The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

About this book

You have within you unlimited capacities for love for joy for communion with life and for unshakable freedomand 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 Buddhisms 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 lifes work that includes such classics as A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy the Laundry. Filled with stories from Kornfields 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.