsight—seeing things just as they are"We awaken the wisdom and the great, compassionate heart of a Buddha right whe

Leading a guided meditation helping us witness the play of our human existence from the loving awareness that we truly are, Jack invites us to uncover true freedom as our birthright.Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.In this episode, Jack delves into:The true purpose of meditation and spiritual practiceComing fully into the reality of the present momentBecoming mindful loving awareness itselfWitness the play of our human experienceUncovering true freedom as your innate birthrightExperiencing the present moment as loving awarenessResponding to the world with mindful loving courage“Come into this present moment with mindful loving awareness, notice the play of our human experience, and discover we can take our seat with a compassionate and gracious heart with a freedom that is your birthright.” – Jack KornfieldThis recording is from Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Monday Night Talk and Meditation on 3

This episode was recorded on 3/03/25 as a part of Spirit Rock’s Monday Night Dharma Talk Series“You are the imaginal cells. You are the ones who are called to hold the vision of a wise society where people respect each other, where we care for the vulnerable, where we understand the universal teaching, ‘Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed.’ This is you.'” – Jack KornfieldIn this episode of Heart Wisdom, Jack mindfully explores:Staying centered amidst life’s struggles Stopping blame and “right and wrongNavigating Late-Stage Capitalism in the 21st CenturyThe Great Turning as an opportunity to reset our lives as human beingsThe Great Turning as a birth process—messy, painful, dangerous, and beautifulRemembering your fearlessness amidst politics and news media Becoming “imaginal cells” of the butterflyTrusting the constant renewal of life and nature Black Elk, Gary Snyder, and the power of loving the earthMeditation and sitting with heartbreakDissolving guilt, fear, and doomscrollingCarryin