Jack Kornfield is a legend in the American Buddhist community who has been a sought-after teacher for more than half a century. He has been one of the key teachers to introduce Theravada Buddhist practice to the West. He also holds a PhD in clinical psychology and clearly knows the value of a good story.
He explains in the Introduction: “These tales invite us into an illuminating, intimate, and universal realm that can touch the heart and awaken revelation and understanding.” Some of them comes from Kornfield’s travels, which include training as a monk in Thailand, Burma, and India. Others are adapted from the stories of friends such as Mary Oliver, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rick Fields, Fred Rogers, and Ram Dass. There’s even some Arthurian legend, a tale of Leo Tolstoy’s, and the three ancient Greek Furies, adapted here.
We enjoyed, too, the stories that Kornfield has adapted from friends of his who are not at all famous, such as Michelle McDonald, a preschool teacher, with one about the kids in her class learning about death and rebirth.
Devoted readers of Kornfield may recognize some of the stories, as they are reproduced and/or adapted from parts of previous books such as A Lamp in the Darkness, A Path with Heart, and Stories of the Spirit Stories of the Heart.
Occasionally, there is a simple teaching, told without story, on a single page, including one that begins “Mindfulness is not passive,” and another that starts with “The more you allow yourself to see your life as a series of initiations large and small, the more you begin to trust rebirth itself.” There are also pages with a heading of “Practice,” including one that concludes the book called “You Are Consciousness.”
It all combines to create a collection of wisdom teaching, carefully curated, for anyone seeking peace, vision, and meaning, and the spiritual practices of attention and openness.
