Ep. 302 – Awakening the Lion’s Roar Within: Poetry of Courage, Compassion, and Wonder
Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield
Be Here Now Network
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 Kornfield
In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:
- Rumi’s wisdom on The Camel, The Lion, and the Child of the Spirit
- Healing our wounds, grief, and sorrows
- Waking ourselves up from our trance
- Touching our rage, fears, and longings with kindness and respect
- Poetry of compassion, mystery, tenderness, and awakening
- Letting yourself love what you love
- Tenderness and seeing with the eyes of the Divine Mother and the great heart of compassion
- Living a life of wakefulness
- Rumi, bravery, and becoming a lion
- Awakening the Buddha’s Lion’s Roar within
- Uncovering your inner-royalty
- Beginner’s mind and becoming a “child of the spirit”
- Finding wonder and amazement in life
- The mystery of sleep, dreams, and consciousness
- Letting go of pity and reclaiming wonder in the present
- The power of prayer and blessing
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk for a hundred miles on your knees through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” – Mary Oliver
This Dharma Talk from 4/15/1993 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed
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.
Jack is currently offering a wonderful array of transformational online courses diving into crucial topics like Mindfulness Meditation Fundamentals, Walking the Eightfold Path, Opening the Heart of Forgiveness, Living Beautifully, Transforming Your Life Through Powerful Stories, and so much more. Sign up for an All Access Pass to explore Jack’s entire course library. If you would like a year's worth of online meetups with Jack and fellow community, join The Year of Awakening: A Monthly Journey with Jack Kornfield.
Stay up to date with Jack and his stream of fresh dharma offerings by visiting JackKornfield.com and signing up for his email teachings.
“To see with the eyes of a Buddha, to receive the world with the great heart of compassion, means living in the mystery of this present moment again and again.” – Jack Kornfield
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The practices of mindfulness meditation can transform your life. |
| 0:06.3 | And for many, that opens the door to wanting to share these practices with others. |
| 0:11.3 | If you've been curious about how to take the next step and start teaching meditation, |
| 0:16.7 | join Buddhist teacher David Nichtern for a free online talk, |
| 0:22.7 | deepening your practice to teach the journey from meditation practitioner to meditation guide on Tuesday, September 2nd, at 6 p.m. |
| 0:29.8 | Eastern. This live session will explore what it means to move from personal practice to teaching |
| 0:36.0 | and how sharing these practices can deepen your own |
| 0:39.4 | understanding. David will also discuss Dharma Moon's renowned mindfulness meditation teacher training, |
| 0:46.9 | a fully online certification program beginning this fall. Visit Dharmamoon.com backslash deepening for more information and to reserve your |
| 0:56.7 | spot for the free online event on September 2nd. |
| 1:09.0 | So this is the child of the spirit, the beginner's mind, the lion, the camel, the child of the spirit. |
| 1:17.5 | And all of these, like the poems and the sense of beauty or art that they awaken, |
| 1:24.9 | are to move somehow from this small sense of our problems and difficulties to some |
| 1:31.1 | greater perspective of the heart. |
| 1:34.2 | Like the Ojibwe, Indian poem, sometimes I go about pitying myself when all the while |
| 1:41.6 | I'm being carried by great winds across the sky. |
| 1:51.3 | You do not have to be good. |
| 1:54.6 | You do not have to walk for a hundred miles on your knees through the desert repenting. |
| 2:01.1 | You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. |
| 2:09.7 | A tender and striking quote from Mary Oliver, shared by Jack Cornfield, |
| 2:16.7 | in this deeply inspiring poetic episode of the Heart |
| 2:21.2 | Wisdom podcast. |
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