Teacher who helped shape American Buddhism is still on a quest

Jack Kornfield says 'we're teaching meditation not as a religious activity but as a support for living a wise and healthy and compassionate inner life.'

In 1972, Jack Kornfield stepped off a plane in Washington, D.C., his head shaved and his body swathed in golden robes. He had come home to see if he could make it as a monk in America.

Kornfield had spent several contemplative years at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand, where he lived with few possessions, followed a strict monastic code and retreated each day to the lush forest for hours of meditation.

But in the U.S., he found no monasteries that practiced the Vipassana meditation he had studied. And the precepts he had followed in Thailand — which barred him from handling money and required that he eat only donated food — proved difficult to follow.

He gave up his robes and starting driving a taxi. He dated, got a doctorate in psychology and continued to practice Buddhism on his own terms, using the teachings he had learned to help cope with everyday life's ups and downs. And with time, he began to help build a new Buddhism.

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Now there's a man who seems "to have it all together".

A great friend and inspiration.

I have much respect for Jack Kornfield (and Lama Surya Das) . I grew up not to far from the meditation study center that he co founded in Barre Massachusetts. There is also the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies just up the road from the mediation center that i believe he co founded as well. I visited a few months ago when i was in the states with my wife and son. My wife (who is Thai) was very impressed, since this place sits on a 200 year old farm.