Going back to the basics, Jack explores how we can skillfully navigate our dynamic mood states by experiencing them as clouds of the mind.
Want to learn how to follow the Buddha’s path to freedom in the modern world? Sign up for Jack’s new online course Walking the Eightfold Path with Jack Kornfield. The live version begins March 18!
“Moods are actually kind of mysterious and quite impersonal. They’re like the weather. It’s been kind of cool this year, then we get our rainstorms, and the sun comes in between, and the wind comes and dies down, and we don’t have any control over it whatsoever. It just comes. It’s due to certain conditions.” – Jack Kornfield
In this episode, Jack compassionately illuminates:
- Experiencing moods as clouds or weather—arising and passing naturally from impersonal sets of conditions
- The six flavors of experience in Buddhism
- Finding the middle ground between acting on feelings and suppressing them
- The “vipassana romance” and understanding the “siren call” of desire
- Diffusing desire with humor, mindfulness, and noting
- Moving past attachment and aversion by leaning into them
- Techniques for overcoming doubt
- Letting go and becoming more happy and more live
This Dharma Talk from 4/1/1988 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.
“The optimist wakes up and says, ‘Good morning, God!’ And the pessimist wakes up and says, ‘Good God! Morning…’ It’s the same experience, but the mood somehow changes it.” – Jack Kornfield
“One sits and practices, and let’s these experiences come and fill us. We bow to them, name them, soften in the heart and say, ‘Okay, show me your stuff, give me the whole thing.’ And you know what happens after a while? If you make this spaciousness in the heart and that still point, at some point it ends. Because everything does. You say, ‘Wow that was a big storm of desire, wasn’t it?’ And there you are, and there’s this sense of freedom that comes that that’s not who we are most fundamentally.” – Jack Kornfield
About Jack Kornfield:
Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma, studying as. a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies.
Dive into Jack’s ongoing dharma offerings and transformational online courses on the new JackKornfield.com
Listen to more from Jack:
Tune into Ep. 109 of Heart Wisdom: This Too Shall Pass
Learn about Living with a Peaceful Heart in Ep. 91 of Heart Wisdom
Check out Ep. 90 of Heart Wisdom to learn about Healing Through Loving Awareness
Listen to more Stories That Open the Mind, Mend the Heart and Lead to Joy with Jack Kornfield in Ep.92 of Heart Wisdom
Tune into Ep. 102 of Heart Wisdom: The Wisdom of the One Who Knows
Check out Ep. 1 of Heart Wisdom to gain wisdom on Impermanence
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