THE WISE HEART: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, Jack Kornfield

THE WISE HEART: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

Jack Kornfield

You have within you unlimited capacities for love, for joy, for communion with life, and for unshakable freedom—and here is how to awaken them. Trained as a monk in Thailand, Burma, and India, Jack Kornfield experienced at first hand the life-changing power of Buddhist teachings: the emphasis on the nobility and sacredness of the human spirit, the fine-grained analysis of emotion and thought, the precise techniques for healing, training, and transforming the mind and heart. In contrast to the medical orientation of most Western psychology and psychiatry, here is a vision of radiant human dignity, and a practical path for realizing it in our own lives.

Filled with stories from Kornfield’s Buddhist psychotherapy practice and portraits of remarkable teachers, it also includes a moving account of his own recovery from a violence-filled childhood. For meditators and mental health professionals, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, The Wise Heart offers an extraordinary journey from the roots of consciousness to the highest expression of human possibility.

“I love this gentle, brilliant, and incisive book. I read it slowly, with amazement at its richness and wisdom, relief at feeling so understood, pleasure in Kornfield’s beautiful writing and sweet humor, and gratitude that such understanding has been expressed in the written word. This Wise Heart changed me.” —Anne Lamott, author of Traveling Mercies

“The Wise Heart is Jack Kornfield at his most wonderful and illuminating. He brings to life a way to understand and cultivate mindfulness, compassion, lovingkindness and true wisdom that penetrates to the core of what liberation is all about.”—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Coming to Our Senses and Arriving at Your Own Door

“The Wise Heart offers more than remedies—it points the way to a life of flourishing.”—Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence

"Warm, funny, moving, and tremendously inspiring, The Wise Heart brings Buddhist psychology to life. Reading it is, in itself, a transformational experience.” —Mark Epstein, M.D., author of Thoughts without a Thinker and Psychotherapy without the Self

"This masterpiece of a dedicated life's work unveils the principles of an ancient 'science of mind' that is astonishingly consistent with the discoveries of modern neuroscience."—Daniel Siegel, M.D.

"The Wise Heart is one of those books, more than a book, more like a companion, that encourages our bravery to meet whatever confronts us in life with a caring and tranquil heart. It is a transformative gift from one of the great spiritual teachers of our time."—Alice Walker

Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned meditation teacher and one of the leaders in introducing Buddhist practice and psychology to the West. After graduating in Asian studies from Dartmouth College, he joined the Peace Corps and later trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma, and India. Kornfield is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and of the Spirit Rock Center in northern California. A husband, father, and activist, he holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.