Summer Solstice Dharma Talk—Jack Kornfield

let yourself relax and listen not so much to try to remember or take notes no quiz from this teaching but rather let it be a reminder to you of something that you already know here we are the week of the summer solstice the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere anyway and uh i see it i'm down in los angeles staying with trudy in her place even though we also live up towards spirit rock and marine part of the year and everything is blooming these huge walls of bougainvillea and people's rose gardens and i turn everywhere and there's blossoms like the sunlight is having its way with the green things and the flowers that want to grow and of course the sun the sun the center of our solar system the light that we all live upon it's something for us to pay attention to we take for granted ruth dennison one of our wonderful and great teachers now and ancestor was leading a retreat at insight meditation society in barrie early years and she was going through the refuges to take refuge in buddha and dharma sangha and ruth had her own accent having been born and raised in germany and a woman from the south came up and said i understand taking refuge in the buddha and the dharma but would you explain why we're taking refuge in the sun god and ruth said aha the sun god yes sangha sun god but in fact the sun is the source of so much it's what we live from and i'm amazed one of the best and most beautiful kind of reflections i have is that every single leaf that i see the trillions of quadrillions or whatever quintillions of them has this magic capacity to turn light into sugar to feed us all what an extraordinary thing and it all comes from the source of the most primordial light and here we are in the change of seasons which was the great turning and i remember friends who went to see a full eclipse of the sun in africa and they were up in the mountains i think in kenya looking out across this vast plain and as they looked across the vast plain this huge edge of a circle which was actually the shadow of the moon started racing across the plain and moving toward them until it reached them and they were in the total darkness of the full eclipse and they said it was like seeing the spheres the music of the spheres of the dance of the series you could feel the moon moving around the earth and the earth around the sun this is what we are a part of this great turning but as this season one of the interesting things is as it turns this week from the most light it starts to diminish and go toward the winter and the darkness and that's a question for us especially in these times are we headed into the dark you know dickens beginning it was the best of times it was the worst of times should we be optimistic or pessimistic there's lots of reasons for pessimism sensing that we're going into a kind of darkness climate change habitat loss the pandemic continuing warfare economic injustice racism the scourge of racism plato said only the dead know the end of war materialism you know the the loss of democratic values fake news whereas it said a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes this is samsara this is part of the deal of a human incarnation one british reporter is you looking at the u.s from england said i hope you americans learned how how to end an empire gracefully because that's also what's happening so we can see in some way through that lens of things getting worse democracy under threat the planet but there is also cause for optimism amazing possibilities the re-enchantment of the world movements for social justice and racial justice the science of of fusion reactors that will have you know no um terrible byproducts that the possibility of the interdependence that's come from the pandemic and climate change to bring a collaborative model to show us somehow our inner interdependence all of this is possible for us at this time and so many acts of goodness you know little acts of goodness i see the goodness on my husband's face when he sees the kids after an out of town trip or when my youngest son hears the fatigue in my voice and brings me a cup of water i see it in my wife when she greets the parking attendant or the cashier with such kindness and attention and respect i see it in my five-year-old daughter who says to the sun at sunset goodbye son i love you when my husband pulls over to help someone whose car has died and never ask anything for his time so many acts of goodness from mark morford he says stop thinking our global crisis is all there is realize that for every ongoing war and religious outrage and environmental devastation you know and fake news there's a thousand counter balancing acts of staggering generosity and humanity in art and beauty happening all over the world right now on a breathtaking scale from flower box to cathedral resist the temptation to drown and fatalism pessimism to shake your head and sigh and throw in the karmic towel realize that this is the perfect moment for enthusiasm for the re-enchantment of the world to change the energy to step right up and crank your personal volume right when it all seems dark or bitter or offensive acrimonious conflicted bilious there's your opening remember the mystery and finally believe in the seeds that you plant as part of a ground swell a karmic impending shift small but amazing the beginning of something important and potent and unstoppable so which is it dear hearts pessimism decline chaos or optimism potential new ways synergy if you stop and get quiet you begin to realize that optimism and pessimism are just ideas they're only thoughts the average person that said has 67 000 thoughts a day how do we even know which ones to believe hope one said is almost as great a deceiver as despair because thoughts are like empty clouds they appear and disappear and they only have the power we give them so breathe for a moment with me quietly and step out of the thrall of spots and just listen deeper for the opposite the opposites of optimism or pessimism it's not realism it's mystery remember the story of the poet lord byron he was taking an exam at oxford university and it was a class on theology in the bible that one had to study back in those days in the 1800s and for the whole hour and a half the proctor walked back and forth and saw lord byron now just sitting quietly not writing anything in his notebook while everyone scribbled away on the question the question was write an essay about the miracle of jesus turning water into wine and byron sat and sat until finally the time was about to ring and the proctor came by and said have you finished you only have a couple more minutes you've written nothing byron smiled got quiet and wrote a few lines one line the water met its master and blushed he got an a he got an a because he listened so beautifully to that mystery what mary oliver calls it being a bride married to amazement when we get quiet we can feel ourselves in the turning of the spheres and the way that the world works when you go on a very long retreat a year or three years the retreat master will say while you're on retreat many people will be born and many will die and your task is to sit and open your heart to it all if we have earth we have to have death that's how it works if there's birth there is death if there's gain there's loss if there's joy there's also sorrow the world is constructed this way if our earth didn't spin on its axis and turn the way it does and was still one side would be freezing and the other side would be baking and boiling but the truth is that all things turn and we are part of these great turnings of birth and death and gain and loss and pleasure and pain joy and sorrow remember the ojibwa saying sometimes i go about pitying myself when all the while i'm being carried by great winds across the sky and so on the solstice we can quiet ourselves and feel this great turning the timelessness of it mindfulness it's a kind of a prosaic word i like to use the word mindful loving awareness is an invitation to see with the eyes of wonder i was recently i wasn't recently asked and invited to give last words to a dear friend who was dying and while i couldn't visit in person and i have in many cases with people that i'm close to i was able to say can you put the phone up to her ears oh nobly born i began as if in the text of the tibetan book of the dead now is the time to let go now is the time you are leaving this body you are dying it has come to this time listen carefully let go into the light into the ocean of light and love that is who you really are the pure clear light that is your true nature trust it relax into it it is your home and it felt so moving to be able to join with this loved one in this mystery this is to see with eyes of wonder and to remember that who we are underneath it all is the light it's the light that thomas merton saw walking down the streets of louisville kentucky shining out of everyone's eyes and say what was i doing monastery said when i could see the luminosity behind the eyes of every human being going by but of course the question is well how how can we see it in this way i love this poem that i've read for years and years of barbara ruth she writes i'm a country girl again in a middle-aged disabled body i once walked the six miles from my house to kent lake in four hours but that wasn't my best time my personal best is eight hours and fifteen minutes that includes time resting with lizards sunning on the rock writing down a dream remembered staring at mount barnaby listening to woodpecker in the tree that harbors osprey's nest this is how thomas merton goes on of what a veil is it to travel to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates from us from ourselves and from one another without this loving awareness we're in exile from the natural world from our own bodies from the sacredness of the earth a couple of years ago i told a story that's quite famous in zen it's the story of sancho and sage joe was a young girl whose mother died shortly after she was born and then some time later her older sister died in those days there were without antibiotics and other things the death of children was perhaps more frequent was more frequent than here and she became the anchor for her father for cho khan at least i have this beautiful daughter still and seijo played a lot with a cousin of hers a neighbor a distant cousin named ocho and because they got along so well people would joke and say oh you're such a sweet young couple you little ones you'll make a good marriage when you grow up and so they believed it they played and believed they were married in some way in their hearts and over the course of time their love deepened now it happened that cj was also quite beautiful she grew into this winsome and lovely woman and she had many many suitors and finally when she came to marriage age her father announced to her which was true at that time the way that arranged marriages were to happen that he'd agreed to have her married to a young man from a very prosperous family and that the marriage would take place in just a month she was shocked wept depressed cast down she thought she was marrying o2 that was the love of her heart she was so brokenhearted as it was he was so brokenhearted he could barely breathe and he decided to run away he couldn't be around what was happening and so he took his boat and put some possessions that he had and bid goodbye to his parents and began to go to take the boat downstream from the river that was by the village where they lived and say joe hearing that he was doing so that night gathered a few things in the knapsack and ran along the side of the river calling out his name ocho ochu until he pulled the boat over and said get in and they went down the river together and found a village some far distance away and began to work and build a life together they got married they had two beautiful children and they lived together but after five years the regret of leaving her old father and the longing for their home came stronger and stronger and she said we have to go back so they got back in a boat and they went upstream and finally they arrived at the dock near her father's house and ocho got out and he went toward the house and he met the father chokhan and he began to apologize and said we're here we've come back to apologize for leaving and leaving you in a we're so sorry and bowed deeply and the father got angry and stunned and he said what are you talking about what are you talking about say joe never left sejo is here in bed she's lied in bed lay in bed without saying a word for five years and i've lived with her not quite alive and not quite dead being in bed unable to speak and the young man coach said no she's here with me in the boat we have grandchildren for you to see and the father sent a servant out who came back and said yes she's there and the father's eyes got wide and seijo came out of the boat and walked toward our home her home and at the same time the seijo who was in the bed stood up and walked out of the door this is a mysterious story and the two of them came together and entered one body and say joe's spirit or soul that had left her body became reunited again and her father wept with joy and freedom so this is a famous koan a famous story and it has many levels who are we really are we our body are we that soul that goes elsewhere that spirit who is saijo when we're brokenhearted when we go through a grave illness when all these things separate us from ourselves who are we remember the poem from that i read so often it's almost like a buddhist text from juan ramon him in a ramon jimenez called i am not i yo no soy yo i am not i i'm this one walking beside me whom i do not see whom at times i manage to visit and at other times i forget the one who remains silent when i talk the one who forgives sweet when i hate the one who takes a walk when i'm indoors the one who will remain standing when i die and this poem itself speaks of how we split off how do you do it there you are indoors but somewhere else your heart is in the mountains or by the ocean how many ways we've split off we walk down the street on automatic pilot we eat not paying attention to the mystery of the food coming into our body we come home and we don't see the eyes and the spirit of the people we live with and i make it a practice when i come back to look at trudy and try to see her anew each time in some special way but we get carried away with our busyness you do or we have in us shame or guilt ambition depression these default networks that we get lost in even in our spiritual life we lose ourselves just as we can lose our self in shame or anxiety or guilt spiritual life can be a grim duty we're trying to perfect ourselves and make ourselves better improve ourselves or a bypass let me go to the light and not really deal with all that's broken in my heart so like say joe we all have our exile you do and i do and often we don't even know the extent of it of our exile how lost we are until we stop until the tears come my daughter caroline sometimes she'll you know she critiques what i do as a as a good child should do with a parent she's a dad you tell so many stories you know you tell these heartbreaking stories but then i look at her she runs this beautiful non-profit called oasis oasis legal services she and this group of hotshot young lawyers that's now become one of the chief places for lgbt whose lives are in danger from around the world to get asylum and she sits and she hears their stories who they may never have told to anyone she listens because they need those stories when they go into an asylum interview and people will tell them the way they've been abused or tormented or raped or mistreated in uganda or el salvador or wherever it happens to be so many places around the world and i said to caroline you know we need to hold these stories in our heart too the buddha when teaching a group of people could tell how important this was and told a famous story about a king whose whose followers captured this great elephant in the forest one of the elephant kings and brought him into the king's palace to lead all the other elephants and the king in battle or procession but the elephant wouldn't move the elephant would do nothing but stand there and finally the king called uh i don't know what you would call it an elephant whisperer some man or woman who knew the heart of elephants who could listen and this elephant sage came and spent time and said oh your majesty this great elephant who would be proud to lead your processions cannot move because when he was captured he'd been feeding his old old mother who couldn't get food well in the jungle and now she's alone and he's terribly worried and the king said then go find this mother and bring her here and we will treat her beautifully and give her the best of foods and they did so and the buddha went on this tenderness where we love someone and care for them no matter what the distance he said this is what opens the heart of all those in the dharma and he went on when his listeners said that buddha shed floods of tears by reason of the softness of their heart they became fully attentive and then awakened mindfulness mindful loving awareness is the way to end to the end of exile it's the inner quality of illumination of the path to well-being and freedom and in this week of the greatest light of the summer solstice it's a time to also let that light shine within us to remember that who we are is awareness itself this luminous quality of mindful loving awareness and as we do we bring this mindful loving awareness to this fathom-long body as we did in that opening meditation loving kindness for the body to honor it to thank you to our body for all that it carries to tend its wounds and come home to it with love to feel the mystery of being incarnated and how life wants to continue in you the body wants to heal itself and continue as voltaire said the art of medicine for a physician is primarily to amuse the patient while nature does the healing yes an orthopedist can set the bone yes a physician could put on antibiotic to stop the bacteria but then the body has to heal itself and it does day after day again and again it is filled with the luminosity of light growing like spring of renewing itself in this mystery and when we bring mindful loving awareness to this body it teaches us it teaches us to trust the healing we feel the breath and we start to feel inter-breathing with the whole world that we are connected in breath with all things and all things arise and pass like the breath and change and we find a vast stillness in the midst of it this mindful loving awareness teaches us how to be present with love and this body when we did that meditation practice and invited light in deep meditation when the mind becomes concentrated and focused and still the literal experience is that the body fills with light it dissolves into light because the nature of consciousness when it's not obscured by the busyness of mind when it's not lost in that outer way of reacting and it becomes still and silent and present is luminous itself as the tibetan book of the dead says remember the pure light the clear pure light from which everything comes to which everything returns your own true nature and this is a direct experience and with it as we quiet the mind and tend the heart we learn to love with a tenderness i mean i try to run or jog i would say every day pretty much five six days a week but i'm turning 76 so i have to wrap my knees with some you know strong support to do it but i still can do it and i so feel the beauty of being able to move my body and i say thank you thank you to my knees for still holding out thank you to this body that i tend and love and care for i shine the light of loving awareness in myself as you just did when we sat take a moment quiet maybe even close your eyes instead of exile like say joe what happens if you really come back to your body what is calling to you in your body what wants to be loved what wants to be healed what wants to be honored what are the honest lessons that your body wants to teach you just now in this season you can know and feel now how your body is connected to the body of the earth with every drink of water with every breath and every step you are of this earth what is this illumination of mindful loving awareness this end of exile what does the earth want you to know just now this is one of the beautiful things of meditation you can open your eyes if you wish it shines a light it opens to the light it listens it illuminates and just as our body can be illuminated so to our heart with all its feelings you know when i teach about feelings and emotions i have this list of 500 feelings starting with the a's of feeling aggressive or abandoned or amused or apoplectic or animated or angry and you know goes on to fees of bored and bunkered and belligerent and you know betrayed and bright and thousands hundreds of different feelings the heart is an organ that can open to the ocean of feelings but it's also an organ of light when you pay attention especially with those difficult feelings of fear anxiety anger grief depression they arise because you care you wouldn't be angry if you didn't care you wouldn't be afraid or worried if you didn't care and underneath that which is difficult there is illumination and care and love and joy and connection when we pay deeper attention the difficulties as they say is where the light shines through that's where the heart cares the deepest and we can let that light hold the whole of the heart with all of its possibilities hold it with beauty hold it also with lightness and ease here's a story i haven't told in a long time that called to tell tonight what it means to hold all that we're going through all the feelings of the heart illuminated in the light of mindful loving awareness as they come and go roberto du divince stevencenzo who was the most famous argentine golfer kind of the equivalent of tiger woods finished a tournament one day which he won and he went back to the clubhouse and smiled for the cameras and they gave him his great you know accolades and then they gave him a gift and at the end he went back to his car and the parking lot was approached by a young woman a charming young woman who congratulated him on his victory and then told him that her child was seriously ill and near death and just you know poured her heart out and he was so touched by her story he took out a pen and signed over his day's winnings to check to her pressed it into her hands and said make some good days for the baby the next week when he came back to that club and had lunch some of the guys in the parking lot came up to him and said you know last week that woman who was here after the tournament steve vincenzo nodded well they said i have news for you she's a phony she doesn't have a husband a family she has no child she's got no sick baby she fleeced you my friend di vincenzo looked back and said you mean there's no baby who's dying they said that's right and he smiled that's the best news i've heard all week think about it what does it mean to let the illuminated heart shine all the things we hold onto out of our fears the way we care the way we repeat our stories the frightened heart the judgmental heart your eyes again with the illumination the quieting of the mind and the illumination of awareness what does your heart need right now what is it time to let go of in the heart so you can be free what is it time to illuminate and hold with more love you can know so many frightened hearts in the world worried hearts like your own that we share let yourself imagine that the wisest and most loving being has left a gift at your feet the gift is a clear symbol of just what your heart needs to move through this time of the summer solstice through this time on earth with all that we're sharing and going through just what your heart needs to live with love and wisdom and imagine picking up this gift and unwrapping it the clear symbol of what the heart needs holding it up to the sunlight you can see you can know and sometimes it's so simple it's a crystal that has many facets and you remember oh yeah there are many ways to see things it's a staff that gives you support from the earth let the symbol appear and this is another way of the illuminated attention listening to the wisdom of the heart the mind just as we can illuminate the heart with love and attention just as we can illuminate the body what about the mind wow so many stories thousands of stories and opinions and views as they say the mind is a good servant but a poor master it doesn't mean we have to do battle with the mind the mind produces thoughts the way the salivary gland secretes saliva it just does but we can step back quiet ourselves and see it all with a loving heart where the mind can put us in exile into the past and the future but all those thoughts are like a dream like say joe and ochu where we're coming back to is this amazing present moment just where we are the mystery of being alive of this breath by being able to see and taste and smell and touch and love and so you witness the mind with the illuminated mindful loving awareness instead of fight or flight it's tend and befriend and as you do from this perspective of illuminated attention you can nourish what's beautiful in the mind and stick that han says the mind is like a beautiful piece of piece of earth with many different seeds in it seeds of joy and peace of well-being and mindfulness and understanding love and also seeds of fear and anger and craving hate forgetfulness these healthy and unhealthy qualities are there always sleeping in the background in the soil of the mind the quality of your life depends on the seeds you water if you water the seeds of peace peace will grow when the seeds of happiness are watered you will become happy if the seeds of anger are watered you become angry the seeds that are watered are those that will grow strong let the sunlight of your attention and loving awareness tend the garden of this mind and heart and let beautiful things grow who you are is this light who you are his loving awareness itself is the consciousness that was born into this body the consciousness that creates all things you're not the body or the emotions or the thoughts they come and go you are the awareness that witnesses in all so then the question is now what and i love this question because i've been with grandchildren and you know we'll take them out to a special place to eat and get a great you know ice cream and or see a wonderful movie or things like that this is sort of a common plant in in our trudy and mine our time with grandchildren and then something beautiful would happen and it would be over and they'd look at us and they'd say now what and you may ask the same thing now what what's next remember the story remember the story of the monk or the nun who was a monk who struggled and struggled to become enlightened and although he got a little bit stronger and steadier he still didn't understand and he heard that there was a great wise hermit living at the top of the mountain so he decided to visit her one day and he made the long trek up and up the trails in the mountains and near the top he found an old woman coming down carrying a huge bundle with bright eyes and he realized this was the hermit coming down the mountain coming back into the valley and he looked at her and he said ah you are said to be the wise one i've been seeking enlightenment is there anything you know of this and she looked at him kindly stared at him steady her eyes and then dropped her bundle onto the ground and he realized oh that's it just let go she stood there plainly on the earth carrying nothing free and he became illuminated he realized oh this is what i needed to do to stop even seeking to be enlightened to be anything just to be sounds good doesn't it huh there you are maybe it worked for you but then he asked now what he asked that same question that the grandchildren who didn't want to be bored asked but here he was illuminated he said so now what and she reached over and picked up the great bundle and put it on her back and continued to walk down toward the village in the town and the depiction of these and the great scrolls of zen teachings and so forth show the sage entering the village with what are called bliss bestowing hands looking upon everyone with the eyes of tenderness and loving awareness and compassion that they too might be free when you see with the eyes of wisdom and compassion you can see the light behind the eyes of everyone else the secret beauty the holiness of simply being alive and it doesn't matter how dark things get and how difficult they become light a candle in the darkness and whether it's been a year or a thousand years that light will illuminate it light it with your own heart for you become like it says in the tao when your heart is at peace you can watch the turmoil of beings and remember their return like the turning of the seasons if you don't realize the source the illuminated source of where we come from the pure light your own consciousness you'll stumble caught in confusion and sorrow when you realize where you come from you naturally become tolerant disinterested amused kind-hearted as a grandmother dignified as a king immersed in the wonder of the dao you can deal with whatever life brings you and when birth and death come you are ready for them all even in the solar eclipse when there's no light from the sun the moon shines with earth light reflected back on it light finds its way into everything the green wants to grow the green wants to bring blessings back into this earth year by year your body wants to heal in you is the innocent child of the spirit born an inviolable beauty and light that gets covered over what you'll see when it comes time to die that who you are is spirit and not this body but you don't want to wait don't wait till that time this is the time to carry your lamp the last words of the buddha to make of yourself a light jasper was identified labeled as a child with down syndrome in his in his case his parents explained it should have been called up syndrome every morning when he woke up he rushed into his parents bedroom and left onto them with enthusiasm happy to you morning he meets the entire world with his heart outstretched and hugs everyone he can they used to call his state parents of similar children warned jasper's parents to curb his hugging behavior or he could be the target of molesters they disagreed knowing jasper's loving nature was his gift one day jasper and his parents were walking down the street and jasper got out in front of them he was almost 12 by then an angry looking man with tattoos and piercings came toward him and jasper's mom thought uh-oh but it was too late jasper looked up smiled stepped in front of him and threw his arms around the man's legs shouting hi there hi there and the tough guy paused and tells a towel tousled jasper's hair where jasper was not so tall yet and then his mom saw this innocent looking smile come over the tough guy's face jasper had done his magic again this is your time to carry the light to make of yourself a lamp to pretend you're enlightened and who knows if you pretend for a while could happen and how long do you do it as long as it takes to step out of the body of fear to step beyond the limited sense of self to end the exile of being lost in your fears and shame and all the things that keep you from actually loving this body this moment this earth and then you plant seeds for the earth that so needs it you care for justice you care for the climate you care for one another because you become that light you become that carrier of luminosity you are that heart this is why we meditate yes there's healing yes there's breathing yes there's vision sometimes yes there's things we need to come to terms with in ourselves yes there's a ways of quieting ourselves and opening in the end it's to remember who you really are the end of exile the illumination it is who you are your true nature you are loving awareness itself trust it you're the witness the consciousness you are that same light as the sun the same source rest in it it is your home you

Channel: Jack Kornfield

Views: 8,877

Rating: 4.8228784 out of 5

Keywords: mindfulness, meditation, buddhism, jackkornfield, jack kornfield, summersolstice, summer solstice

Id: eo-t8pjEYSo

Length: 55min 8sec (3308 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2021