Ep. 305 – Remembering the Pleasure of Peace
Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield
Be Here Now Network
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 September 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Exploring spaciousness as the ground of awakening, Jack Kornfield shows how peace, impermanence, and love are all born from the open heart.
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“Meditation centers, temples, ashrams, and spiritual communities are in one fundamental way, places of peace, reminders of the peace and harmony possible for us in our lives.” – Jack Kornfield
In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:
- The Spacious Heart: The peace and pleasure found in meditation centers, temples, and ashrams, and how spaciousness becomes a refuge in our lives.
- Shifting Identity: The flexibility of consciousness and how opening beyond the body and self allows us to release ill-will and rest in freedom.
- Impermanence and Real Love: Stories from India and the Dalai Lama on happiness, letting go into love, and the humor of the “Bang Bang Bang Theory.”
- Beyond Self-Improvement: Spiritual practice not as fixing or perfecting ourselves, but as resting in our true nature, like the Buddha under the bodhi tree.
- The Seed of Equilibrium: Spaciousness as the core of awakening—learning balance in the dance of life, loving others without needing to change them, and finding coolness in nirvana.
“It’s possible to shift. Consciousness is really flexible and fabulous, it can create, expand, and touch anything. When our identity opens to something greater or more timeless, when we see the fleetingness and impermanence of this body that we cling to and realize this is not who we are, then something else becomes possible.” – Jack Kornfield
Experience Jack’s wisdom through his whimsical storytelling! Dive into Transform Your Life Through Jack Kornfield’s Most Powerful Stories – a 10-hour storytelling wisdom journey!
This Dharma Talk from 7/12/1993 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.
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Transcript
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| 1:08.3 | Meditation centers, temples, ashrums, |
| 1:19.5 | are in one fundamental way places of peace, that is reminders of the kind of peace or harmony that is possible for us in our lives. |
| 1:34.6 | And within them, if they are actively pursuing the spiritual practices, one finds a certain spaciousness, a pleasure of the spaciousness of such places. |
| 1:50.2 | And it's that spaciousness that I'd like to speak of this evening. |
| 2:00.3 | Space is central to awakening. |
| 2:03.9 | Anything of real value is because of the space. |
| 2:08.1 | The cup is worth nothing. |
| 2:10.4 | What's of value is the space within it that can be filled with liquid. |
| 2:15.8 | Says Jack Cornfield, in episode 305 of the Heart Wisdom podcast, |
... |
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