Sharing a guided meditation and dharma talk, Jack explores the transformative power of Mudita - our innate sympathetic joy - through the childlike wonder of the Buddha.
This meditation & dharma talk were originally streamed live by Spirit Rock on 4/12/21. For more livestreams, meditations, & offerings, visit JackKornfield.com and subscribe to Jack on KZfaq: / @jackkornfieldchannel
Mudita Guided Meditation
Jack shares a guided meditation around Mudita, the Pali and Sanskrit term for shared joy. Visualizing those you care about, and imagining them as they were happy children, send out mudita, this vicarious, sympathetic joy. Then, have these individuals send the same love and well-wishes back to you.
“Notice what it’s like to invite in this quality of shared joy with the person you care about, how it uplifts your own heart, how it opens you to joy.” - Jack Kornfield
(27:00) - Joy & Suffering, Buddha & Mara
Welcoming us back into body after a potent meditation, Jack shares a dharma talk around mudita, our internal wellspring of shared joy. Telling the story of Buddha and Mara, where Siddhartha sits beneath the Bodhi Tree with Mara tempting and questing his innate natural joy, Jack illuminates the enlightening power of mudita for transforming our relationship with our resistances and difficulties.
“If resistance and difficulties arise, the response is to become curious,’Oh Mara, what is it that you want to tell me? Are you afraid of joy? What are you afraid of, my friend? Are you judging the joy?’ Bring a curious and loving heart even to the resistance that comes, even to Mara, ‘May you too be joyful.'” - Jack Kornfield
“Mudita invites us to open a channel to joy, delight, and creativity. Joy arises, like the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree, from following the heart’s silent source. When we get still, and the mind quiets, and the heart opens, and we remember that Buddhas live in joy even among the troubled; out of that stillness there is a silent source of something beautiful that wants to come through everyone of us.” - Jack Kornfield
(54:00) - Child of the Spirit, & The Middle Path
Reflecting again on the story of the Buddha, Jack illustrates one of the steps to Siddhartha’s enlightenment as a vivid memory of being a child, experiencing joy on his father’s field during the spring plowing festival. This visceral childhood wonder sparked the realization in the Buddha that he was finding enlightenment the wrong way, fighting against himself in such intense asceticism and renunciation. This insight that joy was one’s innate birthright would help pave the path of The Middle Way.
“Let yourself reflect for a moment on those magic moments of your own childhood - what that was like when the world was new, when morning has broken like the first morning? Remember it…because it’s in you!” - Jack Kornfield
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Jack Kornfield - Heart Wisdom - Ep. 128 - Mudita: Practicing With Joy In Our Heart: • Jack Kornfield - Heart...
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