Ep. 228 – Clouds of the Mind
Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield
Be Here Now Network
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Going back to the basics, Jack explores how we can skillfully navigate our dynamic mood states by experiencing them as clouds of the mind.
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!
"Moods are actually kind of mysterious and quite impersonal. They're like the weather. It's been kind of cool this year, then we get our rainstorms, and the sun comes in between, and the wind comes and dies down, and we don't have any control over it whatsoever. It just comes. It's due to certain conditions." – Jack Kornfield
In this episode, Jack compassionately illuminates:
- Experiencing moods as clouds or weather—arising and passing naturally from impersonal sets of conditions
- The six flavors of experience in Buddhism
- Finding the middle ground between acting on feelings and suppressing them
- The "vipassana romance" and understanding the "siren call" of desire
- Diffusing desire with humor, mindfulness, and noting
- Moving past attachment and aversion by leaning into them
- Techniques for overcoming doubt
- Letting go and becoming more happy and more live
"The optimist wakes up and says, 'Good morning, God!' And the pessimist wakes up and says, 'Good God! Morning...' It's the same experience, but the mood somehow changes it." – Jack Kornfield
"One sits and practices, and let's these experiences come and fill us. We bow to them, name them, soften in the heart and say, 'Okay, show me your stuff, give me the whole thing.' And you know what happens after a while? If you make this spaciousness in the heart and that still point, at some point it ends. Because everything does. You say, 'Wow that was a big storm of desire, wasn't it?' And there you are, and there's this sense of freedom that comes that that's not who we are most fundamentally." – Jack Kornfield
The Dharma Talk from 4/1/1988 at was originally published on DharmaSeed.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It happens that there is a middle ground between suppressing stuff and necessarily |
| 0:09.6 | acting on every feeling and mood that comes, which is the ground of understanding, of awareness |
| 0:16.7 | and compassion. |
| 0:19.1 | And this is the place between grasping and wanting or pushing the world away, a place of rest which gives authentic |
| 0:27.6 | strength and stillness and and understanding and |
| 0:34.1 | it brings that out in us. |
| 0:36.0 | Hey there, |
| 0:41.6 | welcome back to heart Wisdom, Jack Hornfield's podcast on the B Here Now Network. |
| 0:49.0 | I'm Ganesh, welcoming you to episode 228, Clouds of the Mind. |
| 0:55.0 | It's truly an honor to be able to share this episode, which was first recorded |
| 1:01.0 | for a Spirit Rock Meditation Center |
| 1:03.5 | Darma Talk on 4.1 1988. |
| 1:09.0 | This episode is all about mood states. |
| 1:13.0 | And one thing that we do have in common is |
| 1:18.0 | we all have moods, and these moods are dynamic and ever-changing, very much like Jack stays in this episode, like patterns of weather or clouds in the sky. |
| 1:31.6 | This was maybe the perfect episode for me to listen to. I don't know if that ever happens for you, but you just happen to put on the podcast app and whether it's Jack or Sharon or Ram Doss they're talking about the exact thing that you went through that week. |
| 1:48.0 | That was one of the first things that kind of drew me into this podcast world and now on the other side where I'm helping create, the same thing |
| 1:56.8 | happens. |
| 1:58.9 | This week I was in some heavy, heavy mood states, a lot of anxiety, depression, fear, and Jack heard it in my voice |
| 2:09.2 | when he called for a meeting. And he, rather than diving into work stuff had me sit down and just |
| 2:18.6 | ask me some question. Ganesh where is the fear and the pain that you feel? |
| 2:26.6 | Or is it located in the body? |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in -390 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Be Here Now Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Be Here Now Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.