The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology » (Reprint)

Jack Kornfield is a Buddhist teacher and meditation master on internationally renown and a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and of Spirit Rock Center in northern California. A former Buddhist monk, he holds a PhD in clinical psychology. His books include A Path with Heart, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, and After the Ecstasy.

Experience the Transformational Power of Buddhism’s Psychology of the Heart with Bestselling Author Jack Kornfield

You have within you unlimited capacities for extraordinary love, for joy, for communion with life, and for unshakable freedom—and here is how to awaken them. In The Wise Heart, celebrated author and psychologist Jack Kornfield offers the most accessible, comprehensive, and illuminating guide to Buddhist psychology ever published in the West. For meditators and mental health professionals, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, here is a vision of radiant human dignity, a journey to the highest expression of human possibility—and a practical path for realizing it in our own lives.

Publishers Weekly

Author, psychologist and pioneering Buddhist teacher Kornfield writes his best book yet (and his previous ones were pretty good). His newest uses the same sweet narrative voice, provides convincing and illustrative anecdotes and stories, and reaches into world traditions and literature as well as contemporary scientific research. This book offers a systematic and well-organized view of Buddhist psychology, complete with occasional diagrams. Concepts and practices are placed in a framework that explains and connects them. It's all done with an eye toward application; most chapters end with exercises. Kornfield has been practicing Buddhism for close to 40 years, a lasting discipline that has produced this masterful book and a seasoned view of life that acknowledges a lot of oopses. As a mediator and psychologist, he has also witnessed some serious angst, including his own, and draws on it for illustrative power. Not everything here is new, least of all the title, but then the Buddha isn't either. The best is left for last: joy you can seek for yourself and others. Just keep your meditative seat, and this book by your bed. Kornfield comes across as the therapist you wish you'd had. (Apr. 29)

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Introduction 1

Part I Who Are You Really?

1 Nobility: Our Original Goodness 11

2 Holding the World in Kindness: A Psychology of Compassion 22

3 Who Looks in the Mirror? The Nature of Consciousness 35

4 The Colorings of Consciousness 48

5 The Mysterious Illusion of Self 61

6 From the Universal to the Personal: A Psychology of Paradox 79

Part II Mindfulness: The Great Medicine

7 The Liberating Power of Mindfulness 95

8 This Precious Human Body 110

9 The River of Feelings 124

10 The Storytelling Mind 137

11 The Ancient Unconscious 150

Part III Transforming The Roots Of Suffering

12 Buddhist Personality Types 167

13 The Transformation of Desire into Abundance 184

14 Beyond Hatred to a Non-Contentious Heart 205

15 From Delusion to Wisdom: Awakening from the Dream 222

Part IV Finding Freedom

16 Suffering and Letting Go 241

17 The Compass of the Heart: Intention and Karma 257

18 Sacred Vision: Imagination, Ritual, and Refuge 274

19 Behaviorism with Heart: Buddhist Cognitive Training 293

20 Concentration and the Mystical Dimensions of Mind 308

Part V Embodying The Wise Heart

21 A Psychology of Virtue, Redemption, and Forgiveness 331

22 The Bodhisattva: Tending the World 352

23 The Wisdom of the Middle Way 367

24 The Awakened Heart 382

Related Readings 403

Permissions 409

Acknowledgments 411

Index 413