Jack Kornfield on Trusting the Heart and Natural Resilience

The Dharma of Zoos During a Hurricane

• 🌀 Jack Kornfield shares a story about Hurricane Andrew and its impact on a Miami zoo, highlighting the resilience of animals.
• 🦁 Despite extreme winds, most animals, including bears and big cats, were found hunkered down and waiting for their zookeepers.
• 🐦 Birds in a large aviary simply flew away during the storm, demonstrating a natural response to their environment.

Natural Resiliency and Trusting the Heart

• 🧠 The story illustrates a kind of resiliency in human beings that becomes trustworthy when we let go of the small sense of self and become a witness.
• ✨ This state of awareness is spacious, open, and trustworthy, leading to connectedness, compassion, and natural responding.
• 💖 It fosters an inner knowing and a sense of unity, recognizing that we are all appearing in different forms but are fundamentally connected as family.

Spirituality vs. Investment

• 💡 Kornfield contrasts spirituality with investment, stating there's no enlightened retirement plan; it's always new and about moment-to-moment freedom.
• 🗣️ He references Suzuki Roshi, who suggested there's no such thing as an enlightened person, only moments of enlightenment.
• 💸 A story about Milton Friedman (speechwriter) advising a church portfolio manager to consider