Ep. 306 – The Spacious Heart: Transcending Duality Through Meditation and Sound
Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield
Be Here Now Network
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jack Kornfield leads a guided sound journey into spacious awareness—exploring meditation, mantra, and the freedom beyond duality.
Dive into Jack’s recently unearthed lost tapes from a vintage Yucca Valley retreat in 1990! Take the The Sacred Journey Home: Timeless Teachings on Freedom and Love Just Where You Are with Jack Kornfield
“When we touch spaciousness, we discover that in letting go there arises a natural compassion, the great heart of a Buddha. In this, we find that the true place of peace is one of trust—an open, spacious heart in the very midst of our life.” — Jack Kornfield
In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:
- The Spacious Heart: A guided sound journey into awareness, transcending duality, and opening to the vastness of mind and heart.
- Beyond Duality: Discovering consciousness as boundless as the sky, where there is no inside or outside, only open spaciousness.
- Weather of the Heart: Seeing moods, joys, and sorrows as passing like colors in water or changes in the weather.
- Enlightenment as Non-Perfection: The Third Zen Patriarch’s teaching that freedom is found in letting go of anxiety about imperfection.
- Meeting Life with Spaciousness: Guided practice for opening to difficult emotions and situations with equanimity and compassion.
- Mantra and Sound: Exploring Om Mani Padme Hum, the jewel and the lotus, and the seed mantra Ah as gateways to the heart.
This Dharma Talk from 7/12/1993 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center was originally published on DharmaSeed.
“Your mind is not limited to your head, but rather your awareness, consciousness, expands beyond your head to be open like the sky, space without boundaries.” – Jack KornfieldAbout 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 me, the most amazing line in all of Zen literature is this astonishing line from the Third Zen Patriarch: To be enlightened is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.” – Jack Kornfield
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What does that mean, perfection? |
| 0:05.0 | The Third Zen Patriarch writes about it in this quite astonishing line, |
| 0:10.0 | for me the most amazing line in all of Zen literature, |
| 0:14.0 | where he says to be enlightened is to be without anxiety about non-perfection, To not be anxious about non-perfection is to be enlightened, |
| 0:26.2 | because it's not perfect by your idea. It is perfect in the way that it is. |
| 0:48.3 | When we touch spaciousness, we discover that in letting go, there arises a natural compassion, the great heart of a Buddha. In this, we find that the true place of peace is one of trust, an open, spacious heart in the very |
| 0:58.1 | midst of our life, says Jack Cornfield in this practice-steeped episode of the Heart Wisdom |
| 1:06.3 | podcast. |
| 1:08.2 | 306, the spacious heart, transcending duality through meditation and sound. |
| 1:17.4 | This, I can say, is a heart wisdom like you have never heard before, packed full of many |
| 1:24.0 | meditations and something that I've never experienced Jack doing before, |
| 1:30.2 | him leading a deeply resonant, guided, sound journey into the spacious heart of awareness. |
| 1:39.3 | This is part two from last week and took place on July 12, 1993 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, |
| 1:50.0 | and is truly a vibratory journey, tapping into mantra, the healing power of sound, letting |
| 1:58.0 | go of perfectionism, and learning how to handle the weather of the heart |
| 2:03.6 | in ease, spaciousness, and grace. |
| 2:07.7 | But before we dive in to this meditative sound journey, I have some really exciting housekeeping |
| 2:14.6 | for you this week. |
| 2:16.6 | As I've been sharing Jack's Sacred Journey Home, |
| 2:20.8 | a retro course of unearthed lost tapes from a 1990 retreat in Yucca Valley is underway now. |
| 2:29.0 | If you sign up when this podcast releases, |
| 2:32.1 | you can join in for the second live Q&A call. But if you're |
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