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| The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology | 
 enlarge | Author: Jack Kornfield
Publisher: Bantam
Category: Book
List Price: $28.00
Buy New: $15.98
You Save: $12.02 (43%)
New (42) Used (9) from $15.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 2368
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0553803476
Dewey Decimal Number: 294.3422
EAN: 9780553803471
ASIN: 0553803476
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
You have within you unlimited capacities for love, for joy, for communion with life, and for unshakable freedom—and here is how to awaken them. In The Wise Heart, one of the leading spiritual teachers of our time offers the most accessible and illuminating guide to Buddhism’s transformational psychology ever published in the West.
Trained as a monk in Thailand, Burma, and India, Jack Kornfield experienced at first hand the life-changing power of Buddhist teachings: the emphasis on the nobility and sacredness of the human spirit, the fine-grained analysis of emotion and thought, the precise techniques for healing, training, and transforming the mind and heart. In contrast to the medical orientation of most Western psychology and psychiatry, here is a vision of radiant human dignity, and a practical path for realizing it in our own lives.
The Wise Heart is the fruit of a life’s work that includes such classics as A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. Filled with stories from Kornfield’s Buddhist psychotherapy practice and portraits of remarkable teachers, it also includes a moving account of his own recovery from a violence-filled childhood. For meditators and mental health professionals, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, The Wise Heart offers an extraordinary journey from the roots of consciousness to the highest expression of human possibility.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Timeless wisdom made accessible May 1, 2008
99 out of 107 found this review helpful
This wonderful book makes the timeless teachings of Buddhist psychology explicable and accessible to all.
With explanations and exercises that are not culture specific and with a healthy helping of Jack's great stories that further illuminate the psychological wisdom of the Buddha, this book opens the deep understandings of Buddhist thought for all to use for their own benefit and for the benefit of all beings.
As the Dalai Lama says, "Buddhism isn't a religion. It is a science of mind"
and IMHO, a science of mind that can help bring healing to our own lives and to our wounded world.
[I've Enjoyed the Audio Version] Count on Jack Kornfield for Balanced Wisdom May 9, 2008
52 out of 58 found this review helpful
There's an irony that at times Buddhists can become stuck in ideology, clinging to their ideas of what they believe the Buddha intended as THE right way. Jack Kornfield avoids this. He has the soft touch, open heart and discerning wisdom that comes from his own struggles and decades of meditation, practicing therapy, and teaching. He knows there is no such thing as a formula for happiness. Kornfield generously quotes from a wide range of thinkers, mystics and disciplines, knowing Buddhists don't have a lock on insight.
Still, Kornfield is steeped in and dedicated to Buddhist practices; his goal is to transmit what may at times be difficult to discern insights from Buddhist psychology to a wide audience. As he writes:
"At this moment, a winter rainstorm is drenching my simple writer's cabin in the woods above Spirit Rock.On my desk are classic texts from many of the major historic schools of Buddhism: the Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, the eight-thousand-verse "large version" of the Heart Sutra, with its teachings on form and emptiness, and a Tibetan text on consciousness by Longchenpa.
Over time, I have learned to treasure these texts and know that they are filled with jewels of wisdom. Yet the Abhidhamma (or Abhidharma in Sanskrit), considered the masterwork of the early Theravada tradition and the ultimate compendium of Buddhist psychology, is also one of the most impenetrable books ever written. What are we to make of passages such as, "The inseparable material phenomena constitute the pure octad; leading to the dodecad of bodily intimation and the lightness triad; all as material groups originating from consciousness"? And the Heart Sutra, revered as a sacred text of Mahayana Buddhism in India, China, and Japan, can sound like a mixture of fantastical mythology and nearly indecipherable Zen puzzles. In the same way, for most readers, analyzing the biochemistry of a lifesaving drug might be as easy as deciphering some of Longchenpa's teachings on self-existent empty primal cognition."
Happily, Kornfield succeeds at making the translation from traditional Buddhist texts accessible to everyone--from clinicians to those new to Buddhism. For those who are familiar with his previous books, they won't find this surprising.
PS: Though the Amazon listing says "Abridged" for the audio version of the Wise Heart, the 6-CD set Amazon lists must be a subtle abridgment, as seems like the whole work is there [though I didn't do anything like a detailed comparison].
Look at existence naked May 26, 2008
20 out of 24 found this review helpful
It is not often that the heart of the sun speaks. Why would it when it could just gaze in wonder at the extraordinary splendor and pure magic of its own being ... and look at existence naked.
Jack must have twisted the Buddha's arm to have gotten the Sky to spill all these grand goods. I think I will start meditating more, it sure seemed to work for JK.
I hope this exceptional book becomes required reading in many classrooms around the world. I bet that would make the gods happy.
Daniel Ladinsky
an international best-selling Penguin author of poetry
26 Gems of Psychotherapeutic Wisdom June 10, 2008
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
Jack Kornfield richly expounds on 26 principles of Buddhist psychology.
The first of these is: "See the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings" and the 26th being: "A peaceful heart gives birth to love. When love meets suffering it turns to compassion. When love meets suffering it turns to joy."
Jack Kornfield provides the reader with a philosophical discussion of each principle and the basis of it in the Buddha's teachings. These principle are demonstrated with numerous cases from Jack Kornfield's many years of practice. Several of these are followed by practices and practical exercises, such as loving-kindness meditations.
Buddhist teachings, which as the Dalai Lama describes as "a science of mind", have had a profound influence on modern cognitive behavioral psychotherapy. Neuroscience and evidence-based research increasingly validates the efficacy of Buddhist practices, such as mindfulness and forgiveness for mental health, happiness and well-being. This accessible guidebook will be of interest to any one who is interested not only in self-help, or clinical psychotherapy, but in better understanding the rich Buddhist traditions and ideas behind them.
 Not His Best Book October 9, 2008
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
I was disappointed and irked by The Wise Heart. My low rating comes from three sources: (1) Format (2) Content and (3) Peeves. My critical comments and poor rating come with hesitation because I have a a sincere appreciation of Jack Kornfield's work. I hope this book will be re-written.
(1) Format. I have been fortunate to attend many Monday nights of Jack's dharma talks at Spirit Rock, and his powers as a presenter are unmatched. Unfortunately, the formula in this book fails to deliver the sub- title's promise "A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology." The sections start with several quotes, next a vague notion ("So does mindfulness open us to that which is unseen in our experience" p. 97) followed by an intense story with a happy ending ("With mindfulness Peter found relief" p. 98) and ending up with a sweeping generality ("Since 1980 nearly a thousand scientific papers have documented the effectiveness of mindfulness, often studying Western trainings that are based on a Buddhist approach." p. 99). The therapy stories are too numerous, I come away from this book completely befuddled.
(2) Content. The notion of inner radiance or beauty as each human's intrinsic nature isn't an idea that is accepted by many followers of Theraveda or Zen Buddhism. I am finding that once you read the original texts not Western commentary, the Buddha is circumspect about settling any metaphysical debates, in Nikaya's translation of the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha in the Aggivacchagotta Sutta on p. 590 for example, the Buddha refuses to settle a long sting of metaphysical debates in his discussion with the wanderer Vacchagotta. The 26 principles throughout the book are internally contradictory, and not universally accepted by Buddhists.
(3) Peeves. Authors that provide "early praise" for this book on the back cover have most of their books listed in the Related Documents section. Perhaps it isn't quid pro quo, but I find it really irritating to have the extraordinary claim that "Two thousand years before Freud and Jung's probed the unconscious, Buddhist psychology taught about the unconscious foundation of human behavior" on pg. 151 without providing the title and translating author of the book containing the Fifty Verses on the Nature of Unconscious in the in the Related Documents section. This book has hundreds of quotes, and there are no footnotes to check how the quotes mold the content. You can't check whether the quotes are taken out of context, or if the quote comes from a early inaccurate translation. Also, there are well intentioned but sloppy stereotypes, for example, the dubious stereotype "This is evident in the healthy, caring bond between parents and children in Buddhist countries." p. 187. Or, what I find most irritating of all, what I can only describe as sophistry via oxymoron baiting: this is the use of objective terms to modify subjective experiences to further the current self-help fad promoting Buddhism as a scientific not religious activity. So, we have the "technology of visualization" p. 277 "science of mind" p.xi, and "particle-like aspect of consciousness" p.39.
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