Author: Kornfield, Jack
Brand: Bantam
Color: Navy
Edition: Illustrated
Features:
Binding: Paperback
Format: Illustrated
Number Of Pages: 224
Release Date: 29-04-2008
Part Number: 9780553381191
Details: Product Description
You hold in your hand an invitation:
To remember the transforming power of forgiveness and lovingkindness. To remember that no matter where you are and what you face, within your heart peace is possible.
In this beautiful and graceful little book, internationally renowned Buddhist teacher and meditation master Jack Kornfield has collected age-old teachings, modern stories, and time-honored practices for bringing healing, peace, and compassion into our daily lives. Just to read these pages offers calm and comfort. The practices contained here offer meditations for you to discover a new way to meet life’s greatest challenges with acceptance, joy, and hope.
Review
“We could all stand a little of this kind of inspiration before starting or ending our day.”
--Shambala Sun
About the Author
Jack Kornfield was trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma, and India and has taught meditation worldwide since 1974. He also holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. He is a founder of the Insight Meditation Society and of Spirit Rock Center. He lives with his wife and daughter in northern California. His previous books include
After the Ecstacy, the Laundry,
A Path with Heart,
Seeking the Heart of Wisdom (with Joseph Goldstein),
Teachings of the Buddha,
Living Dharma,
A Still Forest Pool (with Paul Breiter), and
Soul Food (with Christina Feldman).
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
An InvitationYou hold in your hand an invitation:
To remember the transforming power of forgiveness and lovingkindness. To remember that no matter where you are and what you face, within your heart peace is possible.
The teachings in this book contain age-old understandings about love. They give simple and direct practices to help cultivate its qualities in your own heart. This wisdom is essential for all who live in modern times.
The words of the Buddha offer this truth:
Hatred never ceases by hatred
But by love alone is healed.
This is the ancient and eternal law.
Often we find ourselves in conflicts that unsettle our peace of mind.
We face difficult situations, and our problems can feel insurmountable.
Pain, anger, and fear can arise in ourselves, in families, in business, in communities, and between nations.
We would like to find a way out of the suffering,
Even in the worst situations, the heart can be free.
We who lived in the concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread…. They may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from us but the last of human freedoms… the freedom to choose our spirit in any circumstance.
—Viktor E. Frankl
Forgiveness and compassion are not sentimental or weak. They demand courage and integrity.
Yet they alone can bring about the peace we long for.
True love is not for the faint-hearted.
—Meher Baba
Our innate wisdom knows this is true. When Buddhist texts address us as “O Nobly Born,” they tell us we are all sons and daughters of the Buddha. Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.
In the words of Jungian Analyst, Robert A. Johnson:
Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide their dark sides. It is more disrupting to find that you have a profound nobility of character than to find out that you are a bum.
If we look at ourselves truthfully, we can feel the possibility of being more compassionate, more awake, more free.
If it were not possible to free the heart from entanglement in greed, hate, and fear, I would not teach you to do so.
—Buddha
Anger, blame, conflict, and resentment arise from our fear. When we are afraid, our body tightens, our heart is constricted, our mind is possessed. We cannot live wisely.
Forgiveness releases us from the power of fear. It allows us to see with kindly eyes
EAN: 9780553381191
Package Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.0 x 0.7 inches
Languages: English
