Illuminating the benefits of taking spiritual retreat, Jack highlights the importance of meeting our practice with great faith, great courage, and great questioning.

“It’s not a question of practicing and losing weight, or getting rid of our neurosis or figuring out our mother, father, husband, or wife trip; but it’s really to get the bottom of the question of life itself: Who are we? What makes up our experience? And to ask that question, to come to the end of our questioning requires a kind of passion, a kind of urgency, to see, to know.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack mindfully illuminates:

• The history and importance of taking spiritual retreat in Eastern traditions
• What it was like for Jack to take spiritual retreat with Burmese Buddhist teacher, Mahasi Sayadaw, and his Thai Buddhist teacher, Ajahn Chah
• Instructions for meditation and how to apply them properly to the retreat experience
• Moving beyond our psychological melodrama so we can gain deeper insight into the processes of mind
• Gurdjieff and using the fire of practice to transform our inner-world into a single whole
• Using our time wisely within the great mystery of this precious human birth
• Meeting our meditation practice with great faith, great courage, and great questioning
• The Diamond Sutra and how to live with a heart of light

This Dharma Talk on 10/07/78 from Insight Meditation Society was originally published on DharmaSeed.

“You say that practice is difficult. This is thinking. Practice is not difficult. If you say it’s difficult this means you’re examining yourself too much—examining your situation, your condition, your opinion—so you say practice is difficult. But if you keep the mind that is before thinking and planning, then practice is not difficult.” – Jack Kornfield quoting a Zen Master

For more podcasts like this from Jack, Trudy Goodman, Ram Dass, Sharon Salzberg, and more, please visit the Be Here Now Network family of podcasts.