Kornfield: Who are the 12 Living Masters?

Sharon, Joe, Jack, Sylvia(?) The Best of Sharon Salzberg: Life, Teachings, Quotes (Awaken)

Living Dharma: Teachings and Meditation Instructions from Twelve Theravada Masters

• The full classic text FREE: Living Buddhist Masters by Jack Kornfield (Internet Archive)

Once upon a young American from the Bay Area in California decided to go on a spiritual quest.

(Yes, that's true of writers at Wisdom Quarterly, but this time we're talking about Jack Kornfield, who preceded us).

Kornfield decided to seek the wisdom of the East along with his hippie friends from the East Coast.

Jack Kornfield: Life is funny because karma is.

While working in the Peace Corps and learning languages in Asia, he trained to be a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma, and India (just like we did, although we added Sri Lanka, where many of the sutra texts are stored along with their chief translator, Bhikkhu Bodhi, our teacher and inspiration.

Buddhism for Beginners (Jack Kornfield)

Wishing to visit Thailand, a friend who became Tan Jess, and I heard about Kornfield's guide to young seekers, which talks about a dozen living masters one might possibly study under in the original wandering ascetic forest tradition). Kornfield was good enough to write about his experiences under ten teachers, ten living Buddhist masters, for a Western audience back home. Not everyone is called to let it all go and go East. (But we were). Thankfully, Kornfield was.

The Wise Heart (Jack Kornfield)

Miraculously, he found what he was looking for, and not only he but at least four others. All seem to have attained the path of stream entry (the first stage of enlightenment) there under Dipa Ma and others.

There is Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein (IMS, IMS Forest Refuge), Sylvia Boorstein, and we could swear there was someone else who is not Trudy Goodman (founder of InsightLA.org) because she came into Kornfield's life much later and is now his wife, but maybe it was his previous wife, Liana.

Kornfield awakened (probably in Dipa Ma's living room in India), was sent back to the US, and is now the co-founder of the Bay Area's Spirit Rock Meditation Center near San Francisco and one of the co-founders of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.

What does Kornfield teach?

Where does he teach? Spirit Rock and InsightLA

Kornfield has worked to make Buddhism accessible for Westerners [10], combining loving-kindness and self-compassion with the practice of mindfulness. He incorporates the wisdom of Eastern and Western psychology. In his book After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, he writes about the honest development of the wise heart within the cycles of day-to-day life.

Original 1977 cover of the book

For instance, "amid all the Western masters and teachers I know, some idealistic perfection is not apparent.

"Times of great wisdom, deep compassion, and a real knowing of freedom alternate with periods of fear, confusion, neurosis, and struggle. "Most teachers will readily admit this" (pg. xix).

Kornfield's early lectures were featured by Joe Frank on his radio series "The Other Side." More

• Jack Kornfield, Living Buddhist Masters (Internet Archive, archive.org); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ajahn Mahindo (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly