Aging parents, unhappy teens, conflicts with siblings, money problems, family illness, addictions-all are part of accepting family life as an ongoing practice. These difficulties become even more burdensome in a society like ours., without much community, where aged people are shunted to old-age homes and where teens, isolated from their elders, often seek initiation in destructive ways. Underneath all these problems is the essential human need to be connected. Someone once said, "It is better to be wanted by the police than not wanted at all." For better or worse, family is the original source of this connection, offering both love and responsibility.

Family responsibilities never end. Many of us will find ourselves caring for parents through the slow decline of Alzheimer's, cancer, or stroke. Many others will be involved with difficult teens or family depression, or tending to marital conflicts or the divorces of our siblings, our children, ourselves. The sacrifices of a family are like those of any demanding monastery, offering exactly the same training in renunciation, patience, steadiness, and generosity.

Thus, when one middle-aged monk told me that monks had to self-discipline and sacrifice while a layman's life was by nature one of indulgence, I laughed. He went on, "You can eat when you want, dress as you choose, party, enjoy a succession of lovers, live a carefree life." I wondered whose lay life he was describing. Further conversation revealed that he had ordained at age twenty one, so his vision of lay life was left over from his own teenage years. He didn't understand that marriage, work, parenting, citizenship are their own forms of discipline.

From: 'After the Ecstasy, the Laundry'

~  Jack Kornfield

“Those who are Awake live in a state of constant amazement”

~Jack Kornfield

"Eh," Ajahn Chah would peer at me when I was

having a hard time, "caught in some state again?"

In the forest monastery we were constantly being

directed both to look at consciousness itself and

to precisely name the states that rose to fill it

throughout the day: frightened, bored, relaxed,

confused, resentful, calm, frustrated, and so forth.

Ajahn Chah would sometimes ask us out loud about

our states so that we could acknowledge them more

clearly. To a recently divorced monk from Bangkok

he chided, "Is there sadness? Anger? Self-pity?

Hey, these are natural. Look at them all." And to

a confused English monk he laughed, "Can you see

what is happening? There is distraction, confusion,

being in a muddle. They're only mind states, you

know. Come on. Do you believe your mind states?

Are you trapped by them?You'll suffer for sure."

Once we became more skilled at noticing, he would

up the ante. He would deliberately make things

difficult and watch what happened. In the hottest

season, he would send us out barefoot to collect

alms food on a ten-mile round trip, and smile at

us when we came back to see if we were frustrated

or discouraged. He'd have us sit up all night

long for endless teachings, without any break,

and check in on us cheerfully at four in the

morning. When we got annoyed, he'd ask, "Are you

angry?Whose fault is that?"

In popular Western culture we are taught that the

way to achieve happiness is to change our external

environment to fit our wishes. But this strategy

doesn't work. In every life, pleasure and pain,

gain and loss, praise and blame keep showing up,

no matter how hard we struggle to have only pleasure,

gain, and praise. Buddhist psychology offers a

different approach to happiness, teaching that

states of consciousness are far more crucial than

outer circumstances.

~ Jack Kornfield

Excerpt from 'The Wise Heart'

The thinking mind constructs views of

right and wrong, good and bad, self and

other. These are the abyss. When we let

thoughts come and go without clinging,

we can use thought, but we rest in the

heart. There is an innocence to the heart.

We are the child of the spirit. And there

is an innate wisdom. We are the ancient

one. Resting in the heart, we live in

harmony with our breath, our body.

Resting in the heart, we become trusting

and courageous, and our patience grows.

We do not have to think it all through.

Life is unfolding around us. As the Indian

master Charon Singh put it, "In time, even

grass becomes milk."

Of course, stories have value. As a teacher

and storyteller, I have come to respect their

evocative power, and in this book, I tell

many stories. But even these stories are

like fingers pointing to the moon. At best,

they replace a deluded cultural narrative

or a misleading fantasy with a tale of

compassion.

In my individual meditation interviews, I

try to help people drop below the level

of their story and see the beauty that

shines all around them. Psychologist Len

Bergantino writes about a series of

frustrating therapy sessions with a

patient who was either disconnected and

detached or excessively aiming to please.

"The feeling I had on this particular day

was I just didn't want to say one more

word to him about anything. So, to his

surprise, I took out my mandolin and in

the most loving mellow beautiful way I

could, I played' Come Back to Sorrento.'

He broke down in tears and cried for the

last forty minutes of the session, saying

only, 'Bergantino, you sure earned your

money today!' I replied, 'And to think,

I 'wasted all these years talking to

people.' " When we drop below our stories,

we are led back to the mystery of here and

now.

~ Jack Kornfield

From 'The Wise Heart'

Buddhist psychology wants us to release

unhealthy desires and hold healthy desires

lightly. To transform desire, we first have

to feel how it works in the intimate

experience of body and mind. Desire can

lead us from sublime pleasure to raging

addiction, from bodily survival to spiritual

longings. Desire drives mushroom hunting and

investment banking, Sufi dancing and rock

and roll.

But these are the contents of desire. What

does desire itself actually feel like when

it is present? What is its effect? What

happens when we grasp our desires most

strongly? There is a tension in the body,

an emotional contraction, a stickiness of

mind, a focus on the future. There is a

driven quality. Anxiety, jealousy, rigidity,

and insecurity all become stronger.

Desire casts a spell and we pay a price.

When we are lost in de¬sire, the heart

closes. In India they describe it this way:

"When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees

are the saint's pockets."When we meet someone

and are full of our own desire, we become cal-

culating, measuring what we say by what it will

get us. It's the same when we are hungry. If

we walk down the street with an empty stomach,

we see only the restaurants; we miss the trees

lining the sidewalk, the glow of the late-

afternoon sunlight, and the faces of the passersby.

A well-traveled friend confided, "I've seen entire

European cities through the lens of 'Where's the

restroom?' " In Zen it is said, "The secret waits

for eyes unclouded by longing."

From 'The Wise Heart'

by Jack Kornfield

Awakening Only Begins a Process

One of Buddhism's best-known maps of awakening comes from

the Theravada tradition of the Elders of Southeast Asia. The

Elders' map describes enlightenment as four progressive stages

of "Noble Understanding," each of which brings a new level of

freedom. The initial stage is called "Entering the Stream." Stream

entry occurs when we have our first taste of the absolute

freedom of enlightenment, a freedom of the heart beyond all

the changing conditions of the world.

But even though we have seen the truth, the Elders say, further

purification remains necessary for us to transform our character

and embody this new understanding in our life. Thus begins the

journey from stream entry to the second stage, "Returning Again."

Through a deep process, often requiring many years, we discover

and release the coarsest habits of grasping and aversion that re-

create our fearful and limited sense of self. Attaining the second

stage requires a continual and heartfelt attention to the suffering

that comes when we cling to our desires and fears, to our ideas

and ideals. As these forces of human life are understood, they

lose their hold on us. Finally, in a deep realization, the strongest

forces of desire, grasping, anger, and fear significantly drop

away. We fulfill the second stage.

The third stage the Elders call " Non- Returning." In this we are

irrevocably released from any remaining desire, grasping, anger,

and fear, nevermore to return to their sway. The very few who

progress to this third stage do so through a long process of

abiding in profound calm and emptiness. When wisdom grows,

the subtle movements of clinging in the heart are abandoned

the moment they arise. At this stage we rest in freedom and the

reality of the present, and the heart's deep peace is rarely

disturbed.

Finally comes the fourth and most extraordinary stage, called

"Great Awakening," in which the last traces of subtle clinging

even to joy, freedom, and meditation itself-fall away. Now

without the slightest identification with self, we are freed

from the vestiges of pride, judgment, restlessness, and separation

that veil pure being. The radiance of our true nature shines

unhindered throughout our life.

This map of the Elders explains how it is possible that a person

who has experienced an obvious and deep enlightenment can still

be caught in greed, anger, and delusion. After stream entry, a

person can give genuinely inspired

From: 'After the Ecstasy, the Laundry'

by Jack Kornfield