The Los Angeles Times reports that Jack Kornfield is in Los Angeles this weekend to give a talk on CG Jung’s journals at the Armand Hammer Museum and to lead a three-hour meditation retreat at InsightLA. Kornfield, a psychologist and former Thai monk, has written extensively about Western psychology and Buddhist mindfulness practice. Trudy Goodman, LAInsight’s lead teacher, tells the Times, “I feel that Jack has changed Buddhism by being a pioneer for the inclusion of our emotional lives in the practice.”
“More and more, we’re teaching meditation not as a religious activity but as a support for living a wise and healthy and compassionate inner life,” Kornfield said recently. “A number of the people I teach don’t consider themselves Buddhists, which is absolutely fine with me. It’s much better to become a Buddha than a Buddhist.”
“Less religion, more practice,” is how the Times puts it. Here’s an interview I conducted with Jack in 2008. I’ll soon be posting an earlier interview with him that Tricycle founder Helen Tworkov conducted in 2000—interesting to see the progression in thought and practice.
Photo: Christine Alicino, 2008