Dharma Talks
Video: Reconciliation Dharma Talk
Conflict is natural—we can be attached to our needs, desires, ideas and visions. Our brains are wired with a negativity bias to look for things that are threatening. But some other part of us knows there is another way.
Video: Rekindle and Renew Dharma Talk
Many of us discover we live partially in a dreamworld, cut off from whole pieces of our life, our body, our past. Though we may sense our disconnection, we do not know exactly what is wrong. Enlightenment must be lived here and now through this very body or else it is not genuine.
Video: Wonder, Mystery, Awe, Gratitude
We are spiritual beings incarnated into human form. We need to remember our zip code as well as our Buddha nature. We are creatures of this paradox. By neither grasping nor resisting life, we can find wakefulness and freedom in the midst of our joys and sorrows.
Video: Beyond the Dilemma: Unpacking Solutions to The Social Dilemma
Jack Kornfield, Trudy Goodman & The Center for Humane Technology co-founders Tristan Harris & Randy Fernando discuss the asymmetry of power highlighted by Tristan & Randy in the docudrama “The Social Dilemma” and identify solutions.
Video: Election Day Dharma Talk
It’s an important time to come together. We don’t want outer conflicts to take over the heart. Then we can venture into the conflict of the world with a peaceful heart and plant and water seeds of goodness.
Video: Beauty and Human Goodness Amidst It All Dharma Talk
We can tune into the goodness of the world that’s not always featured in the news. This is an invitation to understand equanimity and to see with the eyes of wisdom.
Video: How We Keep Our Mind, How We Steady Our Heart
This is a time when the veils have been lifted—with the pandemic, climate change, & calls for justice we see that we are not separate. When we meditate from a place of “don’t know mind,” not clinging to our view of what we think is supposed to be right, we start to see that our heart is big enough to hold it all.
Video: Listening with the Heart Dharma Talk
What these divisive times call for more than anything else is an ability to listen with the heart. The Buddha explained that if the members of a society come together and listen to each other in harmony and with respect for one another, they will prosper and not decline.
Video: Suffering Is Not the End of the Story
Suffering is not the end of the story. We can get lost in our suffering. But we can also be witness to bravery and the possibility of life. Mindfulness can help us live wisely amidst difficulties.
Video: Right Effort Dharma Talk
What is right effort? Simply the effort to be mindful, to notice what is happening in the present moment without judging it. In Zen it is called effortless effort. Effortless effort is not an effort to gain or attain anything, but simply the discipline and effort to stay aware in the present.
Video: The Peaceful Heart
This dharma talk explores how the combination of compassion and equanimity can give rise to a peaceful heart even in times of turmoil and great change.
Video: The Medicine of the Dharma
In this dharma talk, Jack discusses the health, economic and moral crises the world is facing.
Video: Timeless Teachings in a Time of Pandemic
In this dharma talk, we discuss these 7 teachings of Atisha, the eleventh-century Indian sage: Explore the nature of timeless awareness. Don’t be swayed by outer circumstances. Be grateful to everyone. Consider all phenomena to be dreams.
Video: Courage in Our Difficult Time
The value of our harshest difficulties is how honestly they cause us to question, how they intensify our courage and bring alive our deepest inner purpose, how they reawaken our soul’s task on earth. In willingly facing the unknown, we offer trust in a greater...
Video: Dharma Talk & Meditation with Tricycle Magazine
This talk & meditation addresses heightened anxiety & isolation due to the COVID–19 heath crisis.
Video: Practices to Steady the Heart with Trudy Goodman
Join me and Trudy Goodman for powerful and caring ways to tend the mind and body, and steady the heart in this uncertain time.
Video Series: A Steady Heart in Time of Coronavirus with Jack Kornfield & Tara Brach
During times of difficulty, it is crucial to find ways to steady the heart, to connect compassionately with ourselves and with each other.
Video: Calm, Clarity, Compassion
This is an excerpt of a talk Jack Kornfield gave with environmentalist Paul Hawken on March 2, 2020 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center on how to stay grounded and steady as we navigate the spread of the Coronavirus and other challenges.The need for the Dharma is...
Video: Reflections on the life and teachings of Ajahn Chah
Meditation and reflections on the life and teachings of my teacher Ajahn Chah.
Audio: Mindful Loving Awareness
The invitation of mindfulness and loving awareness is really to be alive and present here on this earth and in this life in a wakeful and honorable, beautiful way that is given to us as human beings. And this is your gateway to freedom. It’s a birthright of all human...
Audio: The Joy of Virtue
Conscious conduct or virtue, means acting harmoniously and with care toward the life around us. For spiritual practice to develop, it is absolutely essential that we establish a basis of moral conduct in our lives. If we are engaged in actions that cause pain and...
Audio: The Generous Heart
To cultivate generosity directly is another fundamental part of living a spiritual life. Like meditation, generosity can actually be practiced. With practice, its spirit forms our actions, and our hearts will grow stronger and lighter. It can lead us to new levels of...
Audio: Love Dharma Talk
When you meditate, the game is to sit and let the mind quiet, tend the heart, and begin to listen to life itself. The question is not the future of humanity but the presence of eternity.
Video: Love Dharma Talk
This is the last talk of ten. Throughout 2017, Jack spoke about the ten paramis, or perfections of a buddha: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, right effort, patience, truthfulness, resolve, equanimity, and loving-kindness. The effort in our own lives to...
Video: Right Effort
Throughout 2017, Jack spoke about the ten paramis, or perfections of a buddha: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, right effort, patience, truthfulness, resolve, equanimity, and loving-kindness. The effort in our own lives to develop these paramis should not...
Video: Living a Full Life
Jack Kornfield and Frank Ostaseski discuss what it means to live a full life during a Monday night dharma talk at Spirit Rock. "In any moment, we can be truly present, loving and free. This is our birthright—no one can imprison our spirit. "When you practice insight...
Audio: The Bodhisattva Dharma Talk
“We are not separate, we are interdependent,” declared the Buddha. When the world is seen with the eyes of a bodhisattva, there is no I and other—there is just us.
Audio: Vastness and Love Dharma Talk
With a spacious heart, we can remember the bigger picture. What would it feel like to love the whole kit and caboodle—to make our love bigger than our sorrows.
Video: Wise Leadership
The qualities of leadership taught by the Buddha are: generosity, integrity, non-harming, steadiness, sacrifice, patience, inclusiveness, vision, trust and loving awareness.
Video: What Makes a Wise & Just Society?
How can we mindfully navigate this life? The outer developments of humanity must be matched by inner developments. At this time, we are, as the first chairman of the joint chiefs of staff [Omar Bradley] said, "a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants." There is a...
Video: Seeing Anew
Meditation can help us release old habits of mind and see life in a new way.
Video: Generosity Dharma Talk
Notice how love, generosity, flexibility, ease, and simplicity are natural to us. These states are important to notice. They give us trust in our original goodness, our own Buddha nature. To reawaken our sense of abundance, Buddhist psychology offers deliberate...
Video: Inner Strength and Kindness: Practices for a Wise Life
"In this world, hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed. This is the ancient andeternal law."—Buddha
Video: Conversation on Grateful Living with Brother David
Jack sat down with Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast, to discuss the topic of grateful living.
Audio: The Ten Perfections Dharma Talk
Contemplating the perfections of the Buddha (such as generosity, morality, concentration, loving-kindness, and wisdom) and investigating the ways in which he developed these qualities may serve as an inspiration to our own practice.
The Bodhisattva Way Dharma Talk
In this Dharma talk Jack speaks about the path of the Bodhisattva.