Sitting with Loneliness

Illuminating the deepening levels of spiritual practice, Jack explores how to let life breathe while setting your heart on gold.

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“What we’re doing in practice is feeling the actuality of how life is pulsing, moving, flowing and swirling, fast and slow, rhythmically, within our own body, within our own direct experience.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully explores:

• How to let life breathe while setting your heart on gold
• The importance of balancing our concentration, effort, and equanimity
• How the quality of presence can help the gold of the heart and mind shine
• Riding the body’s rhythm of breath as our main focus of attention and rest
• To feel of how life is pulsing, moving, and flowing through our experience
• Working with our loneliness, suffering, grief, fear, and longings
• Awakening into the present moment to see past the body of fear
• How recognizing spaciousness and impermanence helps us overcome our difficulties
• The power of trust, letting go, and letting life breathe

“People sometimes feel like it’s not worth it to practice. In the beginning it seems like you’re here 2% of the time, but if you continue and look honestly, you might be here 4% of the time. In one way, that’s discouraging statistically that you’re off 96%, but in another way it says you are now here alive and present twice as much as you were two days ago.” – Jack Kornfield

“The insight into the true path comes when we discover that we’re not trying to hold onto a single thing, not a perception, not a pleasant experience, not the calm of meditation—those are all parts of the waves of experience that rise and pass in space. The idea isn’t to hold your breath when you get something good to see how long it can stay, that doesn’t work very well. The idea is to let all of life breath. As we do, we let go moment by moment, more fully. We learn to trust, like the goldsmith, blowing on it, sprinkling water, softening, cooling, and a lot of time just giving presence so it’s beauty can start to show.” – Jack Kornfield

This episode from 10/09/1983 at Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.

Want to learn how to follow the Buddha's path to freedom in the modern world? Sign up for Jack's new online course Walking the Eightfold Path with Jack Kornfield beginning March 18!

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