SuttaCentral
For this book alone I will have great gratitude to Jack Kornfield. There was nothing like it at the time - An introduction to teachers who were actually living and teaching. It made the potential for the practice of Theravada Buddhism real.
Wasn’t Kornfield’s time with Ajahn Chah before Wat Pah Nanachat came into being?
From Stillness Flowing (the Ajahn Chah biography):
“the other was Jack Kornfield (Ven. Santidhammo) who, after practising in monasteries throughout Thailand and Burma, was to return to lay life and become one of the most influential teachers in the American vipassanā movement. Neither monk stayed at Wat Pah Pong very long…”
And
“In the months that Jack Kornfield was with Luang Por, he made assiduous notes of the teachings that he received and later printed them…”
There’s a misunderstanding of what retirement means.
@Khemarato.bhikkhu is saying retirement as in done what has to be done, there’s nothing else to do for the sake of liberation, the holy life has been lived, rebirth is ended. There’s no need for arahants to do restraint in morality (but to try to not break the 227 rules is still a thing, arahants might still break the minor ones) because the roots of unwholesomeness are eradicated, there’s no possibility for arahants to transgress the fundamental precepts of the holy life. There’s no more mental displeasure for the arahants.
@awarewolf notion of retirement is retirement from teaching the Dhamma. Of course we would like the arahants to keep on teaching as long as life lasts.
Jack Kornfield’s notion of retirement is the first one, where he seems to say that there’s work to be done still, and no sight of arahanthood is seen for him. So it’s safe to say that him and most if not all of the people he interviewed for the book “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry” are not taking arahanthood as what they mean by enlightenment, but a much lower level.
I understand his words to be more like: yes, there is happenings of awakening, but that doesnt mean your enlightened, free from suffering, - that there is more to be done, and that enlightenment can not be a happening.
Yes. The chronology is something like this:
1967: goes to Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer.
1969: ordains. I’m not sure where, but in the ordination photo it looks like either a village wat or a down-at-heel provincial town wat. It’s too decrepit to be a Bangkok wat and since he’s holding factory-manufactured robes it’s not likely to be an Ajahn Chah wat. After ordaining spends a few months with Ajahn Chah at Wat Nong Pa Phong.
1970: hears about Mahāsi-style vipassanā and becomes interested. Ajahn Chah gives him permission to go off and practise it. He then spends a year in intensive practice with the Burmese monk Āsabha Sayādaw at Wat Vivekasom in Chonburi. Āsabha (b. 1910) was a disciple of Mahāsi who taught in Thailand from 1952 until his death in 2010. In Path with Heart Kornfield writes of him:
After studying with my first teacher, Achaan Chah, who was impeccable in conduct, in many ways a model guru, gracious, insightful, and loving, I went to study with a famous old Burmese master for a year-long retreat. He was a grouchy old slob who threw rocks at the dogs, smoked Burmese cigars, and spent the morning reading the paper and talking with the loveliest of the young nuns.
In private interviews he was a very fine teacher. After training thousands of students, he truly was a skillful guide to inner meditation. But when I saw him in other situations, I became filled with doubts, thinking, “He couldn’t be enlightened.” It took weeks of inner struggle before it dawned on me that he was a great meditation teacher but otherwise a poor role model. I realized that I could take what was beneficial and not buy the whole package. I didn’t have to imitate this man. Then I became rather fond of him. I think of him now with affection and gratitude. I wouldn’t want to be like him, but I’m grateful for the many wonderful things he taught me.
After his retreat he then went around visiting most, or possibly all, of the Thai teachers covered in Living Buddhist Masters and wrote a sort of Baedeker Guide to their monasteries (published by the World Fellowship of Buddhists in 1978) He also paid a short visit to Wat Nong Pa Phong, during which there occurs the well-known episode where he tells Ajahn Chah (some accounts say Ajahn Sumedho) of all the wonderful things he’d experienced during his retreat and receives the reply, “Just more to let go of.”
1971: goes to Burma, takes a new ordination at the meditation centre of Sunlun Sayādaw. Stays there a short time and then goes visiting most, possibly all, of the Burmese monks covered in Living Buddhist Masters.
1972: returns to Thailand, though I don’t know where or for how long, and later to the USA. Then some time between 1972 and 1974 he disrobes.
1975: Wat Pah Nanachat is founded.
Do read the Theragatha and Therigatha. As well as Buddha’s own account of his night of awakening. There’s a clear transition from non-arahant to arahanthood. And liberated, they know they are liberated.
In a sense, there’s a point for not craving for enlightenment too much that the craving becomes an obstacle, a point of disappointment (as to anticipate each big insight as the final one), but the goal is still there, one shouldn’t use method language to dismiss that there’s no goal.
When i use the word “happening” its meant in like how i see arisings. Whatever that arises has ceasings in its nature.
And yes, i love both T’s 
Maybe Jack is used to speak mostly for spiritual seekers from different paths!?
Amongst many suchlike there seems to be what i call misunderstanding of enlightenment where they have had experiences of some deep mystical happening, and takes it to be more than an interesting and pleasent arising. I think Jack tries to warn against “spiritual bypassing”.
Besides the picture Danny showed of him in robes besides Luang Po Chah I found another where it looks like Luang Po Chah is the preceptor:
Your chronology is pretty spot on. I think Jack disrobed in 1973. He always gave the impression that he had it in his mind that he was going to be a lay teacher in the USA. His collection of talks in Living Buddhist Masters was to be his introduction to the role.
My only concern about the book was that Jack “sold” material that was clearly marked as “not for sale or commercial use”. Acharn Panna of Wat Pa Barn Tard told me that Jack did not get permission from Luang Ta Maha Boowa for the publication of Wisdom Develops Samadhi.
Ajahn Chah did not get authorization to ordain monks until much later than this, I believe. Most people who call Ajahn their teacher did not have him as preceptor.
No, it’s not him. The upajjhaya’s skin is too dark and his hair is too long. In Ajahn Chah’s wats they shave their heads fortnightly, while in most other wats it’s done monthly.
I can’t fault him for having an opinion based on his experiences.
I always had a problem with his books, because he wouldn’t clearly separate Buddhism from psychology, or one tradition from another.
I can otherwise enjoy and even benefit from reading opinions I don’t agree with.
I would have trouble with him redefining nibana, versus simply stating his opinion that it doesn’t exist and what the next best goal is.
It seems like everybody claims their favorite celebrity monk is fully liberated.
I am a big fan of Ajahn Brahm. Having listened to every talk of his in existence ( at the time ) I had to wonder how much of his good character traits he got from being raised in a loving well adjusted family versus what he picked up as monk.
Ajahn Chah didn’t have a job in a windowless cube or a commute. He was beloved in Thailand, even royalty came to visit him. It is easy to be saintly when you have fewer negative externalities and a lot of love from a lot of people.
Ajahn Chah may well have achieved nibanna, but there is no way I can know.
Somebody else can give you the sutta citation, but there is a famous simile the Buddha gave about someone achieving nibanna. He said achieving nibanna was like skinning a cow ( I think an ox ). A person cutting all of their attachments would be like someone cutting all of the tendons, tissues, etc from the cow’s skin.
You could put the skin back on the cow, but the skin will never be part of the cow again.
An arahant can be part of the world, without being a part of the world, until they die.
How could that be possible? Kornfield was a monk and he studied under several great masters. There is no way he could not know what the words nibanna, arahant, enlightenment etc meant.
Not that it isn’t worth discussing, but the question of the duration and/or quality of Jack Kornfield’s time as a monastic is potentially irrelevant here. (Unless he was deliberately misleading over the years, which doesn’t seem as though it was the case.) To me, it is whether or not there is persistent effort to establish, and remain close to, the themes present across the suttas that matters. He could’ve been a novice for 2 days, but if that was enough for him to established in Dhamma, then it was a fruitful stint.
I can’t say I’ve read him enough to say for sure, but what I’ve read seems to be something deliberately unique and at variance with some key themes. There is something to be said about accessibility, however, and as far as I can tell, Jack has not been an unworthy ambassador for “Buddhism”. As others have said, there are more practical writings to consider if the intent is to get to the earliest and most accurate account of what the Buddha taught.
Good points. When Ajahn Brahm was giving a talk at my place, someone asked him "was Ajahn Chah enlightened?" Ajahn Brahm answered “one day we were heading out for lunch dana and Ajahn Chah asked me to get something from his hut. So I went back to his hut and was surprised to see there was almost nothing there. Here’s a person who could have had much wealth, but instead lived so simply. At that time, I knew Ajahn Chah was an arahant.”
I like Ajahn Brahm and have respect for him, but I don’t think that’s a good answer. Of course, Ajahn Chah lived simply; he was a monk! He wouldn’t have a fancy car or house, living on a monastery in a kuti.
And yes, it’s easier to develop mindfulness and insight when you don’t have the distractions of lay life and career, which is why the simple life of a monastic can be best for attaining the highest states. Ajahn Chah may have achieved nibbana, but it won’t be simply because he owned nothing.
It was exactly the same for me. I would read the “heartwarming stories” in the books of that group’s genre, but I would always seem to be at a loss for being able to tell myself what I could do to make myself happier.
To be fair, I also had an emotional bias against the IMS crowd when I first started Buddhism and when I first read their books. I was a cash strapped student at the time. Their books, retreats, etc were all expensive to me. Wrongly or rightly, I just associated the IMS crowd with smugness or elitism - similar to the kind associated with the mentality behind status symbols.
What is your place? Do you mean at a monastery you live at or simply your city?
Thank you for trying to explain it. I’m not at all familiar with tantra. I could still use help understanding what “American Tantra” means and how Kornfield’s fits that. Would you or someone else care to break the description down to what a random person in the street could understand?
Thanks either way.
My house, which has extra space, so have set up a meditation hall. We had retreats and sitting programs pre-covid, but haven’t re-started them yet.
https://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Maha_Bodhi_Las_Vegas
