Excerpts from A Path With Heart

by Jack Kornfield

We can find a clarity and simplicity even in the midst of this complex world when we discover that the quality of heart we bring to life is what matters most.

We must make certain that our path is connected with our heart. Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if, with our hearts, we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given. What matters is how we live.

"Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use." (C. Castaneda)

No one can define for us exactly what our path should be. Instead, we must allow the mystery and beauty of this question to resonate within our being. Then somewhere within us an answer will come and understanding will arise. If we are still and listen deeply, even for a moment, we will know if we are following a path with heart.

If you have the privilege of being with a person who is aware at the time of his or her death, you find the questions such a person asks are very simple: ‘Did I love well?’ ‘Did I live fully?’ ‘Did I learn to let go?’. These simple questions go to the very center of spiritual life.

"In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small thing with great love." (Mother Teresa)

The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are.

How do we manage so consistently to close ourselves off from the truths of our existence? We use denial to turn away from the pains and difficulties of life. We use addictions to support our denial. Ours has been called the Addicted Society, with over 20 million alcoholics, 10 million drug addicts, and millions addicted to gambling, food, sexuality, unhealthy relationships, or the speed and busyness of work. Our addictions are the compulsively repetitive attachments we use to avoid feeling and to deny the difficulties of our lives. Advertising urges us to kep pace, to keep consuming, smoking, drinking, and craving food, money, and sex. Our addictions serve to numb us to what is, to help us avoid our own experience, and with great fanfare our society encourages these addictions.

"The best-adjusted person in our society is the person who is not dead and not alive, just numb, a zombie. When you are dead you’re not able to do the work of society. When you are fully alive you are constantly saying "No" to many of the processes of society, the racism, the sexism, the polluted environment, the nuclear threat, the arms race, drinking unsafe water and eating carcinogenic foods. Thus it is in the interests of our society to promote those things that take the edge off, keep us busy with our fixes, and keep us slightly number out and zombie-like. In this way our modern consumer society itself functions as an addict." (A.W. Schaef - When Society Becomes an Addict )

The inner stillness of a person who truly "is peace" brings peace to the interconnected web of life, both inner and outer. To stop the war, we need to begin with ourselves.

"Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the spirit." (Napolean Bonparte)

This is the purpose of a spiritual discipline and of choosing a path with heart—to discover peace and connectedness in ourselves and to stop the war in us and around us.

There are many ways up the mountain and each of us must choose a practice that feels true to our heart.

We need to choose a way of practice that is deep and ancient and connected with our hearts, and then make a commitment to follow it as long as it takes to transform ourselves.

"I, too, have slept on nails; I’ve stood with my eyes open to the sun in the hot sands of the Ganges; I’ve eaten so little food that you couldn’t fill one fingernail with the amount I ate each day. Whatever ascetic practices under the sun human beings have done, I, too, have done! Through them all I’ve learned that fighting against oneself through such pratices is not the way." (Buddha)

We must learn to trust that what needs to open within us will do so, in just the right fashion. In fact, our body, heart, and spirit know how to give birth, to open naturally, like the petals of a flower. We need not tear at the petals nor force the flower. We must simply stay planted and present [in our practice].

Almost everyone who undertakes a true spiritual path will discover that a profound personal healing is a necessary part of his or her spiritual process. When this need is acknowledged, spiritual practice can be directed to bring such healing to body, heart, and mind. This is not a new notion. Since ancient times, spiritual practice has been describes as a process of healing.

Wise spiritual practice requires that we actively address the pain and conflict of our life in order to come to inner integration and harmony. Many people first come to spiritual practice hoping to skip over their sorrows and wounds, the difficult areas of their lives. They hope to rise above them and enter a spiritual realm full of divine grace, free from all conflict.

True maturation on the spiritual path requires that we discover the depth of our wounds: our grief from the past, unfulfilled longing, the sorrow that we have stored up during the course of our lives. As Achaan Chah put it, "If you haven’t cried deeply a number of times, your meditation hasn’t really begun." This healing is necessary if we are to embody spiritual life lovingly and wisely.

"It’s not the perfect but the imperfect that is in need of our love." (Oscar Wilde)

"People with opinions just go around bothering one another." (Buddha)

"The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it." (Sri Nisargadatta)

Many of the great sorrows of the world arise when the mind is disconnected from the heart.