Ep. 325 – Being Here Now in Loving Awareness: Staying Present in a World of Upheaval

Heart Wisdom with Jack Kornfield - Be Here Now Network

Jack Kornfield reflects on presence, compassion, and resilience in times of global upheaval, drawing from wisdom traditions, personal stories, and teachings from figures like Mandela, Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama. He emphasizes inner stillness as a revolutionary act in turbulent times.

Key takeaways

• Presence is a radical act of resistance.
• Compassion arises from listening, not fixing.
• Inner peace enables collective healing.

Transcript preview

Over the last 10 years the Be Here Now Network has had more than 100 million streams. That is so many people being touched by the wisdom of Jack Cornfield, Ram Doss, Alan Watts and all of our other beautiful teachers. And if all of you wisdom seekers could donate just five dollars this month, we could accomplish our goal of keeping these teachings accessible. And until the end of June, your donation will be matched. So five dollars will turn into ten dollars. And ten dollars from everyone who sees. And ten dollars from everyone who sees this, could get us to our birthday goal. So for Be Here Now Networks, please consider donating even just five dollars. Thank you. Donate today at Be Here Now Network.com forward slash 10 years. 1-0-Y-E-A-R-S. to change. An uplifting quote from Jack Kornfield from episode 325 of the Heart Wisdom Podcast, being here now in loving awareness, staying present in a world of upheaval. My name is Ganesh. I'm honored to peel back the veil for this episode of Heart Wisdom, which was originally filmed for the Spirit Rock Monday night Darmat Talk and Meditation. which goes on weekly. Jack pops in from time to time, this being his most recent live stream. Jack is one of the founders of Spirit Rock and was recently on campus for his 80th birthday as well has the opening of a stupa, a Buddhist stupa on the beautiful lands of Spirit Rock, which you can go visit. Spirit Rock is in California. about 30 minutes north of San Francisco. They have wonderful in-person offerings, retreats, really cool music events from time to time. And if you can't make it out there, they also have amazing online offerings, including courses and live streams of their events. quite a bit about how the mind when it gets overwhelmed or fearful, which is quite easy these days with everything going on, how it goes into survival mode, trying to protect and fix everything it can. He invites us to thank it. Let it soften and return to the presence. Reminding us about Ram Doss's brilliant phrase and the namesake of this next. that we can simply be here now. And sometimes this is the best thing that we can offer is our mindful, loving presence. Before we dive into this episode, I do want to invite you to a new course that Jack just put out, quite pressing in for these times. It's called Inner Technology for Outer Technology. was filmed at Spirit Rock in a day-long retreat where Jack found a way to fuse the Darma into the technological onslaught that we're dealing with in this rapid progression of artificial intelligence, as well as other technologies that seemed to have swiftly and mysteriously taken over our lives. I implore you to know. note how many notifications you get throughout the day, whether calls or text messages or emails for work, and think of how much that has progressed and taken over parts of your life in even just the past 10 years. We are living in a new world, and with that, we have to have new tools for engaging with this world. So what Jack offers in inner technology for outer technology, is the invitation to meet our outer devices with the inner technology of the heart and awareness. This is truly revolutionary for not only how we engage with technology, but how we engage with our lives. If this speaks to you, head to Jack Hornfield.com, go to the popular courses page and sign up for inner technology for outer technology. So there we go. Further ado, I opened the door to episode 325 of the Heart Wisdom Podcast, being here now in loving awareness, staying present in a world of upheaval. May you be happy and healthy, safe and protected. And may you find loving awareness wherever you are, no matter the state of the outer world. Namaste. So here we are. As I said, spring, renewal, Passover, Easter. It's also a difficult time out there. The poly crisis, climate difficulty, trade, immigration, continuing warfare in so many places. growing racism, white supremacy, the loss of human rights for many people. These are also difficult. And we know it, we carry them in our heart. Just as a little note for you, difficulties are inevitable. You happen to be incarnated in the human realm, and that's what we have. But there's also a purpose in it in some strange way. And I remember my teacher, Aijon Shah asking us at monks. He said, when did you learn the most? When things were easy? Or when things were difficult? When things were difficult? When did you learn the most? When things were easy? impermanence and compassion and letting go of the things that need to be let go of and responding wisely, where did you learn that? And of course almost everyone said it was through the difficulties. So somehow Central Casting put you here on this planet and said, okay, you know, school's open, time to learn. not whether they're suffering because there is and some of it's really terrible and it does want us to pay attention but then the question is how do we respond? We can take it in our body and then it becomes like PTSD we get fear and anxiety and it's kind of catastrophic thinking. Or with our practice, as Pablo Nauruda, the great poet said, you can pick all the flowers, but you can't stop the spring. And we can align our hearts with the forces of goodness and rebirth and blessings. My dear friend Joanna Macy, who died this last year, the great environmental sage and Buddhist teacher, calls this the great turning. Humanity has come to a point where the economic and political systems of exploitation, of exploiting the earth and exploiting one another don't work anymore. ignorance and collectively we can sense and feel and know our interdependence that your breath and mine is also the breath of the rainforest and the kelp in the ocean. It's the breath of the icy Antarctic. It's the breath of the and all that lives on it. And so when things are difficult, we can get triggered and go into a kind of survival grain, brain of light or frieze, and we can get frozen, or we can get angry or overwhelmed.