Jack Kornfield teaches us the transformative mindfulness practice known as "RAIN." Mindfulness does not reject experience. It lets experience be the teacher. With mindfulness, we can enter the difficulties in our life and find healing and freedom. There are four principles for mindful transformation of difficulties that are taught in Western mindfulness retreats with [...]
The Buddha is Still Teaching
The true Buddha isn’t limited to the body or mind of a particular person who lived long ago. He is present today, says Jack Kornfield, in teachers pointing the way to a timeless freedom. The teachings of the Buddha are called the Lion’s Roar, words of fearlessness and unshakable freedom. On the night of his enlightenment, the Buddha awakened to the vast and timeless peace [...]
How to Do Metta
Kuan Yin, bodhisattva of compassion. Photo by Liza Matthews. Jack Kornfield on beginning this time-honored, heart-opening practice. In our culture, people find it difficult to direct loving-kindness to themselves. We may feel that we are unworthy, or that it’s egotistical, or that we shouldn’t be happy when other people are suffering. So rather than start loving-kindness [...]
Be Free Now: An interview with Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield, one of the leading Buddhist teachers of our time, talks to Melvin McLeod about the hopeful message in his new book: we can have joy and freedom — right here, right now. Over the decades, your teachings have tracked and helped lead the evolution of Buddhism in the West. You have undertaken intense traditional practice, integrated the insights of Western [...]
Pema Chödrön and Jack Kornfield talk “The Wondrous Path of Difficulties”
A classic conversation with Pema Chödrön and Jack Kornfield — originally published in 2005 — moderated by Michael Krasny about the everyday difficulties that provoke us, reveal our habitual patterns, and ultimately transform us. Call it luck, good luck. A sellout crowd of over 3,000 people arrives at the Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco to listen to a discussion with [...]
Develop a Mind Like Sky
Meditation teacher Jack Kornfield explains the why and how of developing wise attention, or open awareness. Meditation comes alive through a growing capacity to release our habitual entanglement in the stories and plans, conflicts and worries that make up the small sense of self, and to rest in awareness. In meditation we do this simply by acknowledging the [...]
Buddhism’s Call to Action
Jack Kornfield on the importance of contributing to activism with Buddhist practice and wisdom. Science and technology alone cannot stop continuing warfare, racism, and environmental destruction. The illusion of separation that fuels global consumerism and greed, fear, and ignorance needs to be transformed by the realization of interdependence, by the illumination of [...]
The Best of Jack Kornfield: Life, Teachings, Quotes, and Books
When the world is seen with the eyes of a bodhisattva, there is no I and other, there is just us. —Jack Kornfield Jack Kornfield is one of today’s most influential spiritual teachers. As a Buddhist monk-turned-psychologist, his skilled integration of modern psychology into timeless Buddhist teachings has helped people around the world heal their hearts and minds. His unique [...]
Don’t Wait to Be Happy!
A heartfelt message to us all, from Jack Kornfield. Dear friends, after more than forty years teaching mindfulness and compassion to thousands on the spiritual path, the most important message I can offer is this: You don’t have to wait to be free. You don’t need to postpone being happy. All too often these beautiful spiritual practices of mindfulness and compassion [...]
10 Buddhist Books Everyone Should Read
10 Buddhist books everyone should read, as selected by the editors of Lion's Roar. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield (Bantam, 2000) According to Jack Kornfield, enlightenment does exist and is even pretty common. The rub is that after achieving it, day-to-day tasks and troubles still await you. This is a guide to translating our spiritual [...]
