BONUS: Guided Meditation with Jack Kornfield

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, y'all's justin Richmond. This is a very different episode of Broken Record. We're of course continuing to drop regular music episodes on Tuesdays, and last week we even dropped a bonus episode with John Legend for you guys, but we wanted to break format real quick to bring you an episode that could maybe help alleviate a lot of the fear and anxiety we're feeling right now. This is Rick Rubin talking with his friend Jack Cornfield. Jack is a world renown Buddhist and meditation teacher. He's long been one of the most influential figures in American Buddhism, and he agreed to connect with Rick via zoom to guide him and you through a couple of different meditations. We hope you find these useful and visit these guide meditations as frequently as you need. I know for me, I've been doing these a couple of times a day and has really been helping. So we hope you enjoy and be well. This is Broken Record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Rick Rubin with Jack Hornfield. This is unusual because typically in this space we talk only about music and it seemed like in this moment, it might be helpful to people to have something to soothe them in this time of crisis. Many people are at home with a lot of thoughts in their heads and dealing with an unusual stress that none of us are prepared for. And I thought, who do I know who has tools that might be helpful? And the first person that came to mind was you, Jack well as a good friend and somebody who's worked with you on creative projects. I'm really happy that we're connecting together. This feels like a critical time for the music of the heart as well as the music of the voice and instruments. We actually need to find and sense how we can keep making music in our life during this outer crisis. Beautiful, So any suggestions for those of us who are struggling in this moment, Well, let me talk a little bit and then lead a meditation and maybe talk a little more ley another meditation than you and I can dialogue as well, and anytime you want to break in and ask something. This is a spontaneous conversation. The Sufis call it a so bad, which is a conversation of the heart where we're talking heart to heart to one another. And it seems to me in this time that we have a choice. Epidemics, earthquakes, tornado's floods, they happen periodically. They're part of the cycle of life on earth. The question is how do we respond. If we respond with greed or hatred, fear and ignorance, it increases the suffering. If we respond with generosity, clarity, steadiness, and love, it's a whole different game. And it seems more than anything that this is the time for love. The image in the Buddhist teachings is of the Bodhisatva, who someone that's vows or is committed to alleviate suffering and bring blessings and benefits no matter what the circumstances. A Bodhisata lives with courage and dignity and radiates a kind of compassion or whatever they touch. Now, you know, you might hear this as a sort of metaphor and old archetype, but it's not. As Boists were now asked to hold a certain measure of the tragedy of the world in our hearts and respond with love. And the bodhisattva path is in front of us and around us, and we can see it all around, who see bodhisattvas being singing from their balcony to those shut inside or in young neighbors who are caring for the elders nearby, or the healthcare workers who go in in spite of the dangers, or the unheralded ones who simply stock the shelves of our grocery stores and truck the food so that we can all still have the you know, the sustenance to live. It is a very very hard time for all of us. As a father, if my daughter called me and said, Daddie, I need you, I would fly anywhere on the earth to help her, to protect her. But now she and her firefighter husband who's also a paramedic, and my little grandson who's a year and a half old, await the virus. His urban fire department, like many hospitals and first responders, doesn't have masks, and eighty percent of their work is emergency medical calls, and they all expect to get the virus, and they won't be tested because the department can't afford to lose too many of their firefighters. So I pause, and I say, what can I do? What can we do? Because we all have aging parents, or children that we care about, or friends and so forth. In this moment, we need to sit quietly and take a deep breath and acknowledge all the feelings, the fears and apprehensions, the uncertainty, the helplessness, and hold all these feelings with the compassionate heart. We can say to all these feelings, to the uncertainty and the fears, thank you for trying to protect me. We can sense them and then respond, I'm okay for now. Or we can imagine taking our fears and putting them in the lap of Mother Mary or the Buddha or kwanyin the goddess of infinite compassion, or place them in the hearts and hands of the generations of brave physicians and scientists who tended the world informer epidemics. When we do this, we can feel ourselves part of something greater, a connection with the generations of survivors in the vast web of history and life being carried, as the ojibwe elders say, by great winds across the sky. This is a time of mystery and uncertainty, and it helps just to pause and take a deep breath, because the veils of separation are parting, and we see the reality of interconnection apparent to everyone on this earth. We've needed this pause, perhaps even needed our isolation to see how much we need one another. So as we do, and I'll lead a meditation that helps us to do this, we can begin to realize that it's also time for us to add our part. The body satwa deliberately turns towards the suffering around to serve and help those in whatever way they can. And this is the test we've all been waiting for. We know how to do this as human beings. So we'll talk about this and the kind of direction and bow. But with these words to start with, I'd like to invite those who listen to do a meditation. Is that all right, Rick? Yes? Please? So if wherever you're listening in this case, I'm assuming you're probably not driving, hopefully safe and sequestered at home, let yourself say it in a way that's comfortable and stable, your eyes closed gently, and bring your attention just here and now land back in your body. You know, your feet on the earth, and as you return to the body that you've been given, which is really the body of the earth Earth, come alive. Notice what you find without loving awareness, you likely will find tension in the body, contractions, the responses of fight flight or freeze of fear, the accumulation of the stress that we've all been under. As you pay attention to your body and to all the contractions, hot, cold, tensions and pains, let them be held in a loving awareness, without resistance, without judgment, with a kind presence of attention, and you'll notice that your body responds to this caring attention. As you feel what's present and make space with loving awareness, things can intensify, move change, and gradually soften. To help this even further, bring in the quality of compassion of a tender heart, and say to your body, thank you for trying to protect me all the contractions and the tensions or ways your body has to ward off and protect you. Thank you for this. I'm okay right now, thank you. You can release and relax and return into the earth the tensions, the pains, let the breath deepen in the space of loving awareness, open and now bring your attention to the area of your heart and notice what feelings are present. There might be sadness or grief, worry and anxiety or fear. There might be tears, longing, regret, helplessness. There might also be tenderness and love, courage. Tune in and let yourself acknowledge what you feel in your heart, what's being carried as we go through this crisis together. You can know and acknowledge the feelings that are present, almost as if with a about you can name them softly whispered oh, sadness or fear, longing, anger. Whatever is present can be named tenderness and love as well. And as you name the feelings that are present, allow them to open in the space of your loving awareness, without judgment, without resistance. Just let them be and let them open as they need to, even stronger if that's what happens. Give them the space. Let your loving awareness be the space in the heart can let go layer by layer and open and again bring in the quality of compassion that tenderness toward all these feelings you've been carrying. And as you've named and acknowledge them, as if to bow to them, you can say thank you, thank you for trying to protect me and care for me. Thank you worry and fear, sadness, And as you acknowledge them with gratitude, thank you. You can also say I'm okay right now, thank you, I'm all right, And make space for these feelings to open and soften and dissipate in whatever they will, whatever way they will. And now go to your mind, all the plans and thoughts, the regrets, the analyzing, the worries, all of it. They're trying to figure it out, when much of this is really a mystery unknown. And again you can acknowledge what's present as if we're about racing mind, confusion, worried thoughts, planning, and as you whisper the name of what's present, allow it to be held acknowledge respectfully in the vast space of loving awareness. And notice what happens as you bring this kind attention to the states of mind, How they too can open, intensify, expand, and like clouds, begin to soften and dissipate in the vastness of your loving awareness. Thank them, say thank you for trying to protect me, for trying to help and care for me. I can use you, I can use thinking when it's needed. But the overactive, overworried, overtired, overstimulated mind, thank you, You've done your job. I'm okay right now, Thank you, And feel how you are okay, just where you are present, gracious, bring in the compassion. Compassion for this overworked and troubled mind, a tenderness held in loving awareness and compassion. Let the mind settle, and now let yourself feel seated here on the earth in this remarkable human incarnation, a growing steadiness and simplicity. This is the time to steady the heart, begin to trust that you can be present for all that arises, and hold it in the great heart of compassion and loving awareness. And notice now that all the things you've been experiencing, the word that you hear, the sensations of the body, the emotions and thoughts, they've all been received by consciousness, by awareness itself. This is who you really are, the timeless consciousness that was borne into your body, that will leave your body when you die. You are not this physical body, although you are graced to have it. You are not the passing emotions and thoughts. Rest back in the vast open space of loving awareness. It is who you really are, the witness to all things. When a child is born, our first gesture is one of love. We love them. When a dear one dies, our last response is to hold their hands and offer a gesture of love. This is all that matters. Timeless love and awareness is who you really are, from the beginning, in the middle, right now, and in the end. Trust yourself. Trust that you have the capacity to be present for this life, with its joys and its sorrows, its unbearable beauty in the ocean of tears. You have within you the great heart of compassion, the wisdom of loving awareness. Rest in it, Relax into it. It is your refuge, it is your home. Now when you're ready, let your eyes open again gently and let yourself sense how it's possible for you to be present for all the tensions and the difficult emotions and the stories in the mind, and not be so caught up in them that you become the wise one, the loving witness, with a steadiness and a courage. This is the time to steady yourself, and it affects everyone else. Many of you will have heard the words of Zenmaster Tikno on when the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates. If everyone panicked, all would be lost. But if even one person on the boat remains steady and calm, it was enough. It showed the way for everyone to survive. And you know who that one person is, don't you? In your family, in your community, in this world, you have this capacity and to quiet yourself, to steady, to quiet the mind and tend the heart every day gives you the grounding and presence reminds you of the courage and dignity you have to move through the with the tears and the humor that's everywhere. And you can be a beacon, a medicine of the heart for all you touch. So, Rick, I'd like to pause here and maybe have a little dialogue, and then I have some more things to add and another meditation perhaps, but I want to check in with you and see how this practice was for you. It really helped me if I felt my whole body change and lighten and relax. And when we talked about the heart, there was a sense of a protection and like a closing down that opened and blossomed as he was speaking. And I think I'm going to listen to those words every day from now on until until things come back to more of a sense of normalcy. We thank you. It was a little long, I don't know, maybe fifteen minutes or something, and of course none of this is planned. We're all actually living by brail, trying to feel our way through this crisis with the best wisdom and care we can. But if people want to relisten to it, it's wonderful to take time in whatever way you can, to pause and quiet the mind and tend the heart and ground the body. So helpful, beautiful. It really changes everything, just that we realize that how powerful the mind is, and how when confronted with these situations, how reactive we become, and to be able to just step aside for a moment and reset and reground and started new when we come back after the words, it seems to make us stronger in dealing with the difficulty. Yes, yeah, it does, certainly does. For me. I know it in the morning. It's a way to steady myself for the day I had. At the end of the day, it's a way of releasing the tensions and all the emotions that get touched by all of us are communicating in this electronic web. We can't hold each other's hands, but we're connecting in other ways that we're desperate for. We can't do this alone. We need one another and at the end of the day to settle down and reconnect with my own body and heart and mind. I find really helpful beautiful. I have a friend who made a suggestion speaking to what you mentioned about not having touch. Getting a really soft blanket and wrapping yourself in a soft blanket and experiencing the feeling of the blanket on your skin can really stimulate that the touch sense and give us a sense of comfort. I like that image very much, and the blanket. I think of Linus's blanket. You know, he gets a little bit freaked out the days that it's put in the dryer. Right. But there's something it's both literal, which your friend has said, and beautiful, and it's also symbolic that in some way it's useful in these times to sense what it is that nourishes us, that helps us feel like we're tending ourselves well with love, with care, or tending those around us. So it's a great suggest beautiful and also been It has been recommended to find daily practices to do to occupy yourself and either learning a new skill or reading something you've always wanted to read, or practicing a new exercise or learning an instrument. It's a great opportunity to make use of this time instead of just dwelling on the darkness and the fears. Yeah, you can go to con academy and take a course in anything, or you can learn to cook in the ways that you never have before, or as you say, learn to make music. And you know, in that way, let there be something that's beautiful and fruitful that grows for you. It also helps to make a schedule for yourself. I read a meet that's going around that says, especially in the morning, put on your damn pants. You know, don't sit around in your in your pajamas all day, but actually change the experience so that you feel like, yes, I'm here in this life, meeting this day and deliberately a part of it. And make a schedule. You know, is this is the rhythm by which I want to learn or study or reach out or meditate or whatever it is. All of that's good. On my website Jack Hornfield dot com, there is a talk, a written piece, and some videos on how to do a home retreat, And there's videos with my colleague Tar Brock and I leading a half day retreat for those who are interested or relatively new to meditation and want support of how to do this. That's another support that people can find helpful in this time. Beautiful. That sounds great. So many people I know are interested in doing a retreat and can never find the time, And it seems like a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the situation for something positive. Yeah, And the beautiful thing is that these are like making music. There isn't the right way to do it. You become the jazz musician. You get the riff from the meditation, and then you find your way to make music with it. For some it will be much quieter. For others there'll be a little bit more activity of doing an active compassion or loving kindness for their body and heart and mind people around them. You get to experiment and play as an inner artist with all of this. Beautiful How did you find yourself on this path? Originally I was doing pre med studies at Dartmouth College, thinking I would learn to be a physician, and I accidentally, on purpose, took a class in Asian studies and Buddhists teachings from this wonderful old professor who'd come up from Harvard. His name was doctor winsit Chan, and sometimes he would sit cross legged on the desk and talk about Laotsu and the Buddha and Confucius, but really he was talking about the wisdom of the heart. And when he talked about Buddhism, he said that there are teachings that life has suffering, but that's not the end of the story. There are causes for the suffering, greed, hatred, fear, and ignorance, and there's a path to the end of suffering. And I sat up in my seat because my own background and family had been a pretty difficult one. We were middle class and all of that, but my father was a violent and abusive person who would beat my mother black and blue, who would terrorize us as children, and it was also completely unpredictable. We never knew when the car was coming home what was going to come out the door. So when I heard that, oh, Buddhism not only acknowledgist suffering, but it teaches the ways to heal the heart and to a path to a kind of inner well being in the face of suffering, I've got really interested. And so I changed my major and majored in Asian studies in Buddhist teachings. And then it was in the nineteen sixties. I wanted to see if there were still those great old zen masters that you read about. So I asked the Peace courts to send me to a Buddhist country to look for a teacher. And I was assigned to Thailand and spent a couple of years working on village medical teams in the remote parts of Thailand on the border of Laos, And there I found a remarkable teacher with whom I studied and became a Buddhist monk, and all the things that I was just talking about. It's funny, you know. I got a call one time from the Alumni magazine of Dartmouth. They wanted to do a cover story on weird graduates, and I guess fit the bill. And part of what I said is that I felt like I had I received only half an education. That an Ivy League education was good for the mind and history and philosophy and science, but I also needed an education of the heart. How to deal with the pain from my family, with the anger of my father, his rage, and what to do with my own anger because I didn't want to be like him, How to deal with forgiveness or compassion, How to deal not just with my emotions, but with all the different states of mind, how to have a wiser relationship to myself and to the people around me. This is the curriculum of the heart. And I found it there in the monastery teachings that had been passed on for thousands of years. And now, of course it's become my life work with a number of other wonderful friends. Unfortunately, it's been available to lots of other people. When I came back and I met my colleagues Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzburg, and we all began to teach together in nineteen seventy four. We had no idea that mindfulness was going to become a watchword in the society. People asked us what happened to you? You seem so much happier and better. Can you show us? Can you tell us? And we said, sure, we'll make a retreat. Who will create a place a center if people are asking. And then it just grew by itself, like good things too beautiful. It's amazing how we find our paths and they grow just based on the need of the world. It seems it seems everybody has a role in filming a puzzle piece, and together we make it happen. Yeah, my good friend Maladoma Somey, who's West African shaman and medicine man, said, among the Dagara people, which is his people, they believe that every child who is born comes into the world carrying a certain cargo. And I love this metaphor. It sort of comes from the cargo ships that apply the rivers of Best Africa. And what they believe is that the task of every child or every human being is to have a sense of what that cargo is, you could call it, what are their gifts, and to deliver their cargo to this world. And their gifts can be as simple as a temperament that smiles at people and makes them feel that there's someone who sees them, honors them, values them. It's not the great gifts of recording the Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or something. Yes, we might have some amazing gifts. Everybody has amazing gifts because we're human beings and the fact that we live and exist in this complex, extraordinary society, we're already amazing amazing enough. But to be able to sense that we have something to give and then to offer it as a gesture. A poem aport for someone else, a work of art, a dinner that we make for those we love, all of those things. And your work, Rick, over all these years has been to listen deeply, not just to the music of your artists, but somehow to their gifts. And I think somehow in that Foster helped them find their gifts and bring them out. Would you say that's true? It's true, And it's strange because I didn't even know there was such a I didn't know that was a job, but it again, it revealed itself as and this is what it is. Who's by no means an aspiration or even a possible dream, This would be my life. Yeah, And I think in many ways for almost all of us, that's as you were saying, that's how life unfolds. We don't really know, and what we can do is be present. And as we become present enough, steady enough in some way, then we're able to dance with what comes. We're able to listen and feel the rhythm and respond, and our presence and our attention already our gifts, and they lead us to what to what's needed next, And that that idea of us not really knowing, I think that's the most powerful of all messages, is to accept that we don't know m in that we're all children, you know, we're all nobody's really an expert at anything, and we all have to find our way. And there's some great strength in knowing that it's not just a question of listening to an outside force for our information, but our ability to go inside and trust ourselves. Beautiful. My teacher Rajuanshah, who lived in the forests and the border of Thailand in Laos, this forest monastery, he was fond of saying, it's uncertain, isn't it? You could ask him almost anything, you know, tell me, you could ask the high falutin question, tell me about an enlightenment, and he, you know, he was supposed to be enlightened. He would just smile and say, it's uncertain, isn't it? Or he would you know, you would ask him, you know, a much more mundane question, and he might see it's uncertain. It was the and he was so present and relaxed in the wisdom of uncertainty and mystery. I remember when I was a kid, one of the things that I liked to do was to go out on a starry summer night and lie on the grass and look up at the canopy of the sky. But then I would imagine that I was on the bottom of the world, because there isn't really a top or a bottom, and that I was being held like the magnet of gravity was holding me against the surface of the earth so I didn't fall down, and I would be looking down into a sea of stars, and there was this rush of joy and fear and beauty and feeling that I was floating magnet magnetically held on this planet, moving through the sea of stars. And if anybody thinks they really understand, just go out on a night that's clear and spend some time looking at the stars. The idea, whether it's in spiritual practice or artistic practice, is not to see perfection. I think of sadmaster Ryokan, the most beloved poet in Japan, where he wrote last year a foolish monk, this year, no change. And the idea isn't so much to perfect ourselves, according to some imagine standard. Maybe the point is to perfect our love, to be able to live this life from the place of love for ourselves and that which is around, and deliver our cargo, give our gifts. Beautiful. I'm going to take your suggestion of looking at the stars as a homework assignment tonight, and if it's clear, I'm going to spend a good deal of time with the stars. Oh lovely. Maybe maybe your little boy Rah will come out with you for a little bit too, Beautiful, he loves and stars view the stars. Well, I have a little more of another practice to lead, if that's okay to talk a tiny bit about it and then do another practice together. Yes, all right, fantastic. So this is a practice that again builds on the Buddhist tradition, but is really quite universal. In the Buddhist tradition, as I said, there is this notion of the Bodhisattva of being any of us, all of us, who is committed to alleviating suffering or bringing blessings no matter what the circumstances. And for the Bodhisatva, difficulties are like their bread and butter. Okay, now is the time to step up if you some way. This is the test, This is really what I need to do. So, as a Bodhisattva, you begin to notice that your response in this uncertainty has to come from a very deep place in your heart, what is your best intention, your most noble aspirations, especially going through the kind of difficulty that we as all of humanity are facing. And if you let yourself listen, you'll come to a kind of inner knowing. Sometimes in some traditions it's called a vow that becomes your north star, so that whenever you get lost, to remember and it reminds you what really matters to you. So if you would let yourself sit quietly and again, let your eyes close gently, and come back to the loving awareness presence for your own body seated here on this earth, for your own heart and mind. Again, each time you tune in, let the body and heart and mind settle, held in the field of loving awareness that doesn't resist or try to judge or change, but tenderly with compassion, says Ah. This is the experience now, the experience of your own mysterious humanity. And as you say quietly, you might even reflect on those beings who've inspired you from history or from your own life, who like you are called to do, have gone through really hard times with dignity, courage, and love, and they ask your heart, what is my best intention or what is my highest or most dignified, noble aspiration in living through this difficult time? What would it be? And it doesn't have to be grand or poetic. It might be as simple as I vowed to stay kind. But let your heart answer. You can listen, you can sense in a respectful and tender and courageous way. You can know and recite in whatever simple way you can, your vow to yourself, your intention. I vow to remain kind no matter what or whatever it is. And when you're ready, let your eyes open again. And this is a treasure. When the podcast is over, write it down, put it on a piece of paper, and place it in a spot where you will see it. If you have a spot that's your altar, or a place where you put things that are precious, or maybe it's just you know, by the sink as a reminder when you wake up in the morning, or take to the mirror, but someplace that holds your vow for it's time for you to be the medicine, the uplifting music, the lamp in the darkness to burn stout would love to be a carrier of hope for people around you. And even if there's a funeral, funeral which there will be to send them off for a song. When you tune into your vow, trust your dignity and goodness. If others hoard, you can help, and if others deceive, you can speak the truth, stand up for it. And where others are overwhelmed or uncaring, you can be kind, respectful. And when you worry about your parents or your children, your beloved's, the vulnerable ones, let your heart open to share in everyone's care for their parents. It's not just your parents, but it's all of those of us around the world or holding their parents well being in their hearts, or their children or their loved ones. And breathe together with us. All we are holding our parents, we're holding our children, we're holding our loved ones. This is called the Bodhisattva's great heart of compassion, and it's yours. It's in you. It opens to those who are vulnerable, those who are suffering, all of us, even those who are causing suffering, held in the compassionate heart, for we're in this together. And as you quiet yourself, then you can sense that you know how to respond. It will get clear, how to help those around you, how to contribute, to bring your gifts now or as things unfold, because even if you're shut in, and maybe you can do things online, and maybe you're young and you can buy groceries for the elderly, or maybe you can make music and send things around. This will end. The cycle of the epidemic will run through the bodies of humanity. Many will be sick, many may die, but it has an end, and as it does, will be called upon to rebuild a new world, to find a vision for our common humanity in the most beautiful way possible. So you are also gathering your strength and sensing your capacity to make a difference, to be the one that the world needs, that one on the boat. So Rick, my friend, how is this as a practice for you? Beautiful? Thank you so much. Yeah, we're in this together. We're holding virtual hands in a certain way. It's all virtual. It's all the play of mind and consciousness. That's what it is. We think it's somehow out there, but actually it's all woven together in this vast field of awareness and consciousness. It's what we are. But we can connect like this and it matters so much. Absolutely, it's so helpful. It's so helpful. You have no idea, well, it's helped me so. And it's funny, you know, each time I teach, it's like, I'm sure it's true for your good musicians as well. Each time you do it. It's not just for some one else. It's your body and your instrument, your horn, whatever it is. You know, your acts making music for itself, for its own sake. Yes, and so we're all doing that, me too, and I'm grateful to be able to do it. But mostly take care of yourself, you know, be safe and protected and of all things, be loving to your own being into all that you touch around you. Thank you so much, Jack, my pleasure. I'm I'm a bit speechless and spaced out from everything. You Well, we'll give it the next time. We'll do a grounding meditation. I'm a little spaced out today, Jack, because I'm on the I just did. Have you ever heard of a potato hack? No? Okay, it's a three day fast, but it's not really a fast. The only thing you're allowed to eat are potatoes for three days, white potatoes, and they have to be cooked, cooled, cooked, cooled, cooked, cooled. So what it does is it changes the carbohydrate from start from just traditional starch to the kind of starch that feeds the gut bacteria. Interesting. Yeah, and it resets your whole relationship to food, So it's really send me a send me a link to that. I have to say, Rick, you have to understand that you're weird, but you're good weird. So I'd love to see this link. Maybe we'll try. Yeah, it's great. It's I'm completely spaced out because I haven't had any food yet today at all. For the last three days. It's only been potatoes for some reason. Seem to make me nauseous. You, I mean, we've eaten together enough for you to know I don't normally eat carbohydrates. You know that I don't either, so this is like I'm really interested. Yeah, it's a really bizarre switch, but it feeds the bacteria and it resets your whole system. But I'll send you information about it. Pretty interesting, really fun. All right, I might send you some other stuff too. Thank you to take care, lots of love, right. We really appreciate Jackcornfield coming on the show to share those meditations with us. If you'd like to explore Jack's work some more, you can go to Jackcornfield dot com. You can also find a link in the show description, or by visiting broken record podcast dot com. Stay safe, everyone,