The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

by Jack Kornfield

“Just as the great oceans have but one taste, the taste of salt, so do all of the teachings of Buddha have but one taste, the taste of liberation.”

everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

namaste,

Buddhist psychology begins by deliberately cultivating respect, starting with ourselves.

Overcome any bitterness because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain entrusted to you…. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, you are sharing in the totality of this pain and are called upon to meet it in compassion and joy instead of self-pity. —Sufi master Pir Vilayat Khan

Buddhism teaches that we suffer not because we have sinned but because we are blind. Compassion is the natural response to this blindness; it arises whenever we see our human situation clearly. Buddhist texts describe compassion as the quivering of the heart in the face of pain, as the capacity to see our struggles with “kindly eyes.” We need compassion, not anger, to help us be tender with our difficulties and not close off to them in fear. This is how healing takes place.

“The danger is not that the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but that, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.”

As the poet Rilke reminds us, “Ultimately it is on our vulnerability that we depend.”

But in this vulnerable human life, every loss is an opportunity either to shut out the world or to stand up with dignity and let the heart respond.

We can start very simply by looking in the mirror. When we do so we are often startled to notice that our body looks older, even though we don’t feel older. This is because the body exists in time, but the consciousness that perceives it is outside of time, never aging.

Our ideas of self are created by identification. The less we cling to ideas of self, the freer and happier we will be.

What we take to be a self is tentative, fictitious, constructed by clinging, a temporary identification with some parts of experience. Self arises, solidifying itself, like ice floating in water.

Love says, ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says, ‘I am nothing.’ Between these two my life flows.”

“Being preoccupied with self-image is like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs.” When we release our grasping of self-image there is a huge relief, and the world opens itself to us again.

Learning takes place only in a mind that is innocent and vulnerable. —Krishnamurti

Zen Buddhists say, “If you understand, things are just as they are. And if you don’t understand, things are still just as they are.”

“To live is to roll up your sleeves and embrace trouble.”

Wisdom knows what feelings are present without being lost in them.

The poet Hafiz writes, Don’t surrender your loneliness So quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you As few human Or even divine ingredients can.

As Anne Lamott writes, “My mind is like a bad neighborhood. I try not to go there alone.”

But questioning our thoughts is at the heart of Buddhist practice. Is what we believe real, solid, certain?

Carl Jung explored some aspects of storehouse consciousness, using the term collective unconscious.

There is a personal and a universal unconscious. Turning awareness to the unconscious brings understanding and freedom.

Buddhist teaching shows how human development can take a significant step beyond the awareness and accommodation of drives that is the fruit of most Western clinical practices. It teaches that these deepest roots can be transformed in a way that brings a degree of freedom unknown to the West.

Through profound insight and deep meditation, these latent roots can be released, bringing successive degrees of freedom, called stages of enlightenment.

They will systematically bring up images of what they most deeply fear or hate or crave. In this practice, we can take any area of suffering in our life. We bring it to mind, then we carefully examine the unconscious roots of this suffering. Where is this suffering felt most strongly in our body? What are the underlying emotions, images, and beliefs that hold it in place? These difficult images, feelings, and bodily contractions are faced and examined repeatedly. With profound attention we discover these instincts and drives to be empty, the stuff of illusion, and we are released from them and become free.

Buddhist psychology differentiates between healthy and unhealthy desire. Then it leads us to a freedom that is larger than the desire realm, where we can transform desire into true abundance.

In Zen it is said, “The secret waits for eyes unclouded by longing.”

When we are present and connected, what else is there to do but give? An African proverb puts it this way: “It is the heart that gives, the fingers just let go.”

Benedictine brother David Steindl-Rast explains it this way: “What is truly a part of our spiritual path is that which brings us alive. If gardening brings us alive, that is part of our path, if it is music, if it is conversation…we must follow what brings us alive.”

When our experience is one of pain, hurt, loss, or frustration, our usual habit is to draw back in aversion or strike out in anger, to blame or run away.

the poet Hafiz writes, “Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I’d rather see you in better living conditions.”

When we learn to bear our own pain and face our own fears, we will no longer blame and inflict it on others, neither family members nor other tribes.

Zen saying reminds us, “If you understand—things are just as they are. If you do not understand—things are just as they are.”

“Experience comes trooping out of emptiness day and night,” writes the poet Rumi.

How amazing. All living beings have the Buddha nature of awakening and freedom, yet they do not realize this. Unknowingly they wander on the oceans of suffering for lifetimes. It is time to realize your own Buddha nature. —Prajnaparamita

The whole purpose of Buddhist psychology, its ethics, philosophy, practices, and community life, is the discovery that freedom and joy are possible in the face of the sufferings of human life.

Suffering is our reaction to the inevitable pain of life.

The Four Noble Truths insist that we face our pain, the pain in our body and mind and the pain of the world. They teach us to stop running away. Only by courageously opening to the sorrow of the world as it is can we find our freedom. This is the demand placed on all who would awaken.

We can try to distract ourselves, but our suffering will follow us. Facing our pain and suffering honorably is the only way we can grow.

There is an end to suffering, says the Buddha. Not an end to pain, but release from its power. This is nirvana.

Shunryu Suzuki explains it this way: “When you realize the fact that everything changes and find your composure in it, there you find yourself in nirvana.”

“Nirvana,” says the Buddha, “is immediate, visible here and now, inviting, attractive, comprehensible to the wise heart.”

conditions of water, earth, and sunlight arise. A Chinese Buddhist text describes these seeds: “From intention springs the deed, from the deed springs the habits. From the habits grow the character, from character develops destiny.”

On Karma

What is past is over. It cannot be changed. We will inevitably receive the result of our past intentions and actions. Our freedom lies in how we respond to these results. Our response creates new karma, new patterns that will eventually bear fruit. By creating a healthier future we can redeem the past.

Try this in your next argument or conflict: Take a pause. Hold everyone’s struggle in compassion. Connect with your highest intention. Whenever things get difficult, pause before you speak and sense your wisest motivation. From there, it will all flow better. This is the secret of wise speech. As the Buddha describes it: “Speak with kindly motivation. Speak what is true and helpful, speak in due season and to the benefit of all.”

the goddess Tara, who offers protection and peace;

instead of using the sacred medicines of peyote, mushrooms, or ayuhuasca, Buddhist psychology uses the power of the concentrated mind as a systematic gateway to expanded consciousness and mystical openings.

In Buddhism, the main vehicle for opening to transcendent consciousness is the development of inner concentration.

Ajahn Chah taught that any state of consciousness, no matter how glorious, is not the goal. What matters is how that revelation manifests—here and now in our daily round, when we are conversing or cooking dinner.