Jack Kornfield, pioneer of secular meditation

Psychologies: How did you get introduced to Buddhism?

Jack Kornfield: I studied at the university, studied the humanities and natural sciences there. In addition, I had a painful family history: my father was abusive and paranoid. And what I was taught did not say a word about these traumas, emotional problems, about how you can arrange your life in spite of them. I felt in between two opposite worlds: between an intellectual world that was very rich and stimulating, and an emotional world where I was alone and had no support. It was then that one of my teachers spoke about Buddhism, which he was fond of. I said to myself, “This is incredible! So, there is a way to better understand yourself and work on yourself!”

Why did this tradition evoke such a response in you – more than, for example, Christianity?

J.K.: Perhaps Christianity would resonate with me just as much if it weren’t for one wonderful quality of Buddhism: it’s not just another belief system. First of all, it is practice and experiences that you need to experience yourself and which, as I quickly realized, will really make me feel better.

Do you remember how you felt during your first meditation? Instant relief?

J.K.: Oh no! The first thing I felt was the activity of my spirit, which could not be stopped. The feeling that I am overwhelmed with fear, hatred, that I am condemned to experience them and can do nothing about it. Then, as I trained my mind, I saw that there are many ways to deal with your emotions and the consequences of your personal history. And this discovery was both exciting and wonderful.

So much so that you left everything and became a monk in Thailand … But the most difficult thing is to return to normal life later: how did you return to the USA?

J.K.: Well… (Smiling.) During my five years in the monastery next to my teacher Ajahn Chah, I made progress on many points: I learned to find inner peace, I felt much more living in the present, I stopped chewing on the past … As a result, I decided to return to the USA and study psychology, to understand how it all works. And then I had a girlfriend, from work… You will never learn to cope with all this in a monastery! Gradually, my family history, pain, anxiety took over again, as if all these feelings were waiting for my return to crawl out of the closet. I had to start from the beginning everything that I learned in the monastery. Studying psychology has also helped me a lot.

That is, you were the first to build bridges between modern Western psychology and Eastern spiritual teachings, and this is due to your own experience?

J.K.: Yes, and I did it for myself! (Laughs.) I was able to notice, first on myself and then on my students, that there are problems that cannot be solved by meditation alone. Thus, psychological traumas and difficulties in relationships fall silent in the monastic community, because there is nothing there that provokes them. On the other hand, if you find yourself in close interaction with people and as soon as you start talking about these difficulties, they will immediately become real. Then you can effectively work on them. Before you want to progress in your being, you must first know and accept yourself, and until I went to Thailand at a young age, I did not know this.

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Is this the advantage of a psychotherapeutic relationship over a solitary meditation practice?

J.K.: Let’s put it this way: meditation alone is not always enough. In certain cases, the presence of another person, his qualified and benevolent inquiries are necessary. The two turn into a pair of consciousnesses that simultaneously open up to each other and open up to each other… And this can be very powerful.

And what has the Buddhist practice given you for your therapeutic work?

J.K.: I have been involved in many types of analytic psychotherapy: Gestalt therapy, psychodrama, various types of body psychotherapy, such as bioenergetic psychotherapy. They all helped me. Despite this, I admit that the most effective methods for me were those that combined several different dimensions: not only conversations, but also movement, games and symbols, like the Jungians. In any case, it is clear that the Buddhist mind training made my task much easier: I knew how to focus attention on my feelings and be aware of each of my thoughts. That is why I decided to teach meditation as soon as I got my degree in psychology: I wanted people to discover the effect of this practice in combination with our Western psychological approaches.

Since then, the presence of Buddhism in psychotherapy has grown, especially in the form of the principle of “full awareness”, which received theoretical justification from Jon Kabat-Zinn (Jon Kabat-Zinn). How do you see this evolution?

J.K.: As something for granted. Modern life is a source of stress for most of us. We are now busier and busier than ever: added to our personal worries in one way or another is the burden of suffering on the other side of the earth … In addition, I meet more and more people who are looking for a way to pacify their inner life, and this is what Buddhism offers. Finally, in the last 20 years, there has been a plethora of new neuroscience research showing that we can directly impact our well-being through meditation, all in just a couple of months!

But are we not losing the deep spiritual essence of Buddhism, considering it already as only a psychotherapeutic tool?

J.K.: (Silently rises, takes a rose from a vase behind his back, hands it to me.) Whether you’re a guinea pig in a neurological research center, a patient in a hospital offering mindfulness, or a student in one of America’s two thousand meditation schools, if you spend ten minutes sitting silently and being in the presence of that rose, then what you will experience is called spirituality. Because you don’t worry, “Where should I go to get groceries for dinner? Did I write this letter well yesterday?” You have returned to the light of the present, to the sacred beauty of reality. Once, when I had just finished a meditation class at Stanford University, one of the students suddenly came up to me and said: “I pay too much attention to money and affairs, I also need to go to the mountains and listen to nature, to this music that I forgot….” This is what spirituality is. This is a pain-torn patient who, under the influence of MBSR¹ reopens to others and shows tenderness.

After so many years of teaching, are there times when you feel like your emotions are stronger than you?

J.K.: Certainly! But at least I won’t be beating myself up. I do not practice with the goal of achieving perfection, that would be a terribly selfish pursuit. I just want to become more loving, more understanding, more forgiving… And I’m moving in that direction! Because there is nothing stronger than practice.

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How do you now, after years, look at your childhood and your father?

J.K.: Looking back, I see a lot of suffering, but I am aware that my father’s character was the result of pain in many previous generations. I eventually forgave him because I know he did what he could given his history. And because I decided not to carry this hatred and this anger in me all my life. But forgiveness does not mean acceptance: if I saw a man beat his wife, how my father beat my mother, I can tell you that I would immediately intervene!

What did he think of the path you took?

J.K.: He was a scientist and therefore a skeptic. But I’ve come to terms with it! When he got sick, he realized that I could be there for him, holding his hand, which I would never have been able to do before. I was there, calm and loving. And I know that, despite all his skepticism, he appreciated it: he did not want me to leave him. I stayed until the end.

Humility is the foundation of Buddhism. But how can you cultivate it and not give in to the temptation of proselytism when you feel that the practice has changed you so much?

J.K.: For starters, no one likes to be persuaded in this way. Try it on your kids and see for yourself! And then, Buddhism does not need words to convince, everything is much simpler: what you are convinces. “Oh, you look so calm and serene, how do you manage? Have you just returned from a Buddhist retreat? That’s how I should probably try it too.” It’s like love: you cannot force you to love. But love yourself, and your love will be contagious.

¹ MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) is a technique for reducing stress through mindfulness.