Jack Kornfield?

The Watercooler
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It depends on how do you understand the Dhamma, you may think that if there is no “I, my”, nothing will remain. To make it simple, Let’s see some simple examples:

Before you possess the car, there is no “my” in it. Since there is no “my”, you are not in it. If there is anything wrong with the car, you have no trouble. Now because of craving, you bought the car, it becomes “my car”, you are in it. If there is anything wrong with the car, you will be in trouble.

The car itself does not need “I, my” to be exist. It is what it is. With the cessation of “I, my”, “my car” becomes “a car”. There is no more suffering with the car no matter what happens with it. There is no condition that can cause you to suffer because of what happens to the car. If it is “my car” then if someone stole it or damaged it, “I” will suffer.

Do you think that if you forever removed the “my” from the car, you and the car will disappear without anything remaining?

Many children are suffering in Africa but you do not suffer because of that. Why?

Your beloved daughter who is living in Africa is in trouble and you are suffering because of that. Why? What is the function of “atta” in this case? Is this suffering caused by “atta” or simply by that “my” regardless if it is permanent or not?

Form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, consciousness do not need the “I, my” to arise and cease. Without “I, my”, they still arise if there is condition for them to be so. If not, they will not. That is their nature. If we insert “I, my” into them, we will suffer because of their changing nature. What do they change? They change from pleasant to unpleasant feeling, good to bad…When we cling to them, we cannot detach from them so they will bring suffering to us.

What we called “I” is simply “form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, consciousness.” We insert “I” into them so “I” will suffer. When we have “I”, we will have “my” and vice versa.

It is hard for someone who is drowned in craving to see the Dhamma. The Buddha said:

“I considered: ‘This Dhamma that I have attained is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise. But this generation delights in attachment, takes delight in attachment, rejoices in attachment. It is hard for such a generation to see this truth, namely, specific conditionality, dependent origination. And it is hard to see this truth, namely, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all acquisitions, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna. If I were to teach the Dhamma, others would not understand me, and that would be wearying and troublesome for me.’ MN26

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That’s how I see Kornfield too. :wink: I suppose if it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else, but it was him and his soothing words made me realize there was more to life than a continual rat race.

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I have the impression that the Buddha said there isn’t (samsara). :slight_smile:

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Oh, thanks so much for the correction! So nice to have people who still care about the facts!

And the robes are the wrong color.

It’s only relevant insofar as it is used (in a possibly misleading way) as a badge of authenticity. To be clear, I have no idea whether Jack himself does this, but you do hear it around the place.

Sorry to hear that. We should always make Dhamma available for everyone. We’re planning a retreat at the end of the year, and Deepika and I were just discussing how we can make it available for students and others with little money.

This is an important context. It’s not easy to understand what people are doing when you see it from the outside. It is definitely the case that western Buddhism positively filters for people who are suffering psychological distress.

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Maybe you and others believe that Buddha only teaches the conditioned (sankhata). Only formations that are seen arising and ceasing. The consequence of this view is that parinibbana must be a cessation without anything remaining. One goes out like a flame. There is nothing attained but a mere cessation. In fact one just makes a defnitive end to what we conventionally call our lives, nothing more nor less. According this reading it is like Buddha teaches that life is worthless, or its only worth is to definitively stop it because nothing else but suffering ends.

I believe it a wrong start to think Buddha teaches that there are only conditioned processes and formations to discover and see and know. Only khandha’s. What needs to be known too, is the unconditioned, the asankhata element, the Nibbana element. The texts also refer to it as: what is not seen arising and ceasing.

Buddha also teaches that we can be called ‘a being’…only in as far we are attached to khandha’s but what are we when we are not? At that moment, do you not exist? Does a Buddha not exist?
I feel, that moment you cannot be said to be this or that. There is no way to objectify who or what you are at that moment. I feel this is the unconditioned.

Both sankhata and asankhata are not a personal self, no ego, no soul-like entity, no atta, but i do not believe that the absence of an atta also means the absence of something peaceful, something stable, reliable, constant.

Parinibbana as a mere cessation is also closely connected to a very strong view and perception of an atta, or Me who is anxious, worried, disgusted with again being born, becoming sick, feeling pain, dying, loosing loved ones etc. This atta feels like this is all senseless, without meaning, only suffering.
Also this is all the perspective of an atta.

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@Green
Please try to stay on topic- I.e ‘Jack Kornfield’.
I think you spent a lot of time here

on the Nibbana topic.:smiling_face:

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I agree but my understanding is that Anjan Chah is Theravada and so endorses mirror polishing.

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Do you mean literally polishing mirrors? If so, why? If not, what does that mean?

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So it’s hard to explain outside of the context of “No mirror, no stand” but essentially the Zen idea is that refining behavior or consciousness is of ultimately of little use because enlightenment in all cases comes from the realization that there is nothing to refine.

Theravada reject this interpretation.

Refinements are referred to as mirror polishing and so by implication Theravada rejects the idea that mirror polishing is useless. Said another way, it endorses mirror polishing.

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Theravada endorses the development of behaviour and awareness, because they are important to achieve the goal. I wouldn’t say it endorses the view that these activities are mirror polishing.

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I feel like it’s worth making a few points:

Firstly there has ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE been more lay followers than monastics, I suppose with the exception of the wheel turning sutta when there where 5 monastics and 0 lay followers. This is because the monastics depend on lay followers not to starve. So the idea that somehow lay followers are less important or that teachings that focus on them are somehow less important is wrong headed.

Secondly while it does appear in the EBT’s that the Buddha states (can’t remember where) that a lay follower cannot achieve nibbana in this life, whilst a monastic can, the Buddha ALSO says that it is entirely possible for a lay follower to reach the status of “non-returner” and with the breaking up of the body be reborn in a heaven from which they achieve nibbana. So even in the EBT’s lay followers can definitely achieve a lot, AND they do NOT need to become a monastic to achieve enlightenment (just a god).

Thirdly, The EBT’s are full of lay people who are wise, generous, kind and destined for enlightenment and also full of monks who are stupid, obnoxious and destined for hell, there is no reason to think that there is some inherent difference in “levels” that make one group definitionally more advanced in their spiritual practice or attainments than the other.

Fourth Therevada, with its obsession with “levels” and convoluted metaphysics of mind-moments, textual conservatism, fabulous material wealth and extravagance in its material culture is just as far from the wandering ascetic movement of the Buddhas time as any of the other groups claiming to continue the Buddhas teaching, be they Mahayana, Western, or whathaveyou, what would the Buddha, or even better Maha Kassapa have made of the the Shwedagon in Yangon?

Fifth, the EBT’s and Therevada are NOT THE SAME THING, as has been amply pointed out here by Bhante @sujato and others.

Sixth, Jack Kornfield (and Goldstien, and Kabot Zinn and Sharon Salzbeg, and so on and so forth) have spent DECADES of their lives trying to spread what they understand of Buddhism to the world and worked tirelessly to promote mindfulness, peace, and dhamma, the dismissive tone and frankly condescending attitude of many of the posts on this thread is frankly staggering coming from people, many of whom may never even have heard of Buddhism where it not for the work of Kornfield and others who are now being mocked with labels like “upper middle Buddhists” and so on.

I love this forum and am excited to discuss the EBT’s but I have to say that the number of threads that seem to me to be much more focused on defending Therevadan orthodoxies and denigrating so called “secular” buddhists really does detract from the quality of the discussion here. How often do we have threads up questioning the timelines of Ajhan Brahm’s ordination? Never. It would be considered deeply rude. because it is. Perhaps we should give Kornfield the same respect or at least acknowledge that we are not in any position to know the true spiritual attainments in another’s heart.

Metta.

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Definitely lots here to consider, but I would like to point out that John Kabat Zinn defended against this

at least acknowledge that we are not in any position to know the true spiritual attainments in another’s heart.

specifically, by saying, roughly, yeh no, people who do horrible things aren’t enlightened. With Buddhism, the rubber hits the road where it’s there to see. I think it’s a really critical point. Definitely, he’s speaking to doctors, right, in relation to their profound ethics of do no harm. (my sister’s a doctor, I have a lot of respect for her, so please excuse me if I gush.)

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Minor correction: there were two lay followers before this, the merchants Tapussa and Bhallika. Interestingly, because there was no mendicant Saṅgha at that time, they took “two-fold” refuge in only the Buddha and Dhamma: The Great Chapter - The First Teachings becoming the very first “secular” Buddhists :joy:

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I think that’s a fair point @Meggers , I guess we CAN say that Hitler was not a good guy, but it seems to me that Jack Kornfield at least isn’t out there doing “very bad things” he just has an approach to Buddhism that some on here find too “secular”

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Excellent! Thanks for that @Khemarato.bhikkhu !!

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Hey Joseph,

Oh. I was thinking about my renovictioner landlord in the Lower Mainland who I discovered was an associate of “the Scarface of Canada.” (Sorry, are you from Florida? Kind of cheesy, hey, but that’s what that particular horrible mobster was called. And he met a similar fate.) Definitely not a good guy. Neither of them.

It could be that the complaint against Kornfield et al is that they are “too secular.” I haven’t been following that closely. But, you presented a lot for consideration, and there’s definitely no need to be nasty about that bunch. The American eastern seaboard is a really great place for so many of its people’s forays into eastern thought, culture, etc. And the Peace Corp. Americans believe in service. We know this.

That being said, I know that in my own work, I went out of my way to find East Asian abstract expressionists (yes, influenced by Buddhism, of course, DT Suzuki specifically) who had been overlooked by the big art critics who put that most impressive American art movement onto the international scene, and appreciated the quiet, largely unrecognized work of others who allowed me to create some much needed depth in my own.

Ya’ll definitely have lots of riches to be proud of. Enjoy it. For sure.

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Yes, I think the confusion is just because the person I was replying to referenced a very widely quoted Zen anecdote and I responded in kind. I appologize.

For more detail on the Zen use of the “mirror polishing” reference this is a nice little blog post.

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As I am the individual who put in the “Upper Middle Way” comment I would just like to clarify, it may seem to be a pejorative, but really it is only an observation of something that does, indeed, exist: a stream of wealthy, mostly white, upper middle class individuals who practice x-buddhism.

Personally, I take issue with anybody who tries to turn Buddhism into therapy, so yeah, some of them do that in the IMS circle. Neuroscience and Buddhism are irreconcilable in my opinion. Which I believe here we are able to discuss our personal opinions at times.

I think if anything this thread moved to appreciate them with many comments stating the importance of how some of us found the suttas or a deeper understanding of Buddhism through “Barnes & Noble Buddhism” and maybe even by following, even if briefly, the “Upper Middle Way.”

You are certainly right that lay followers are extremely important, and this is recognized both in the suttas and by many monastics.

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Actually, a lay person can attain full enlightenment. It is just that once they do, then they ordain within 7 days or pass away (according to Theravada).

Milindapanha III.19

“You say that if a layman attains arahantship he must either enter the Order that very day or die and attainparinibbàna. Yet if he is unable to find a robe and bowl and preceptor then that exalted condition of arahantship is a waste, for destruction of life is involved in it.”

“The fault does not lie with arahantship but with the state of a layman, because it is too weak to support arahantship. Just as, O king, although food protects the life of beings it will take away the life of one whose digestion is weak; so too, if a layman attains arahantship he must, because of the weakness of that condition, enter the Order that very day or die.”

I don’t think anyone questioned Kornfield’s “level” they were just referring to his approach and teachings and how it is not their cup of tea and how he has added modern trends of self-help, therapy and other things with the Dhamma. It certainly might be good for some people and get their interest into delving more into Dhamma practice and study. Not everyone will like his approach, but that doesn’t mean they are judging his “level” in any way.

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Must have been grumpy yesterday- still think the circling of wagons around these westerners, done mostly it seems from a Therevadan perspective is uncharitable, but looking back at my post so was I so pot kettle and all that.

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